Hi all,

I also watched Marco Pierre White's programme last night, and I have to say it's great to see shooting treated as an everyday activity (although I wasn't overly impressed with his comments about drinking and shooting, no matter how flippant or amusingly intended…).

Channel 4 and ITV are really scoring highly in my opinion in terms of media portrayal of shooting. I suspect that the BBC may be terrified of commissioning programming that might be seen as even slightly controversial in these arenas. The point is, however, that shows like the Great British Feast manage to show shooting without feeling the need to engage mundanely with the arguments for or against shooting fluffy animals.

The BBC's editorial guidelines insist you must show all sides in the interests of balance - I quote "we strive to reflect a wide range of opinion and explore a range and conflict of views so that no significant strand of thought is knowingly unreflected or under represented". What that means in practice is that the organisation is painfully and cripplingly conscious of its "duty" to reflect opinion. In short, it is only very rarely that they are brave enough to commission programmes that fieldsports supporters would consider to be wholly fair to their views (such as BBC2's The Last Waterloo Cup, which was an outstanding piece of television).

Until the BBC gets a spine, we'll have to suffer ad breaks on commercial channels!

Alastair.