No-one ever said accent was the only issue in the growth of television but I suppose that it brought ordinary people into public view in a way that the cinema never did (only those strangely cheerful wartime newsreels).

Its funny how people seem willing to do (almost) anything to appear on television. We probably learnt more about the kind of words real people use and how they speak from "vox pop" television than any other form of media. Television drama (and other drama in its wake) became able to be more naturalistic as people became accustomed to seeing ordinary people on television.