ABSTRACT
Television employs endless people to tell us things: they tell us the news, the weather, the sports scores. They tell us about paintings, buildings, animals, everyday events, international crises. We learn the rules in game shows from them and the time of day and what is coming up next after the programme. Presenters come in many styles: like dog owners at Crufts we are adept at recognising the different breeds. We can distinguish the collar and tie-d seriousness of newsreaders from the dungareed idiocy of the hosts on children’s programmes and pop shows. We realise ‘gurus’ like David Attenborough and Jonathan Miller will offer a very different style of programme from ‘men of the people’ like Terry Wogan.
