ABSTRACT
It is important before discussing television criticism in Britain to describe first the physical aspect of the job. The job is death to social life. The critic, even when he has no notice to write, must still watch if he is to keep in touch with the whole balance of television’s output. Television criticism arrived a little behind the B.B.C.’s resumption of its television service in 1946, when Fleet Street could perceive that, with the return of peace, there was nothing to prevent television from developing as irresistibly as had radio twenty years earlier. The obligation to be constructive is pressing. Critics of other entertainment are recommending their readers to buy it or to leave it alone. Reluctance will always be a danger as long as critics have to write too much and too often, and it may well be that the coming of commercial television will prove a godsend by removing artificial concentration on a single television program.
