I haven't linked to this I have copied it. Here is what A.L.Kennedy (a great writer and commentator with an excellent website) says about the demise of The South Bank Show. It's spot on and I wouldn't attempt to write anything myself in its shadow...
"The South Bank Show's gone. Is this wise? I know SBS didn't involve yelling or tits, and was therefore unsuitable for British television, but I've met so many people who sat at home like me when they were nippers and/or teenagers and had their sanity saved by that show. There we were, possibly feeling we were slightly strange, compared with our surroundings, and there Melvyn was with his diddly theme tune and a weekly blast of things we'd guessed we might like, but ended up loving, along with stuff we'd never heard of and worlds of unimagined possibility – there other people were, imagining those possibilities. When I was young, unsure of most things, buried alive in Dundee and showing no sign of being able to find a job that wouldn't make me crazy and then fired, SBS delivered a weekly jolt of oxygen and hope. To say nothing of it enthusing me about things I'd just plain assumed I wouldn't enjoy. It's our loss if we let it go without at least an equivalent replacement and some kind of thank you.
No, it's particularly the loss of the generation from whom we have already stolen an education system, a functioning and credible democracy and a variety of other things they might have found useful. It's not that I like all children indiscriminately – some of them are appalling – but I would rather they didn't grow up being more than averagely miserable and underfullfilled."
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