Letter: TV nation needs therapy

TV nation

needs therapy

Sir: Yes, yes, yes, each Thursday you have "Film, Film, Film", each Friday "Music, Music, Music".

It is very public-spirited of you to cover these minority interests at such length, but when are you going to give equivalent space to what every man-jack of the population devotes hours every day to? Apart from employing far and away the best television critic in the land, you dedicate very little space to it.

Television is no longer at a cross-roads. Choices have been made and it is cantering happily downhill. Documentary slots have largely been usurped by cheap clip-collations about the emergency services. Arts programmes have become mere puff pieces for films and records. And drama - always the most popular strand of television's output - has fewer and fewer notable exceptions to the unremitting cop-show.

Television is the expression of our national psyche and it is in need of independent therapy.

CLIVE EXTON

London N1