Attenborough delivers warning to BBC

Broadcasting grandee Sir David Attenborough last night warned the BBC against squeezing out public service television by flooding the schedules with lifestyle shows and celebrity chefs.

In a heartfelt plea to regulators and the government to ignore proposals to "top slice" the BBC licence fee, he nevertheless admonished the broadcaster for chasing ratings and overloading the schedule with too many similar programmes. Attenborough joined the BBC in 1952 and was the founding controller of BBC2 before becoming synonymous with a long run of natural history shows including Planet Earth and The Living Planet.

He told an audience of broadcasters and industry figures in London: "There are times when BBC1 and BBC2, intoxicated by the sudden popularity of a programme genre, have allowed that genre to proliferate and run rampant through the schedules, with the result that other kinds of programmes are not placed - simply because of lack of space. Do we really require so many gardening programmes, makeover programmes, or celebrity chefs? Is it not a scandal, in this day and age, that that there seems to be no place for continuing series of programmes about science or serious music or thoughtful in-depth interviews with people other than politicians."

Attenborough, delivering a speech on the future of public service broadcasting as part of a series of lectures organised by the corporation as a contribution to media regulator Ofcom's review of the sector, said it was a "very, very sad" that the science show Tomorrow's World no longer had a place in the schedule. "If you want an informed society there has to be a basic understanding of science," he said.

The presenter, who this year said he would no longer travel the world to make programmes on location, warned the BBC against further cutting its internal production base. He lamented the demise of specialist BBC departments to produce programmes on archaeology and history, on the arts, on music and science that had suffered as a result of the requirement for a certain proportion of programmes to come from independent suppliers. "As they dwindled, so the critical mass of their production expertise has diminished," he said. "The continuity of their archives has been broken, they have lost the close touch they once had worldwide with their subjects, and they are no longer regarded as the centres of innovation and expertise they once were."

The BBC's internal specialist factual departments bore the brunt of cuts introduced by director general Mark Thompson to plug a claimed £2bn black hole in the wake of a below inflation licence fee settlement. He axed up to 1,800 jobs, many in programme-making departments. Thompson will argue he has already swung the axe on makeover and lifestyle programmes, declaring three years ago that the BBC would no longer make "copycat" shows. Director of television Jana Bennett said the BBC had a new science show in development.

Despite his concerns, Attenborough maintained the BBC was by far the best way to bring public service programming to large audiences. He voiced his support for the licence fee, saying the public was prepared to continue paying it in the same way as they funded libraries and swimming pools for the greater good. He rejected proposals to "top slice" the licence fee in order to fund strands of public service programming on rival commercial networks, one of the ideas floated this month by Ofcom.