A nice tribute from Peter Bradshaw. I agree with the assessment but I want to add a couple of things to this section:
Peter Bradshaw wrote:
Did British TV audiences have to be treated to a top 10 countdown of what was doing well at the US box office? When he quit, he went briefly to Sky but, unlike America’s Roger Ebert, never mastered the new digital world of social media to keep his opinions available; he preferred a conventional retirement – but it was a bit of a shame.
I'd argue that UK audiences at the time
did need that US box office countdown, especially in pre-internet times where that information was scarce and there was a frisson of excitement in seeing an 'early' trailer for a film that would be arriving in the UK three to six months later. It might not have been of practical use, but it helped to feel more in touch with what was going on at the moment rather than always playing catch up!
Barry Norman didn't really master social media, but he did have a regular job doing a weekly review in the 'old media' - the film section of the BBC's Radio Times television listings magazine. He might not have been the most adventurous type but as times moved on he ended up almost by accident championing 'classic' (i.e. black and white) films in a way that nobody else was in a position to, and giving a push to a curious viewer to look into a screening. Looking back over the last few weeks of articles, he did a piece on a showing of I'm All Right Jack (on that Talking Pictures TV channel) and The Blue Lamp (on TCM). They're not particularly deep, and its true that he never really wrote about any particularly obscure film, but I'd argue that he still performed a much appreciated job of keeping those films alive and talked about in a mainstream publication.