Television Standards Quotes

TV isn't like films; you can't rest on your laurels.

I'm not against ratings per se. I think more information is always good. But I certainly don't think the government has to step in and set guidelines for how shows should be rated.

I don't ordinarily do television because I don't like some of the things projected on it.

English television from the Fifties to the Nineties was the least bad in the world, and now it's just as bad as it is anywhere.

Federal law, implemented by the Federal Communications Commission, helped kill network broadcasts of Scooby-Doo, Bugs Bunny and their modern equivalents, while effectively issuing do-not-resuscitate orders for classics like 'In the News.'

I just think it should be illegal to call somebody fat on TV. . . . I think when it comes to the media, the media needs to take responsibility for the effect that it has on our younger generation, on these girls who are watching these television shows and picking up how to talk and how to be cool, so then all of a sudden being funny is making fun of the girl who's wearing an ugly dress.

The BBC must never be all about ratings - or even mainly about ratings. In the past year, we have made a raft of terrific programmes which stand comparison with the best the BBC has ever done: 'Blue Planet,' 'Walking with Beasts,' 'Son of God,' 'Clocking Off,' 'The Way We Live Now,' 'Conspiracy,' 'Lost World.'

If there's something decent going in television, the mediums now are kind of equal. Television has become much higher quality.

Much of what passes for quality on British television is no more than a reflection of the narrow elite which controls it and has always thought that its tastes were synonymous with quality.

It's not so much that I write well, I just don't write badly very often and that passes for good on television.

Every time you think television has hit its lowest ebb, a new program comes along to make you wonder where you thought the ebb was.

It evolved out of the idea to make a kids TV show. And it actually turned out to be a bit dull and a bit regulated and too many people looking over your shoulder and it wasn't really.

TV tends to look for the living equivalents of squeaky-clean Kens and Barbies, but with my dial I'm more like Ken's dirty old uncle.

One of the differences between HBO and other television is that they demand the same coverage that you would have in a feature film. We need to have all the shots in order to make it as rich and as stunning as it looks. We can't cut any corners.

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 there are still words you can't use in family entertainment that you can use in a sitcom today.

Did you know you can't say 'Jesus' in a sitcom? They told me that, and I was like, You gotta be kiddin' me. If you don't want my God here, you don't want me here either.

Obviously, there's a million things we're allowed to say on late-night cable that you're not allowed to say on a prime time broadcast.

In Britain you're more used to challenging drama. In America, TV is just boring, and numbing, and bloody terrible.

Most of the time people are aiming so low on television. They're trying to reach that common denominator, especially on network television.

In a perfect world, there would be no censorship, because there would be no judgement. I find the hypocritical aspect disconcerting, to say the least. We can show people being murdered on television, but I'm not able to say "chickenshit" in public. At the same time, I understand that people are afraid. Because I think censorship is about fear. It's just fear being projected onto art.

For a little while there, I was thinking, 'I don't want to be in anything on British TV'. I didn't watch any of it because it was rubbish.

It frustrates me that Britain can't make something like 'CSI' or 'The Sopranos'. Instead, British TV puts soap in primetime while every other civilized nation leaves it in daytime. Viewers should be more demanding.