Sir David Attenborough: 'CGI confuses TV viewers'

Sir David Attenborough has warned that the use of computer-generated imagery (CGI) on TV science documentaries has the potential to confuse viewers about what is actually real.

Giving evidence to a House of Lords select committee, Attenborough expressed his "misgivings" over CGI sequences in Inside The Human Body, a new series aired on BBC One last week.

"If I wanted to show a fish from the abyss that nobody's ever seen alive, but they fished it out and put it in a tank with coral or something but it's dead, it's not difficult now to use a computer to make it waggle its fins. That's false, but it's also true," said the 85-year-old.

"The problem comes when you overstep the mark and put in something that isn't true. With modelling by computers, if you wanted to confuse the audience, you've got more ways than ever before. I had some misgivings about the Inside The Human Body programme. I did think, 'I don't know where we are with that'."

The natural history broadcaster said that the solution would not be as simple as putting a "red spot" on the screen to indicate a digital reconstruction.

"If you've got to put a red spot on everything, spots would be coming and going, then there would be half spots," he said.

"I think it's a very real problem. If you wanted to confuse an audience there are more convincing ways of doing it than ever in history."

Attenborough also told the committee that the BBC should give a greater platform to "oddball" opinions which challenge mainstream thinking.

"One of the things the BBC has lost - for safety-first reasons, perhaps - is for cranky, oddball and eccentric viewers to have a platform of some sort," he said.

When he was director of BBC programmes in the late 1960s, Attenborough commissioned One Pair Of Eyes, a series giving a voice to non-orthodox views. But he conceded that a similar programme today might just provide a platform to a lot of eccentrics.

He further said that the BBC's flagship channels "don't have the personality they used to", largely because of a "laborious" commissioning process. He feels that channel controllers are now hamstrung by market-testing for new shows at the BBC executive level.

Attenborough gave evidence to the committee alongside fellow BBC presenter, professor Brian Cox, who called on the corporation to show bias towards "scientific consensus" on issues such as climate change and be more bold with its approach.

Cox added: "I would like to see it more on the front foot. The way it delivers the best possible programming is not to be scared to make quite serious mistakes and make many mistakes because that's the way it comes a creative organisation. I would like to see it more confident."