Reader TTS

It feels like the end of an era. In February André Previn died. In March, Daniel Johnson revealed in a deeply moving article in _Standpoint _that his father, Paul, was suffering from

Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia. In July, Bryan Magee died. Recently both George Steiner and James Lovelock have celebrated major birthdays, Steiner turning ninety and Lovelock reaching a

hundred.  All were well-known figures in the 1960s and 1970s. André Previn became Principal Conductor of the LSO from 1968-79 and became a familiar figure on the BBC, with _André__ Previn’s

Music Night_ and, most famously, _The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show_ in 1971 and 1972.  Paul Johnson was editor of _The New Statesman_ in the 1960s, turned to the Right in the mid-1970s,

and from 1981-2009 wrote a column for _The Spectator_. For nearly fifty years he has been a prolific and wide-ranging historian, writing his first six history books already in the 1970s, on

subjects from ancient history to Elizabeth I.  Bryan Magee published books on _Modern British Philosophy _and _Karl Popper _in the early 1970s, but is still best known for his seminal BBC

series, _Men of Ideas,_ broadcast in 1978.  Steiner burst upon the scene with his first two books, _Tolstoy or Dostoevsky _(1959) and _The Death of Tragedy _(1961), but it was his collection

of essays, _Language and Silence _(1967, published in paperback in 1969) which made his name as a provocative thinker. He helped open British culture to continental thinkers, such as

Benjamin and Adorno, and to debates about the cultural impact of the Holocaust.  James Lovelock became a household name with his first book, _Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth _in 1979, the

first of more than a dozen books published over the past forty years.  What these figures have in common is that they were not only highly talented but also tremendous popularisers. Whether

it was classical music or philosophy, literary criticism, history or science, they reached out to a large audience with bestselling books and TV appearances.  They were part of a larger

cultural moment when well-known conductors or critics started to appear on television, especially the BBC, or in mainstream weekly magazines like _The New Statesman, The Spectator _and _The

Listener_. It is no coincidence that Lovelock first wrote about his Gaia hypothesis for a mainstream audience in an article, “The Quest for Gaia” in _The New Scientist _(1975).  These

figures wrote accessibly and reached out for large new audiences. Steiner wasn’t published by a university press until the mid-1970s. His first six books were published by Faber or Penguin.

He appeared regularly on TV during the 1970s (when he gave the first Bronowski Lecture, named after another famous populariser), 1980s and 1990s. Johnson wrote more than fifty books, many of

them for Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Previn received eleven Academy Award nominations for film soundtracks and recorded dozens of jazz records as well as classical music.  Will we see their

like again? We will doubtless hear future generations of scientists and cultural figures on radio programmes like _The Life Scientific _(where Lovelock appeared in 2012), _Start the Week_

and  _Desert Island Discs_. On television? Less likely. BBC and Channel 4, once regular homes to a generation of major cultural figures and intellectuals, have dumbed down and will continue

to do so in the battle for survival with Netflix, Amazon Prime and other subscription channels. A _Guardian _article this week, on the rise of homes who subscribe to channels like Netflix,

talked about _Love Island _and_ Bodyguard, _not _The Bronowski Lecture _or music programmes with Sir Simon Rattle, as the future for the BBC and ITV.  Bryan Magee’s last major TV appearances

were in the mid-1980s, with three series of _Thinking Aloud _(1984-86) and _The Great Philosophers _(1987). George Steiner’s TV heyday was between his TV adaptation of _After Babel _(1977)

and a number of eloquent appearances on BBC 2’s _The Late Show _(1991-95). Paul Johnson was a regular on _What the Papers Say _(ITV), which stopped in 2008. None of these programmes have any

obvious successors on British television. _ _ These figures are the last of an admirable generation who brought history, philosophy, literature, classical music and science to a mainstream

audience, far beyond the lecture room. It feels like the passing of a golden age.