There will have been some gnashing of teeth at the HQ of the Country Landowner’s Association (CLA), when the news filtered through of the BBC’s plan to exploit the popularity of its Countryfile programme by launching a live version in the form of a new country show. Distress at the CLA is unlikely to have been occasioned by the actual news of the launch and more by learning of the proposed venue and timing – Blenheim Palace in the first the week of August 2016.
Although the CLA’s 2016 Game Fair (which goes to Blenheim every 4 years) is scheduled to take place at Ragley Hall, the fact is that the Blenheim venue always secures the Game Fair’s biggest audience and the timing of Countryfile Live, just a week after the Game Fair, means that the Association is going to face strong competition both for exhibitors and visitors. The most intriguing aspect of the two going head-to-head is exactly how the BBC’s show organisers, a London based company called SME, will pitch the event to those of the Game Fair exhibitors with their feet squarely planted in the fieldsports community or indeed if they will pitch to them at all. As readers of this column will be aware, Countryfile has frequently been accused of adopting an anti-fieldsports stance and of sanitising important countryside issues in its output. It may well be that this attitude is carried over to its show planning; indeed early indications are that this may prove to be the case.
Although the organisers say that they are still in the consultative phase where the final content is concerned, they have confirmed that at least one feature will be the unveiling of the world’s biggest ice cream parlour. Not, perhaps, quite the thing to draw in the typical Game Fair visitor. Still, any show that purports to reflect and celebrate life in the British countryside, can only deliver on that promise by acknowledging the large number of its inhabitants who shoot, fish and hunt in it. The exhibition organisers are working in collaboration with the BBC’s programme makers based in Bristol and it would be fascinating to be a fly on the wall when, for example, the question comes up of whether or not BASC or the Countryside Alliance should be invited to participate.