ABSTRACT
This chapter discovers what qualities make for a successful television presenting career. The lack of clear differentiation between sincerity and authenticity is characteristic and pervasive. The evident absence of hypocrisy allows sincerity readily to be attributed. The matter of authenticity and judgements of it are even more troubling than sincerity is, yet authenticity is still used in the evaluation of television personalities and listed among Scannell's conditions of broadcasting intelligibility. A para-social relationship which is sexually inflected is unremarkable if it is with a person whose appearance matches conventional norms for sexiness and whose persona is centred on exploiting that at either a high or low pitch. British television in particular has long had a place for eccentrics. The continuity and consistency of their personae is further evidence of the author's earlier assertion that the changes have been more to the status of film stars than television personalities.
