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TV and leisure
It can’t simply be a product of the awful weather that current TV schedules are packed with shows on Britain’s great outdoors and outdoor activity - Coast, Mountain, Great British Journeys, Robbie Coltrane’s B-Road Britain, Britain’s Favourite View, Wainwright’s Walks, to name but a few.
This weekend, viewers in Scotland will be see a six hour live broadcast of the Great Climb in the Cairngorms (the rest of the UK will see only highlights).
And these programmes are racking up the audiences – BBC’s Mountain and ITV’s Britain’s Favourite View both attracted almost five million viewers.
Are these programmes good adverts for our industry, for healthy living, and some of the great leisure opportunities available? They concern and present not only our landscape and natural history, but also what to see in Britain, where to go and when. But - are they having the opposite effect? Are the TV moguls just generating more bottoms on sofas?
If tourism and sightseeing were to become a TV remote activity, there are potentially huge implications for our industry across all sectors; visitor numbers down in parks, leisure centres and attractions - with the hospitality and catering sector also feeling the associated pinch.
Equally, with “virtual” activity becoming more “virtuous” and more popular, and people becoming less and less active, sport and recreation would be affected. The uptake of that mantra of 30 minutes of moderate exercise five times a week to maintain a healthy lifestyle may well become a dim and distant hope.
What’s your answer? Is this scaremongering or prophesy? What are we doing, in the industry, across all our sectors, to persuade the inactive population to get up and out and enjoy leisure properly?
Let us have your views, and news of your successful leisure programmes to [email protected]
Photograph: www.istock.com / Alex Slobodkin
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