Grumpy Parky criticises chat hosts - again

Whilst I agree with the sentiment of your comment, did/ have you ever actually watched any of his interviews? Maybe not so much his last few series, but the stuff upto when he changed channels (was ITV his last channel?). The whole point of his, admittedly all too frequent, rants, is that guests didn't usually go on his show to plug anything. They did it because they had an interesting life or experience to talk about and he was a natural at bringing guests out of themselves and making them feel at ease to freely talk about it. He knew the time had come to end it when it seemed like the guests were only agreeing to be interviewed on condition they could talk about their latest bit of tat, and only that.

As for 'hardly a great deal of competition', that's his point! Any old idiot is given a chat show these days regardless of whether they're actually any good at it, which most of them aren't.
 
Talk shows should evolve in a more mature way. I can't stand watching Norton, Ross and the other lightweights as there is no real conversation. It's infantile and superficial. Parky was brilliant at getting his guests to talk with a bit of depth and his shows were interesting.
 
Are you actually old enough to have ever watched Johnny Carson?. I am, having watched the edited shows that ITV tried to launch of his in the 1980's and also via satellite his later shows in the late 80's/early 90's. Johnny Carson went down here like a lead balloon. ITV ended up pulling his shows from the regions they pushed it in, so poor were the ratings. Nor did they take up further shows.

Ignore the hype, Carson's shows were the very thing we British dislike in US tv: overslick, lightweight fare. Frankly I couldnt see then and still cant see now what all the fuss was about. He was unfunny, the jokes were obvious, the chat was inane, the stupid sidekick. Far from being a legend mate, the man was one of the most overhyped TV stars ever.

I like Byrne and I like Leno, but I have to disagree with you again on Letterman. Much like Mr Carson, a lot of hype but very little substance imo.
 
Parkinson should STFU, move on and let it go. He was never a 'great' interviewer, just a comfortable face for celebrities to chat to while pimping their book / show / album or whatever.

And there was hardly a great deal of competition when he started out!

I certainly don't dislike him per se, but the constant snipping at his successors does him no favours.
 
Parkinsons style is to interview people and give viewers a proper insight into the person being interviewed and you come away actually learning something about the subject.

The Paul O'Grady show is a perfect example of whats shit about todays chatshows.
As soon as someone is allowed to string more than 2 lines together POG butts in before there is a danger of it getting interesting.
POG was fine for 5pm but at 9pm we need something more substantial than this teatime tosh.

Norton , Ross etc are not chat shows per se.
They are just filler where the host is the star and the guests plug a book/cd/film.

Parkys show is out of synch with todays viewers but that says more about the mentality of the viewers than it does about Parky who is spot on.
 
I think Parky was more indepth than current shows. It wasn't about who's dating who or what the latest fashion is and instead of just giving a soundbite about the latest plug the guests oftened had to talk indepth about the latest projects and how they came about.

One basic format talk show is "Mark Lawson talks to...". Just a small dark studio with a host and a guest.

Craig Ferguson did an experiment where for one episode he ditched the audience and did a full show with just him interviewing Stephen Fry. He was trying to show his viewers how talk shows can be and how some used to be and started out, and it's not just whooping and celebs plugging their latest project or gossip etc.
 
Parky's ratings (15m+) were consistently higher in his heyday than the level of ratings for people like Ross, Norton etc

How exactly do you measure the ratings of chat show hosts in different countries and different cultures against Parky who is a Brit?
 
Davina's show averaged about 2.5m after the 3.5m it got for the first episode though, and Parkinson generally got more than 3.2m even in the later years (although he did go below 3m when he was airing at nearly 11pm). The fact that his final episode got nearly 9m though is testament to him, although I agree that gives him no right to be rude to people (particularly as Piers Morgan now gets better ratings than Parky in the same slot).
 
I know, I hear what you are saying. He was compulsive viewing in my house as I grew up. But I stand by my core point: It's not necessary to constantly snipe at the current generation, total rubbish that many of them may be (in his eyes)!!!
 
Parkinson was a real interview show , even though in his latter years ITV tried to make it more like Ross etc.

Since the 80's there have been no shows in the same mould.
With Parkinson you watched if you liked the guests whereas with virtually all of todays shows - Piers Morgan excepted- you watch because the host is the star
 
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