Wogan: 'TV was better 50 years ago'

Sir Terry Wogan has complained about the current state of television, claiming that programmes were better 50 years ago.

The 70-year-old broadcaster admitted that he is unhappy over the number of talk shows and reality programmes in the schedules - as well as the public appetite for them.

Wogan told the Sunday Mirror: "Television has changed. It's not what it was like 50 years ago. Light entertainment is no longer the expensive quality that it used to be. It's all quiz games, reality TV and talk shows.

"Talk shows these days are just cheap TV. In the same way that reality TV is cheap television that humiliates people.

"There's no point saying there can't be any humiliation, because the public seem to respond to it, it seems to be something they want. But then again the public liked mass executions as well, but we don't do those any more. To be honest, I don't know where we go from here."

Wogan also singled out celebrity chefs Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay for criticism, attacking their use of bad language on screen.

"I see people like Jamie Oliver use the F-word in an attempt to achieve what I think he assumes to be credibility and I think it's reprehensible and demeaning," he explained. "And in terms of someone like Gordon Ramsay it's ultimately self-defeating."

The veteran TV star will soon appear in a new series of his Channel 4 gameshow Wogan's Perfect Recall, which launched last year.