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Adam Gopnik: Long-Form Television

Adam Gopnik reflects on the reason for our obsession with long-form television series and sees a link to the current brevity of all our other forms of discourse.

Adam Gopnik reflects on the reason for our obsession with long - form television series and sees a link to the current brevity of all our other forms of discourse.
"As communication, public and political and spiritual, becomes ever more condensed - as newspapers close and are replaced exclusively with Instagram feeds, as texting becomes ever more enciphered and as the demotic slang of teens, which we will all speak sooner or later, becomes ever more abbreviated then we can expect, or dread, ever longer compensatory popular narratives."
Producer: Sheila Cook.

Available now

10 minutes

Last on

Sun 9 Aug 201508:48

A Point of View: How much longer can sprawling TV box sets get?

A Point of View: How much longer can sprawling TV box sets get?

The current popularity of long-form television is at odds with modern society's notoriously short attention span. Is there a limit to viewers' patience, asks Adam Gopnik.

Read Adam Gopnik's article on the BBC News website

Credits

RoleContributor
PresenterAdam Gopnik
ProducerSheila Cook

Broadcasts

  • Fri 7 Aug 201520:50
  • Sun 9 Aug 201508:48

Podcast