Britain's Archaeological Outreach: "New Series About Artefact Hunting" on ITV

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Fourteen million quid of public money on outreach and CBA involvement is not wasted then:

"Britain's secret treasure", new series about metal detecting
coming in the late summer on ITV. 

 (Twitter feed from Hidden History Ltd @HiddenHistoryuk [http://Www.hiddenhistoryltd.com])

Meanwhile others think the programme signals that the BM needs help in keeping its records in order:

Greenlit: Britain’s Secret Treasure, ITV1   By TV Mole ⋅ April 1, 2012

Britain’s Secret Treasure (4 x 30′ + 2 x 60′) -  Michael Buerk and historian Bettany Hughes join forces to catalogue  some of the million objects handed in by the British public to the British Museum for safe keeping [...]

So all these artefact hunters are out there in the fields finding a million objects which never go into their own collections, or scrap bucket or onto eBay, but they are all "handed in" (for free?) "to the British Museum for safe keeping" so that we can all have access to them? That's nice of them. And what does the British Museum do with them?


This twitter feed shows a wide range of opinions on what the programme is about:
The CBA tries to explain:

mikeheyworth Mike Heyworth - Major archaeology show to run on ITV during the CBA Festival of British Archaeology with focus on knowledge from finds   http://t.co/YAPr44nr 03/26/2012

 Meanwhile the metal detectorists are sure it is going to show artefact collecting in a good light:

thesearchermag The Searcher - Britain's Secret Treasures show judges the merits of antiquities discovered in the UK in last 15 years http://t.co/5PeKlAWU   03/26/2012

 maxineloader Maxine Loader @Historyandlife http://t.co/5WF2IFzD - Read this and note the bit that says "Most were found by amateurs using metal detectors"! (hint hint) 03/26/2012

Others seem guided by the 'talent show' presentation:

jlrivard Jean-Louis Rivard TV treasure hunt show to pick Britain's most important archaeological find - http://t.co/Cgd0DSvi #archaeology   04/04/2012

sotaterra Sota terra -  Britain's Secret Treasures: un programa que es preguntarà quina és la descoberta arqueològica britànica més important http://t.co/szu8AO69  03/27/2012

While others still are not fooled one bit:

crumbolina Pippa Shawley - Another stupid treasure-hunting tv programme masquerading as archaeology http://t.co/sXp5TB4K via @mediaguardian   03/26/2012

gwuarchaeology GWU Archaeology - Yet another show glorifying treasure hunting... http://t.co/xUbmWu8S http://t.co/Sh99vrdr  03/27/2012

medievalcombats Medieval Combat# - Heritage reduced to a #beauty contest? #Shame http://t.co/amooRbu9 42 days ago

 museumsecurity Ton Cremers - TV treasure hunt show to pick Britain's most important archaeological find - http://t.co/yqBerXJC    42 days ago

It is notable that many other tweeters here seem to think the programme will deal with the "most important archaeological finds in the past 15 years" as if there were no professional archaeology going on at all in Britain and the Portable Antiquities Scheme is all there is. Possibly that is the way things are going of course. who needs more expensive excavations is all we need to get "lottsa knowledge" about the past is a heap of finds hoiked out of the ground with a metal detector?

Is it naive to hope that  public misunderstandings about portable antiquity collecting issues in Britain will be resolved by the airing of this programme? Or will it only do a great deal to increase them?