OK, I should have clarified. No, I haven't learned about Britain "just" by watching the royals, but when you click on links to articles in the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, etc., you read comments posted by people living in Britain and see links to other stories about Britain. You get a "feel" for how people think and behave there, even if it's just a selection of them and a biased media reporting.
Britain is not full of the sort of thing that makes the paper, as I am sure you must realise, that would equate, IMO, to watching Jerry Springer and basing my opinion of all Americans on his 'guests'. The majority of people here do not ever make the papers nor do they comment on them.
Sometimes I think you believe you speak for the "average" British person, and I'm sure you are very well-qualified to speak about your own country and the people there. But I've also found many opinions in other places where royalty is discussed that differ from yours. And that's what I've found interesting in reading this forum and the news articles posted here--getting a sense of the different perspectives that exist in England/Great Britain.
It is always a mistake to think you know what another believes, I am English/Scottish as were my ancestors and I do come into contact with a great many ordinary British citizens, from all walks of life, but 'speaking for the 'average' British person would be a difficult thing to do for me. I have never been in employment, have never been in danger of losing my home, never lived on a council estate, I think it fair to say I have never lived the life of an ordinary British person, but neither has Sarah! If you are basing your view on reading 'other places where royalty is discussed', without personal knowledge, you have no way to ascertain where they live and whether their opinion is truly someone who lives in the country, they could be in Trinidad, Germany, Cyprus and you would never know. I too read other royalty forums and it is amazing the amount of posters from here who post under different names.
....... I would have no clue that there was such a place called Wythenshawe or that those kind of conditions existed there if Sarah's name hadn't attracted my interest.
And this will help the people on this estate how? Does it not hold them up as a less than wonderful example, far worse than any other estate. In fact it might not be the best place to live but it is pretty safe compared to some of the estates in Liverpool or any of the other well publicised 'bad' estates.
And TV programmes don't air unless the producers think there's an audience for them. Clearly, not everyone in Britain is changing the channel the minute they see Sarah on their screens, otherwise the producers of her first "reality show" last summer wouldn't have said, "We had favourable reaction and are going to do another program."
These are the gems from Sarah -
“Young people go out with their mobile telephones and their knives now. I’ve noticed a lot more violence, I’ve noticed bad language,” she reflects.
“Literally, you can’t get some young people to do joined up writing, let alone joined up sentences,” adds Prince Andrew’s ex-wife.
Go into any town centre and you will hear bad language and unless her programme is going to improve the education system of the country, I'm afraid it is not going to help with the 'joined up writing' either. She's noticed... how many town centres has she been into then?
Or how about
You can’t possibly help people if you don’t know what it’s like.
True but staying in a decent B&B is not going to give her any idea of what it is really like is it? In the same way that although I advise people who have various problems, they are probably not problems I have ever lived through myself, therefore how could I possibly know what 'it's like'?
Programme makers put a great many efforts into circulation and the viewing figures normally tell whether it was a popular programme but it doesn't really matter whether a UK audience is disinterested, they know they can sell it to the Americans!