Expect to see more of this sort of story in years to come, illustrating our (human? Western? European? British? (not just pedantry, it matters!!)) propensity to dramatise change in terms of ending, disaster. Key quote = “New research shows that the era when television was the cultural glue that held the nation together appears to be at an end.” WTF? This reads like undigested Press Release, which is maybe what it is doing in an otherwise factual (ok, not really, since figures are never facts) piece. Why shouldn’t it be here? Well: a) what nation?; b) what evidence is there that TV ‘held the nation together’? (especially since the era of TV is also the era of decline of ‘Britain’ and British ‘identity’); c) what evidence tha the nation will now fall apart (or is there another type of glue slipping into place?); d) clearly without the media (inc journalists) to hold us together, there would be no cultural glue? Yeah, right. In fact the more I think about this the angrier I get, so I’ll stop.