BBC denies 'sneering' Book Night claims

The BBC has asserted its commitment to supporting genre fiction after a group of authors criticised the "sneering tone" of BBC Two's World Book Night programmes.

Earlier this week, a group of authors led by fantasy writer Stephen Hunt sent a letter to BBC director general Mark Thompson complaining about the portrayal of commercial fiction in The Books We Really Read: A Culture Show Special and New Novelists: 12 Of The Best, both aired on March 5.

Hunt said that the "sneering tone" levelled at genre fiction was "deeply counterproductive to the night's aims of actually encouraging people to read novels".

He said that bias shown towards a single sub-genre of literary fiction was "unbalanced and unrepresentative of all but a small fraction of the country's reading tastes", while the coverage of horror, fantasy, and science fiction was "a disgrace".

According to The Guardian, the BBC said yesterday that it was "absolutely committed to celebrating books in all their forms", giving the example of Mark Gatiss's adaptation of HG Wells's Man On The Moon, which aired on BBC Four last October.

The corporation said that sci-fi will continue to be represented in its output, including a feature on the genre in a forthcoming Review Show book season this summer. Next month, Mark Kermode will also report on the British Library's new science fiction exhibition for The Culture Show.

A BBC spokesperson said: "The BBC is committed to delivering a broad range of books programmes across radio and television, from The Books People Really Read, an irreverent but enthusiastic authored film, to The Culture Show's forthcoming science fiction coverage in May and a new Book Review Show later in the year."

In his letter, Hunt called on the BBC to really show its commitment to commercial fiction by producing a literary version of Film 2011, or commissioning a modern take on the Bookworm show presented by Griff Rhys Jones in the 1990s.

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