Television legend Angela Rippon has opened up to GB News about her decades-long career, recalling the magic of the 1970s and criticising modern TV for what she describes as its overemphasis on political correctness.
Speaking about her experiences, Ms Rippon praised classic shows and iconic performers like Morecambe and Wise, saying they were “two of the greatest comics this country has ever produced”.
Today marks 100 years since the first public demonstration on television and the iconic broadcaster told Eamonn Holmes and Ellie Costello how she has seen the industry evolve.
Eamonn Holmes said: “I think TV started to dip off slightly after the 70s, I think they were my heyday.
“I think a lot of that is to do with what was attainable to us as viewers, we lived in a world that was divorced from the world of TV, and it was magical.”
Ms Rippon agreed: “I think the difference was that today we have a plethora of television stations.
“We have an incredible variety to an incredible access of different kinds of television programmes being provided by how many channels?
“I don’t know, it runs into hundreds now, doesn’t it? And I think we probably all think back with nostalgia to the 70s, when there were only has one channel, then two, then three, then four, maybe five.
Angela later added: “It uses to be a watercooler moment. That’s how it used to be referred to when people would say, hey, did you see that on the telly last night? And I don’t think that it’s that the heyday was any different then. It was just that then everybody watched the same programmes.”
Angela Rippon has had a career spanning decades
|
GB NEWS
She later added: “I think the difference theses days is, I hate the word, but we all now think that there’s too much wokeism on television.
“And certainly the things that if you go on to some of the nostalgic channels and you watch things all of those amazing programs that there in the 70s, Fawlty Towers, all of them.
“We laugh. But there’s a lot of stuff that we were laughing at then that no television producer would put out now.”
Ms Rippon began her career presenting radio and television news programmes in South West England before moving to BBC One’s Nine O’Clock News, where she became a regular presenter in 1975.
She made history as the first female journalist to hold a permanent role presenting the BBC national television news, and was the third woman to appear as a national news presenter in the UK, following Barbara Mandell on ITN in 1955 and Nan Winton, who temporarily presented BBC Television news in 1960.
Angela Rippon shared her thought with GB News Breakfast this morning
|
GB NEWS
Ms Rippon’s career also spanned entertainment, appearing on a Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show in 1976, presenting the first two series of Top Gear, and hosting Come Dancing.
The 81-year-old explained: “I think it’s right that we’re celebrating today because, of course, Logie Baird has enabled all of us to have a career.
“Without what he did, we wouldn’t be doing what we’re doing.”
Ellie asked the broadcasting legend: “What’s your highlight been of the last 60 years? If you can point out one thing that stood out for you working in television, your favourite moment, your favourite programme, you’ve hosted the Eurovision Song Contest, you’ve presented Top Gear, you’ve presented Come Dancing, it goes on and on and on.”
Ms Rippon said: “Oh, to pin it down is a bit of a cop-out, but for me it’s really about the collective.
“First of all, I’m just grateful to still be here, but it’s also the fact that I get to do a job I absolutely adore and that people allow me to do.
“Yes, there have been individual highlights. Funnily enough, one of my favourite moments is something television viewers wouldn’t even be aware of.
“It happened on radio, at LBC, when Gorbachev fell. I had three hours live on air, flying by the seat of my pants what I call proper broadcast journalism.
“No script, just me relying on experience, having lived with the programme all morning.
“At 3.30am, I heard that Gorbachev had been overthrown in a coup.
“My producer and I raced into the studio, on the phone non-stop to our contacts no Internet in Russia or America back then.
“By five in the morning, I was ringing the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee: ‘Sorry to wake you at this hour, but do you realise what’s happening?’”
