Carol Vorderman has said the TV industry is full of “snobbery” and no longer reflects British society, as she accused it of not reaching working class viewers. The former Countdown star, 63, delivered the Alternative MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival on Friday. She described herself as having been on thousands of shows over decades, “sacked by the BBC – twice – pain in the arse, lover of parties, post-menopausal”, and said she was standing “in anger and without apology” at the media event.
Vorderman said: “Our industry is an industry of snobbery – regional snobbery, class snobbery and educational snobbery – and don’t even get me started on the political issues.” The maths expert, who grew up in poverty in Wales , said “working class people feel they are not represented, their situation is not represented, the lack of opportunities and lack of money and jobs is not represented”. She says working class people have increasingly turned to social media.
Vorderman said: “Social media – no longer the new kid, more like the badly behaved uncle – has changed our society and its rules, and it is decimating our industry as we know it. And with good reason. “What it gives everyone, in towns and cities outside the wealthy South East, the opportunity to do, is to see and hear views they recognise, in language they recognise.
“No longer is there the need to go through the filter of a producer, or a commissioning editor, or someone who ha.