Disappointed to find further proof that the BBC appears intent on shifting the ethos of its venerable, world-leading nature programming into a more diluted form. Having watched various wildlife documentaries- and I use the term ‘documentary’ loosely in some cases- on the BBC over the past year, I sensed the productions were moving away from the educational, informative, scientific approach adopted by Sir David Attenborough. Reading a recent article from the Daily Telegraph confirms what I had feared- that the corporation’s new breed of presenter and management will continue to ‘dumb down’ the viewing experience of animal enthusiasts in the pursuit of mass appeal and viewing figures. It baffles me as to why they would want to tamper with the corporation’s flagship, pioneering expertise that over decades has become the envy of the world.

Their Natural History Unit has already indicated they will be championing a more varied group of presenters to take the place of Attenborough, instead of one figurehead. Now, I don’t have a problem with that principle. After all, how can you fill his shoes? The answer is, you can’t. He is irreplaceable. However, I take issue with the fact that the new presenters seem to lack substance, and in the case of Lucy Cooke, who is due to become one of the regular new presenters, refuses to embrace the mildly scientific style which has made the documentaries so interesting and engaging. There also seems to be an increasing number of celebrity fronted wildlife programmes, where they clearly have no idea what they’re talking about and feign interest in the most contrived ways, while talking to the viewer like they were a primary school pupil. Who wants to see Richard Hammond pretending to be a Zoologist?

From memory, they tried that a couple of years ago on the African Savannah and it was a disaster; the line between entertainment and education was well and truly blurred, and that’s being polite. Cooke, an Oxford University Zoology graduate has said she would like to bring some humour and entertainment to her role- great for a game-show, not so appropriate for a nature documentary. She is also quoted as saying that she hopes that using humour will “sugar coat the bitter pill” of her conservation message. I don’t understand how sugar-coating the message will be effective. Surely showing the harsh reality of the current conservation situation would hit home a bit more? I’d like to see her put an amusing spin on the fact that 558 Rhinos have already been killed in South Africa alone this year, or the fact that during the first five years of the new millennium, Borneo lost 673 hectares of its rainforest every day.

I just hope that in trying to freshen things up, the BBC doesn’t alienate the very people who are the core, loyal audience for such programming. Wildlife film-making should be all about the wildlife and learning, not the presenter. It should allow you to enter their world for an hour and become completely absorbed in it, not switching back to the presenter every five seconds as they cradle a koala bear or point in histrionics at a lion. I hope I’m proved wrong, and the BBC’s long tradition of fascinating and inspirational wildlife documentary film-making continues; but I fear we have reached the end of an era, and the new one is going to nourish populism, not the brain.