Gillian Armstrong Quotes

The BBC fulfils a wonderful cultural function. Maybe the problem is that it feels it needs to be everything to everybody.

All I can do is advocate changes at the BBC while respecting editorial independence upon which the success of the BBC rests. I can't do anything that requires the BBC to pay certain people certain amounts.

It was regarded as a responsibility of the BBC to provide programs which have a broad spectrum of interest, and if there was a hole in that spectrum, then the BBC would fill it.

Sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit-and-loss sheet or rating book to distract you—and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.

The BBC produces wonderful programmes; it also produces a load of old rubbish.

We spend too much time fretting over the way the industry produces programming, and too little worrying about the way the public consumes it.

Obviously sex and nudity sells, but that's what people go to cable for but that's not going to happen on network daytime television... so I think it really is always going to come down to story. How do you make a story interesting enough so people will tune in? That's always going to be it.

I think TV is all about not turning off the public, it's about not being too sexy, not being too much of anything really.

Back in 1975, we were making all the decisions about what people were going to watch.

There's not a lot of light on television.

Audiences are so much more sophisticated than they've ever been. They expect a lot more. I don't think because it's an hour of your Thursday night rather than an hour and a half of your weekend that you should be gypped at all in quality.

I think it's really important to have good quality drama on TV.

I am old enough to have grown up glued to a screen offering only three alternatives, each of which was an all-powerful national network that seemed permanently ensconced in the entertainment stratosphere.

The overall effect of the Kid Vid rules has been to force networks to prioritize less popular content. Some of this programming attracts reliable viewership among older children, but younger children largely aren't watching.

I don't have any quarrel with the BBC.

I'm a breath of fresh air, and there hasn't been something this black on TV for a very long time.

With Marathi cinema, content is king. It has always been driven by content. I am lucky that I don't have to leave home to seek a job elsewhere. The industry is here at home.

Cinema has evolved, and it is high time we stop policing it so rigorously.

This whole idea of too much TV, I think is really gross. Because I feel like it's mostly white men who are saying it. And it's like, 'Yeah, man, there's too much TV for you, but by nature of there being so much TV, there are other voices being represented.' Isn't that a wonderful thing?

It could be why it's getting harder and harder to get people into the cinemas and multiplexes, because we're just seeing a world that doesn't reflect reality.

There's very few shows that truly reflect specific ethnic experiences, and when they come and come right, they're a hit.

We had Chinese artists that would put in elements for the Chinese audience like the calligraphy actually means something so the audience when they read it they'll understand. So there were definitely little things we were able to do that specifically leveraged the artists' talents.

As a moviemaker, I'm able to have a little impact on the socio-political landscape and to reach a large audience around the world. That inspires me. That is something I'm inspired by and it's what I inspire to.

Moving people into reality TV is a mistake.

Fact is stranger than fiction. You see people walking down the street that would never be allowed on television. You have to tone it down.