"Look, mush, you asked to be on this TV programme. Don't get coy about it."

During his interview with Krishnan Guru-Murthy on Channel 4 News Richard Ayoade referred to an earlier interview with Quentin Tarantino and said the elephant in the room was the film-maker's insistence that he had a right to have his film plugged on the TV in return for turning up.

He was right, of course, but he'd have been even more right if he'd said that the real elephant in the room during his own appearance before the C4 cameras was the PR who was presumably watching a few feet away. It was the PR who had called the producer at C4 News and said "I can deliver Richard Ayoade". It was the producer who thought "whoopee, that would be just the ticket between Syria and UKIP". It was Krishnan Guru-Murthy who thought, "Oh, that would be fun". It was Richard Ayoade who thought, "Oh, well, I've got to plug my book and there are worse places to do it than this". And it was Richard Ayoade who had signed the deal with the publisher which required him to make his best efforts to promote it on the TV.

I've endured sticky times interviewing people on radio and TV, people who made it clear that they didn't want to be there. The temptation to say, "Look, mush, you have paid a PR to have got you on this programme and would presumably feel no compunction about bollocking them if they hadn't been able to make it happen, therefore it seems only right that you should stop acting like a member of the public unaccountably harassed while going about their daily business and just do something to make the next few minutes entertaining and interesting for the people who have tuned in."

If what we read about the atomising of broadcast news is true then this won't be a problem for Richard or anyone else much longer. Authors get on magazine programmes because they're free filler. When the programmes are gone there'll be nothing to pretend not to cooperate with.

Things that have changed in my lifetime number 82: TV historians

I seem to be in the most repeated music documentary of our times

A  couple of years ago a TV producer called and asked me to be a talking head on a clip show he was making for BBC-4. The hook was they'd compiled a list of the most lucrative songs in the history of music publishing. Since TV producers don't believe their audience understands the word "lucrative" it ended up being called "The Richest Songs In The World", which is of course ridiculous because a song can't be rich.

When they sent me the list I couldn't see how they'd done their working out. Nobody has an accounting for the full life of a relatively recent song like "Yesterday", let alone "Happy Birthday", and if they did they wouldn't be sharing it with anyone. But in TV the commissioning editor gets what the commissioning editor orders. Therefore I turned up on the appointed day, made my comments on camera, invoiced for the agreed fee - which, believe me, wasn't much - and thought no more about it.

The programme, fronted by Mark Radcliffe, was first shown in December 2012. Then again. Then again. Then people started contacting me saying they'd caught it in the middle of the night on BBC-4. This morning I was looking for something else on the iPlayer and I see that last night they were showing it once more. It must be in double figures by now.

It's obviously one of those programmes that somebody has decided is ideal for just running and running. It's ninety minutes long, hence it uses up plenty of schedule. It's not got anything in it that might make you switch off. It's got "hey, Doris" appeal; most people will be interested to learn "Happy Birthday" is still in copyright. It's not likely to be superseded by subsequent events. They must have made sure that there's nothing in it which qualifies for repeat fees. I certainly don't.

It looks destined to follow me into decrepitude.

In praise of High Maintenance

High Maintenance is different. I would say revolutionary but that would probably put you off. It's sort of a TV show but since it's made for the web it can do a lot of things TV can't: episodes that are as long as the story needs them to be; everything shot on location so it never visits the same place twice; characters appear, play their part and then disappear, only to turn up in the background of later episodes. And of course the likelihood is that you'll watch one, then another and another, according to your enthusiasm. As drama or comedy or slice of life or whatever you want to call it, it's wry, humorous and sometimes as sudden as real life.

Each webisode is set in Brooklyn, in the home of somebody you've never met before; the only thing you know for sure is that the pot dealer (he who maintains the high) will turn up at some point. They're dependent on his supply, he's dependent on their discretion and he's inserted into their lives in a way that enables him to see how they live and relate to each other, a bit like a doctor or a priest.

You can watch the first season (or "cycle", as they call it) here.

People like me don't watch BBC Three - which is why they should keep it

The easiest things for the BBC to cut are the things the chattering classes don't rush to defend. This looks as if it's going to be BBC Three.

I would guess Tony Hall and his people have been weighing up whether tis better to take something away from their middle-aged, middle class core audience, which they already super serve, or to quietly withdraw something from younger consumers of broader entertainment, who don't pay the licence fee themselves and are less brand loyal than previous generations.

It's a hell of a choice and it's one that newspapers have responded to by putting up the prices of their products - thereby penalising the people who care about them - in order to give them away free to other people who aren't that bothered. The difference with the BBC is that the licence fee model means the cost to the user remains the same, no matter how much or how little they may use the service.

And the real problem they are storing up for the future is that the people they have to worry about most - the young people of today, who should be the licence fee payers of the future - use them less and less. Radio listening among young people is declining (so there ought to be less need to pay Radio One presenters so much money that they need to lose some of it in the motor trade) and their TV habits are completely different from yours or mine. The BBC's not a good thing because it provides lots of things you like. It's a good thing because it also provides lots of things that you don't like - one of those things may be BBC Three.

I don't buy the idea the BBC is at death's door. They're the only media organisation on earth that has a clue what its revenue is going to be next year and the year after that. I often feel that the people who are in the greatest hurry to "defend" the organisation put forward the least rational arguments for it. The real crisis for the BBC will be in ten years time when the generation who've grown up with You Tube have the licence fee explained to them. That's going to be a tough sell. Without BBC Three it may be just that bit tougher.

The rugby director's fear of the wide shot

I watched a lot of rugby this weekend.

BT Sport’s coverage of the Aviva Premiership seems pretty good to me. On the other hand I find the BBC’s coverage of the Six Nations Championship increasingly irritating.

I understand that Wales v France in Cardiff and England v Ireland at Twickenham demand to be treated differently than London Irish against Leicester. The former are big national occasions. The latter’s just a sporting encounter.

I understand that you’ve got to go big on the build-up and the pyros and the anthems and the reaction shots. I understand that a lot of people tuning in are more interested in the occasion than the game.

Nonetheless the coverage of the other stuff shouldn’t be at the expense of the action. When you go to a big game you may be a long way from the action but at least you can see where the action is. It’s the single most important piece of information you need. There’s no point having a moody close-up of the scrum if you can’t see whereabouts on the pitch that scrum is taking place and how the two teams are lining up either side of it.

I tweeted about this during the Wales v France game and a TV director friend replied that the traditional watchword is “action is wide, replay is close”. This seems sensible. It wasn’t what the BBC seemed to be providing. When George North scored the first try he was out of shot because they were too busy focussing on the confusion of the French defenders. Later during this game and in the England match the following day the commentator had to tell us which line we were looking at because he knew that the shot was too tight for us to be able to work it out for ourselves. Then there are the penalties. In the post-Wilkinson era TV directors have become so enamoured of the curious rituals of goal kickers that they linger for whole minutes on their close-up of this process and leave us not knowing how difficult it is to score because we can’t see where they are on the pitch.

TV seems to believe that the closer it brings us to the action the more we understand. I don’t think so.

All albums should be surprise albums

Glad to see Beyonce has put out a new album on iTunes only. It's said to be "a surprise album".

All albums used to be surprise albums. In the 60s long players would just appear in the window of your local record shop. That's how I first saw Sgt Pepper. The first I saw of the new Bob Dylan or Rolling Stones sleeve wasn't on an advert in the NME. It was in my own High Street. You can probably imagine how thrilling that was.

By the time we'd reached the 90s the softening up process, the teaser campaign, the carefully choreographed series of "exclusives", had been developed into a fine art and the relationship between the music business and the media was so incestuous that you tired of hearing about the damned albums by the time they came out. I was always bothered about the idea of the BBC, particularly, playing records for months before we poor saps out there in radioland got the chance to buy them. Of course they always made sure to tell us when we would be able to buy them. Some people might call that advertising. In the case of the "U2=BBC" campaign of 2009 even the BBC thought it had gone too far. Afterwards.

Surprise albums are better in every respect. We'll be the ones to decide how nice a surprise they are. That way the media can get back to doing what they used to do, which was reflect public enthusiasm rather than trying to mould it.

What kind of world is it where Bob Dylan wears a tie and the weatherman doesn't?

The same day Tie Rack announced it was going into administration I went to see Bob Dylan at the Albert Hall. He was wearing a tie.

A few nights later I saw Dream Themes, Rhodri Marsden’s TV theme-tune band. They were all wearing ties. Even the guitarist, who threw himself to the ground during an emotionally wrenching version of the Panorama theme, was wearing one.

It’s funny that rock bands, who used to pride themselves on being morally above wearing ties, should now adopt them as a working uniform. There have been memorable rock ties. There was Bryan Ferry’s GI tie, which he would tuck into his shirt. Around the same time Bill Nelson had a nice line in bulky Rodney Bewes-style kippers. One of the things that made Doctor Feelgood stand out from other pub rock bands was they wore ties.

The wearing of a rock tie does two things: it helps distinguish the members of the band from the members of the audience and also makes them look as if they're going to work, like the gang at the beginning of Reservoir Dogs.

It's funny that this should happen just as ties are falling out of use in the real workplace. I don't have anything against informality.I simply feel that if you wear a suit without a tie, or without a collar that can said to be properly resolved, you look unfinished. That surely wasn't what you had in mind when you bought the suit.

At the end of last night's BBC news they had two weathermen, one wearing a tie and one not. I know which one I paid attention to.

Was ever a sitcom so funny for so long as Frasier?

I found a cache of complete episodes of Frasier on You Tube. Once I start I can't stop. One's too many and a hundred aren't enough. It gives new pleasure every time. A load of new things struck me this time around.

• In every respect but their sexual orientation and the fact they're brothers, Frasier and Niles are a gay couple.
• For all its fine talk British comedy has never come up with anything half as sophisticated as Frasier.
• I think it was Andrew Collins who told me that in situation comedy character serves plot whereas in literature plot serves character. That's true. Once you've bought the idea of Daphne acting as the saucy maid you're prepared to overlook the fact that she's introduced as "Dad's physical therapist". 
• The depiction of radio is ludicrous but you forgive it.
• The set was said to be the most expensive in television. It was worth it.
• Of course the script's good but what makes it brilliant is the acting. It's the energy and the precision of the business - a great deal of which, particularly in Niles's case, is physical - that makes it sing. The cast is even secure enough to let occasional guest turns like Bebe Neuwirth as Frasier's ex Lillith and Harriet Sansom Harris as his satanic agent Bebe Glazer (above) steal the show. ("Don't look her in the eyes, Roz!")

They did 11 seasons. That's a total of 264 episodes. It wasn't as funny at the end as it was in its purple patch but it was still funnier than most. Amazing.

Talking TV theme tunes with Rhodri Marsden

Writing a TV theme should be the most lucrative sort of work a composer can possibly do. Somebody told me years ago the guy who composed the Coronation Street theme earned £25 every time it was played, which made it, according to my calculations, £100 per airing. But I've just looked it up and it's not true. It was actually commissioned by De Wolfe Music, the soundtrack specialists, so nobody got more than the day rate.

Some clever people have tried to get round this. Star Trek producer Gene Rodenberry insisted on writing some words to the instrumental theme tune. Even though the words were never sung it meant he got 50% whenever it was aired. Then there was the extraordinary business of the Channel 4 theme, which nobody thought to buy David Dundas out of, and subsequently became the most profitable four notes in the history of culture.

Actually, by the time the producers of Friends were looking for a theme tune in 1994 they were thinking about the money a lot and, as Bob Lefsetz pointed out in a recent post, The Rembrandts had to settle for a less advantageous deal in order to get the chance to provide "I'l Be There For You". They also planned to keep their involvement in it a secret for fear of what it might do to the group. But that was doomed so eventually the theme became so big it ate the band.

Rhodri Marsden plays keyboards with Scritti Politti, writes a column in The Independent and has a sideline playing TV theme tunes with the band Dream Themes. They're supporting Pugwash at our next Word In Your Ear show at the Lexington next Sunday. Among the tunes Dream Themes play are the themes from Ski Sunday and Grange Hill, sounds that are no doubt rich in associations for people of a certain age. Tickets here. There's a special discount for readers of this blog to get tickets for £12 if they put in the code "mincepie".

I asked Rhodri whether he thinks the Golden Age of TV themes has passed and he said they certainly don't bother with them as much these days and contrasted the Wogan theme from the 80s, which would have been written and arranged for a big band and has the traditional big band virtues, including a tune, with the current theme for the Jonathan Ross programme, which as he says, sounds as if they've set up a basic backing track grid and then neglected to put anything on top of it. This could be just TV themes reflecting the way that pop music has gone in the wider world.

But as he says often the thing that makes a theme magic is just sheer repetition. "The theme for the darts coverage on Sky Sports is a dreadful piece of music, but get a load of darts fans in a room, people who've heard it hundreds of times and just watch them go". Just watch them go indeed.

What this blog says today the BBC DG says a year later

Wrote this column for The Independent last year. It's mainly about the iPlayer but since Tony Hall's speech last week I'm congratulating myself on showing uncanny prescience in the last para:

It seems likely that, once we have got used to being able to watch previously broadcast programmes when it suits us, there could be a clamour for the right to be able to watch them as soon as they're ready. If the BBC has got all the episodes of its latest series in a cupboard somewhere, why not let us watch them at our convenience rather than theirs? Then we'll find out if they love us as much as we apparently love them.

Now what can he do to address the issues in a Guardian column today? Can he make radios cool again?

What is it about the BBC and cabs?

Good Jennifer Saunders quote about the BBC in new issue of Glamour:

"It got so annoying that you were called into these special lunches with the Director General at The Ivy and you were like, 'Fuck off!' This is the license payers' money! I'm paying for the car to take me there - we all are. And I'd like an extra bit of budget on my programme, please, and less of your wheels."

I'm glad she's said this. Ever since I did my first job for the BBC they've been notable for two things: the first is their willingness to offer you derisory sums of money in compensation (money which I've always been happy to accept on the basis that most of the things they ask me to do, nobody else would); the second is their apparent belief that they can make up for this by "sending a car", even though everybody in London knows that "a car" is the slowest, least convenient and most ruinously expensive way to get around.

It's something in the organisation's DNA, this belief that black cars cure all ills. I've seen literally scores of drivers lined up in TV Centre reception waiting to take people home. I've heard stories that they used to send a car from London to Loch Lomond to pick up Billy Connolly. That sounds apocryphal but having seen the amount that senior executives charged the Corporation in order to ensure that their expensive shoes never actually touched the pavement I'm not so sure. 

I don't recognise the organisation that's being called out on bullying and sexual harassment in today's "dossier" from the NUJ but I do recognise exactly what Jennifer Saunders is talking about with the cars.

Young people aren't bored enough for EastEnders any more

Interesting item on Radio Four's always excellent Media Show last week (you can listen here) about the declining popularity of British soaps.

In the last twenty years Coronation Street has gone from averaging over 20 million viewers to around 11 million. EastEnders has lost two million viewers since 2006 and sometimes comes second to Emmerdale in the ratings.

People inside the world of soaps think this might have something to do with too many episodes and not enough focus on strong stories.

People outside the world of soaps - like me, for instance - wonder if this might mean that in the multi-channel universe new generations of viewers never have the leisure to develop the soap habit. That's not to say they're frantically busy. They're probably not. But any idle time they have is hoovered up by YouTube clips, endless X-Factor spin-offs or faction formats like the Kardashians. In this climate it's hard for a soap to get started on people. Nobody was ever magnetised by a soap. Soap works on people who are bored. Young people aren't bored any more. They're fidgety and distracted but never actually bored enough to devote the time it would take to work out what was going on in EastEnders.

I've had it with the "pudding first" school of TV documentary

Started The First World War From Above on the iPlayer. After five minutes I turned it off. It seemed to have all the things that drive me mad about today's factual programmes:

* A script machine assembled from a Scrabble set of clichés: "bird's eye view", "like a lunar landscape", "today's state of the art technology", "those brave pilots", "from the intimate to the truly epic" and so on;
* More shots of the noble presenter, Fergal Keane, looking at the things which are supposed to be interesting than of the things themselves;
* Swelling music to reassure us that the programme will be emotional as well as informative;
* The insistence that the programme will "uncover one of World War One's secrets"' - a "secret" being anything that's not been in this time-slot before
* A three-minute opening section desperate to shoehorn in a taster of everything that's coming up in the next hour, up to and including "the extraordinary encounter at the end of my journey when I meet the daughter of the airship pilot of ninety years ago" and the obligatory shot of somebody crying when they see some film of their father.

There's nothing wrong with making factual programmes entertaining but techniques like these seem to be rooted in a growing belief that we won't eat our greens unless we're first assured that there will be pudding. After a while we lose our appetite.