BBC’s ex-TV news chief blasts the corporation’s ‘TERRIBLE’ shows

Former television news chief for the BBC Roger Mosey said the corporation is failing to create original content and is instead thrusting mundane reality TV upon viewers

The BBC’s former television news chief has called the network’s offering of quiz, antiques and cookery shows ‘terrible’.

British author and former Beeb broadcaster Roger Mosey said the corporation is failing to create original content and is instead thrusting mundane reality TV shows upon its viewers.

The broadcaster singled out Unbreakable, a show hosted by Rob Beckett that puts celebrity couples through a series of mental, physical and emotional trials designed to see if they will stick together, which critics have been hammering since it first aired on October 6.

‘If you look now at some of the things playing on BBC One at prime time — I’m a journalist so I’m biased and I think news is important,’ Mr Mosey told Iain Dale’s Book Club podcast, according to The Daily Telegraph.

‘But that programme Unbreakable, with the bloke who’s in everything, is both terrible — it got one star reviews — and is also getting 800,000 viewers in peak time.’

The Telegraph called the show ‘invasive’ and ‘sadistic’, giving it two stars. 

‘I’m not paid enough to watch such boring and desperate TV,’ said The Guardian’s Lucy Mangan in her one-star headline review of the show.

Mosey called on the current BBC director-general Tim Davie to delver on his promise to focus on quality and cut the ‘filler’.

BBC Tim Davie during a session at the Royal Television Society London Convention 2022. The director has previously said that the game shows are the weakest link of the BBC’s programmed and should be axed in order for the broadcaster to focus on quality and thrive

The director has previously said that the game shows are the weakest link of the BBC’s programmed and should be axed.

‘The BBC has a wide range of popular and awarding-winning programmes, but some shows aren’t going to be for everyone,’ said a BBC spokesperson when approached for comment by MailOnline. 

Mosey had been at the BBC for 33 years when he left in 2013 and was put in charge of the BBC’s coverage of the 2012 Olympics during his time there.

He has called the broadcaster too left-wing, with a bias against anti-immigration views and EU-withdrawalists. The journalist has previously suggested the organsation share its license fee with other news producers.

But not everything the BBC put out was boring, Mosey added. he said a recent programme aired on Taiwan was ‘fantastic’ and recommended viewers give it some attention.

But such shows were being broadcast too late, he said, calling on the BBC to cut down on its daytime shows. 

Unbreakable, a show that puts celebrity couples through a series of mental, physical and emotional trials designed to see if they will stay together, has been slammed by critics

‘I would make smaller cuts to news and bigger cuts to all the antiques, quiz [and] cookery programmes which you can find on any other [channel],’ he said. ‘There isn’t a market argument now for the BBC making as many daytime type programmes as it does.’

The BBC has been under pressure from licence fee freezes and high levels of cost inflation.

Local radio stations have recently suffered major cuts, as have some of its news offerings.