Jonathan Meades: 'I find everything fascinating and that is a gift' theguardian.com · Originally posted on Pinboard

Does the BBC treasure him? Does it understand the talent it has in its possession? "I don't really think so, no. They don't always say yes. If I say I want to do four hours about brutalism, they'll give me two. The last film we had to do in just 19 days. You can't do any fancy set-ups: no cranes, no dollies. It's not slavery, obviously, but it's much more difficult than it used to be. My subjects are regarded as minoritarian and that's a self-fulfilling prophecy. On BBC2, I used to get 2.5 million to 3 million viewers; now I get a tenth of that on BBC4."