Louis Theroux: Anxious TV bosses should stop playing it safe

Louis Theroux has said it's harder to get programmes made astir risky subjects due to the fact that broadcasters similar the BBC are present "playing it safe".

The presenter said his documentaries had often been astir "morally fraught" radical whose stories "made maine nervous".

But helium said broadcasters similar the BBC present had "a temptation to laic low" and were avoiding hard subjects for fearfulness of causing offence.

There is an "atmosphere of anxiety" successful the TV industry, helium suggested.

Theroux was giving the yearly keynote MacTaggart lecture astatine the Edinburgh TV Festival.

"I privation to instrumentality the hazard of going retired speaking to radical I profoundly disagree with and making documentaries astir them," helium said.

He recalled making his sanction by "investigating worlds viewed arsenic stigmatised oregon controversial", including the porn industry, the acold right, Nazis, gangs and intersexual predators.

"Often the stories made maine nervous. They felt risky," helium said.

"But it was besides existent that those shows that had existent motivation complexity to them were the ones that worked best.

"The little morally fraught episodes - the ones that were safer - haven't aged truthful well."

There has been a invited displacement successful mindset truthful broadcasters contiguous are "more thoughtful astir representation" and alert of "the request not to wantonly springiness offence", helium said. "I americium afloat signed up to that agenda.

"But I wonderment if determination is thing other going connected arsenic well. That the precise laudable aims of not giving offence person created an ambiance of anxiousness that sometimes leads to little confident, little morally analyzable film-making."

He added: "As a result, programmes astir extremists and enactment workers and paedophiles mightiness beryllium harder to get commissioned."

From his clip moving for the BBC, helium said helium could spot "all-too-well the no-win concern it often finds itself in".

The corporation, helium said, was "trying to expect the latest volleys of criticisms, stampeded by this oregon that involvement group, avoiding offence".

"Often the criticisms travel from its ain erstwhile employees, penning for privately owned newspapers whose proprietors would beryllium each excessively blessed to spot their contention eliminated.

"And truthful determination is simply a temptation to laic low, to play it safe, to debar the hard subjects.

"But successful avoiding those pinch points, the unresolved areas of civilization wherever our anxieties and our achy dilemmas lie, we aren't conscionable failing to bash our jobs, we are missing our top opportunities. For feeling. For figuring things retired successful a benign and thoughtful way. For expanding our thinking. For creating a national of connected souls.

"And what aft each is the alternative? Playing it safe? Following a formula? That whitethorn beryllium a way to occurrence for some. It ne'er worked for me."

He called for tv that is "confrontational, astonishing and upsetting", and urged producers: "Take risks. Sail adjacent to the wind."