Fraud on TV: the Reith principles and watching British public service broadcasting

This paper considers depictions of fraud in British true crime television programmes and focuses on 3 BBC programmes from the period 2019-2023: For Love or Money; Scam Interceptors; and Fraud Squad. We question if there is a pedagogical structure to the narratives of the programmes. Our analysis is attentive to the lasting influence of British Public Service Broadcasting traditions and the influence of the BBC’s Reith principles. The data emerging from our analysis reveals the tensions that emerge from the programmes’ stylistic attempts to remain attentive to the earliest aims of the BBC and Public Service Broadcasting. The paper argues that the 3 programmes present issues concerning fraud through the BBC’s overarching mission to inform, educate and entertain.

Citation

Spiller, K., Bull, S., Hanoch, Y. and Flint, O. (in press) Fraud on TV: the Reith principles and watching British public service broadcasting. Crime, Media, Culture.

Type

Journal article

Language

en

Description

This is an author's accepted manuscript of an article published on 05/11/2025 by SAGE in Crime, Media, Culture, available online at: https://doi.org/10.1177/17416590251384590. The accepted manuscript may differ from the final published version.

ISSN

1741-6590

EISSN

1741-6604

Collections

Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Sciences