The wonders (and horrors) of TV

I love television.   It is a big part of my life and I watch lots of it (some people would say I watch too much).   It is a very powerful medium.

Until now I have been watching on a 30 year old tv with a 16" screen.  Even if you only know metrics, you will know that this is a very small, very old tv.  We bought a digital set top box and were quite happy to continue with that until the poor old tv eventually went to electronic heaven.

BUT .... For my recent birthday I was given an amazing new large flat screen television and something called a BeyonWiz.  This magic black box enables me to record anything I want, so I can watch it at my leisure.  I can also watch shows on a ten minute delay, so I can fast forward through the ads (!!).  I can stop a show, rewind .... believe me, this little box changes the way you watch tv.  The gift also included my very clever brother coming to install the new system.

I have been having so much fun with it. 

It has however, made me think about what we see and hear on tv and I am becoming increasingly curious about how and why television presenters are chosen.

Now I understand tv is a visual medium and these people need to look presentable, but these people do not just stand there .... they speak.  And some of them speak really badly!

There have long been comments, and jokes,  about football commentators being unable to correctly pronounce the names of teams.  Two perfect examples are
Carlton being called 'Caaaarton' and my pet peeve, Essendon becoming 'Essedon'.  Carlton contains the letter 'L' and Essendon, the letter 'N'.  Why on earth won't people use these perfectly good letters?

Poor Jo Frost (England's Super Nanny) has so much trouble with words.  Screw comes out as 'schcrew', lives becomes 'lifes' and so many more.

Now I notice Michelle Bridges is flogging her program and telling us how 'impordant' it is.   Really Michelle .... would that be important???

Another one of my current peeves is 'our' pronounced as 'are'.   This one is very common on radio too.

When I was training as a teacher, there was a fellow trainee who constantly pronounced specific as 'pacific' and maths as 'maffs'.  Maybe these presenters were taught by teachers like this.   Where does this start (and end)?

I could go on and on, but you probably have the idea.

Now I am not holding myself up as perfection with pronunciation, but I am not on public media.  

There are so many people out there who would kill to be a television  presenter.  Do we really have to have people flooding our screens, who struggle with basic words???