It was once the happy home of fun and frivolous chat. But daytime TV is now a tabloid-stoked talking shop for extreme views and culture-war narratives. We dissect the rise of conflict TV
‘Should protesting be banned?” It’s not the type of debate you might expect on the ITV lunchtime chatshow Loose Women, but that’s what we got recently, when the show’s social media account casually asked viewers for their thoughts on de facto martial law. The call-out was in response to a Just Stop Oil protest disrupting the World Snooker Championship by covering a table with orange chalk, as well as animal rights protesters being arrested at the Grand National.
The show’s embarrassing Twitter poll sparked quite a reaction, with almost 100% of respondents voting no, before it was hastily deleted. On the programme a few hours later, the question was rephrased to “Do disruptive protests work?” and, notably, the results of the poll were not read out, as would have been normal. Can’t think why.
