[VMPhil]

Was Parkinson one of the last programmes to go widescreen? I seem to recall something being said that Parkinson himself felt widescreen was less 'intimate' for interviewing. Is that true? A little research suggests it was 4:3 until it moved to ITV1.

I'm not sure it's ever been written down anywhere officially but the general consensus on TV Forum was that he personally disliked widescreen as it made close-up shots less intimate. In the BBC years it was made in a studio with cameras that were switchable between 4:3/widescreen, so certainly by 2004 when he did his last shows for the BBC it will have been a conscious decision to keep it 4:3.