English Entertainment
The present served as the starting point from where we traced our steps backwards – Dr Spencer Wells
The National Geographic Channel is slowly but surely trying to carve a niche for itself by introducing different genres of programming.
The latest initiative challenges the very nature of the evolution of man. In order to promote its intriguing new documentary Journey of Man which airs on 15 December at 9 pm, the channel has brought down the brain behind the enterprise geneticist Dr Spencer Wells to India.
Indiantelevision.com correspondent Ashwin Pinto caught up with Wells who spoke about the discovery, his work and progress being made in the field of genetic engineering.
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How did you get involved with National Geographic and ‘Journey of Man’? When starting out, there were two basic issues to deal with. Where exactly do our origins lie, and how did we come to be in every single corner of the globe. One of my most remarkable findings came in Kazakhstan. A man Niyazov is the descendant of the Central Asian man who populated Europe and America. How much money did you spend on the project? Where did funding come from? This has been a collaborative effort with scientists from all over the world including India. Our method is to make contact with local regions especially indigenous tribes. Folk tales that they have to tell about their ancestors are also important. |
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What old theories of evolution does ‘Journey of man’ throw out of the window and is Darwinism one of them? The advantage of the Y Chromosome is that it is handed down only by the male parent unmingled with a woman’s DNA. So it can stay the same from generation to generation. It can only change with a mutation which is an accidental but natural change in the genetic code. This can happen to strengthen the immune system from newly emerged diseases. From your research in the 60,000 years, how rapidly did man’s intellectual and physical traits developed? 60,000 years ago the world was in the grip of an ice age. So a lot of land mass was uncovered which is now buried in the sea and that is how I believe our ancestors travelled. This was the first migration wave. I believe that the ancestors of Australian aborigines come from here. The second wave took place 45,000 years ago. Southern Indians trace their ancestors from here. What is remarkable is that they survived although temperatures could reach minus 100 degrees. How did men, women of different colours come into being if we all come from a black man? Has your theory generated a lot of controversy and heated debate among the scientific community? Over the last five years, has the amount of coverage that television channels devote to genetic and scientific discoveries, research, studies gone up? |
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For how long have you been a geneticist? Now we are working a new project on the Journey of Man microsite on the National Geographic site. This is a global project in order to obtain a genetic snapshot. We will create a place on the site which will allow visitors to digitally create an attractive face they would like to get sexually involved with. This is then fed into a database. Through the regional average we hope to get an insight into how races evolved. The global average will give us a glimpse into Adam and Eve. Speaking of this I look at the Bible with its stories of the Garden of Eden, Noah’s Ark as a parable seeking to explain a diverse strand of elements and circumstances. What kinds of advances have been made since you started out? Besides ‘Journey of Man’, what other important research projects have you been involved in? Is the extinction of animal species in the future still a huge concern when one considers the advances in cloning? Finally do you see a bright future for biotechnology research in India? |
UK: The aerial is losing its grip. As broadband becomes the default way Britons watch television, the UK is edging towards a decisive, and divisive, question: should Freeview be switched off by 2034? The issue, highlighted in reporting by The Guardian, has exposed deep fault lines over access, affordability and the future of public service broadcasting.
For nearly 25 years, Freeview has delivered free-to-air television from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 to almost every corner of the country. Even now, it remains the UK’s largest TV platform, used in more than 16m homes and on around 10m main household sets. Yet the same broadcasters that built it are now pressing for its closure within eight years.
Their case rests on a structural shift in viewing. Smart TVs, superfast broadband and the Netflix-led streaming boom have pulled audiences online. Advertising economics have followed. By 2034, the number of homes using Freeview as their main TV set is forecast to fall from a peak of almost 12m in 2012 to fewer than 2m, making digital terrestrial television, or DTT, increasingly costly to sustain.
But critics say the rush to switch off risks abandoning those least able, or least willing, to move online.
“I don’t want to be choosing apps and making new accounts,” says Lynette, 80, from Kent. “It is time-consuming and irritating trying to work out where I want to be, to remember the sequence of clicks, with hieroglyphics instead of words. If I make a mistake I have to start again.”
Lynette is among nearly 100,000 people who have signed a “save Freeview” petition launched by campaign group Silver Voices. She fears the government is about to “take [Freeview] away from me and others who either don’t like, can’t afford, or can’t use online versions”.
Official figures underline the fault lines. A report commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport estimates that by 2035, 1.8m homes will still depend on Freeview. Ofcom’s analysis shows those households are more likely to be disabled, older, living alone, female, and based in the north of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Freeview is owned by the public service broadcasters through Everyone TV, which also operates Freesat and the newer streaming platform Freely. After two years of review, DCMS is expected to set out its position soon, drawing on three options proposed by Ofcom: a costly upgrade of Freeview’s ageing technology; maintaining a bare-bones service with only core PSB channels; or a full switch-off during the 2030s.
The broadcasters have rallied behind the third option. They argue that 2034 is the logical cut-off, when transmission contracts with network operator Arqiva expire. By then, they say, the cost of broadcasting to a dwindling audience will far outweigh the returns from TV advertising.
Ofcom agrees a crunch point is approaching. In July, the regulator warned of a “tipping point” within the next few years, after which it will no longer be commercially viable for broadcasters to carry the costs of DTT.
Others see risks beyond economics. Questions remain over whether internet TV can reliably deliver emergency broadcasts, such as the daily Covid updates, in the way that universally available DTT can. The UK radio industry has also warned that an internet-only future for TV could push up distribution costs and force some radio stations off air if PSBs no longer share Arqiva’s mast network.
“It is a political hot potato,” says Dennis Reed, founder of Silver Voices, who says he has “dissociated” his organisation from the government’s stakeholder forum, which he believes is “heavily biased” towards streaming.
The Future TV Taskforce, representing the PSBs, counters that moving online could “close the digital divide once and for all”. “We want to be able to plan to ensure that no one is left behind,” a spokesperson says, adding that rising DTT costs could otherwise mean cuts to programme budgets.
The numbers show the scale of the challenge. Of the 1.8m Freeview-dependent homes projected for 2035, around 1.1m are expected to have broadband but not use it for TV. The remaining 700,000 are forecast to lack a broadband connection altogether.
Veterans of the analogue switch-off, completed in 2012 after 76 years, recall similar fears of “TV blackout chaos”. Around 6 per cent of households were labelled “digital refuseniks”, yet a targeted help scheme and a national campaign, fronted by a robot called Digit Al voiced by Matt Lucas, delivered a largely smooth transition.
This time, the BBC is less keen to foot the bill. Tim Davie, the outgoing director general, has said the corporation should not fund a comparable support programme for a Freeview switch-off.
Research for Sky by Oliver & Ohlbaum suggests that with early awareness campaigns and digital inclusion measures, only about 330,000 households would ultimately need hands-on help ahead of a 2034 shutdown.
Meanwhile, viewing habits continue to fragment. Audience body Barb says 7 per cent of UK households no longer own a TV set, choosing to watch on other devices. In December, YouTube overtook the BBC’s combined channels in total UK viewing across TVs, smartphones and tablets, albeit measured at a minimum of three minutes.
That shift may accelerate. YouTube has recently blocked Barb and its partner Kantar from accessing viewing session data, limiting transparency just as online platforms consolidate power.
“When the government chose British Satellite Broadcasting as the ‘winner’ in satellite TV it was Rupert Murdoch’s Sky instead that came out on top,” says a senior TV executive quoted by The Guardian. “There already is such an outsider ready to be the winner in the transition to internet TV; it is YouTube.”
Freeview’s future now hangs on a familiar British dilemma: modernise fast and risk exclusion, or protect universality and pay the price. Either way, the aerial’s days as king of the living room look numbered.
