He was, in many ways, the godfather of so-called reality TV, and now he's appalled at the modern development of the genre he launched with his 1974 fly-on-the- wall series The Family. Paul Watson has since been responsible for many fine documentaries, an achievement which won him a special Bafta award last weekend. He used his thank-you slot to hit out at what he termed the bullying and sneering culture of so much that passes as mainstream entertainment. He is not alone in believing that TV has taken an unsavoury route to ratings success with programmes in which a core ingredient is the ritual humiliation of the participants.

He was, in many ways, the godfather of so-called reality TV, and now he's appalled at the modern development of the genre he launched with his 1974 fly-on-the- wall series The Family. Paul Watson has since been responsible for many fine documentaries, an achievement which won him a special Bafta award last weekend. He used his thank-you slot to hit out at what he termed the bullying and sneering culture of so much that passes as mainstream entertainment. He is not alone in believing that TV has taken an unsavoury route to ratings success with programmes in which a core ingredient is the ritual humiliation of the participants.

Jenny Biancardi is the chair of a new campaign group called Impact which aims to voice the concerns of therapists, social workers, teachers and police officers, among others, who worry that this form of televised aggression lends a spurious legitimacy to the brand of bullying that distresses so many young children.

In essence, Biancardi, a grandmother and psychotherapist who has worked extensively in the field of post-traumatic stress, believes that very many of these programmes desensitise us all to the effect of bullying, that they make us less sympathetic to others, and foster the kind of cruelty and aggression which is the stock-in-trade of the school bully. Worse still, she argues, programmes such as The Apprentice suggest it is normal to be rewarded for accentuating the negative, for laughing at others' mistakes and being manipulative to a fault. Also in the campaign's sights are productions such as those starring celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay in which "encouragement" is ritualised hectoring of and swearing at aspiring cooks and restaurant owners.

But when you start to examine the development of popular programming there is more than an undercurrent of cruelty even in the early-evening family slots. Think of The Weakest Link, where Anne Robinson now regularly steps well over the line between acceptable banter and personal insult.

Contestants who are older, or fatter or lacking in what Robinson considers acceptable dress sense are constantly humiliated. As Biancardi rightly suggests, many people will excuse this on the grounds that the contestants put themselves forward in the full knowledge of the programme's house style. Her response is that this hardly excuses the kind of broadcasting that "institutionalises and normalises treating people badly and behaving without respect or concern for others".

Clearly, Anne Robinson's stock-in-trade as the tea-time dominatrix would cease to work if she came over all cuddly, but what started out as mild joshing has now become deeply offensive. It may be that as the viewers' shock thresholds are consistently raised, TV hosts feel they have to up the rudeness ante. You can see that same vein of careless cruelty within formats where judging panels are employed to determine the performance in such as Strictly Come Dancing and Pop Idol. The longer these series progress, the more the juries feel compelled to ensure a reaction by going way over the top in their criticisms.

Does any of this really matter in terms of reality TV spilling over into real life? Ask the police who are shocked at the fashion for using mobile phones to photograph people being attacked in the street in order to provide communal entertainment for the muggers' friends. Ask the parents of children who have self-harmed or worse because of systematic school bullying. Bullying is a huge issue for children who contact helplines in fear and despair.

The danger is caused by creating a culture in which the tormenting of the most vulnerable is considered the acceptable norm. Many children indulge in bullying behaviour, not because they are intrinsically bad but because of pressure to conform to a playground pattern dictated by those who take pleasure from taunting and embarrassing others. It's a culture, too, in which people become reluctant to admit to feeling wounded or embarrassed because that would be tantamount to displaying weakness and in this parallel world the meek don't inherit the earth, just further humiliation.

So entrenched has become the notion that "reality" TV is the future as well as the present that it strayed into the children's TV schedules and one Saturday morning show included a segment where the reactions of kids to being duped and tricked by their "friends" were filmed. You could argue that is a relatively harmless junior offshoot of such as You've Been Framed or you could wonder at the paucity of production values which results in elderly ideas being recycled. Watch kids on other popular programmes where they're encouraged to nurture animals or connect with less-fortunate communities and you see their natural caring instincts blossom. Encouraging these, rather than breeding bullies and creating victims, is surely no more than enlightened self-interest.