Entertainment For Lively Minds
BBC to close all the bits we like (probably)*
The dear old corporation seems always to be in a tumult and now they seen to want to cut back on digital channels after the big digital switchover WTF!! http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/26/bbc-digital-services-cut-tho...
They do seem to have plan but 6 music, BBC4, BBC3 seem to in the firing line. I think the logic is that as people watch more stuff on I-Player the idea of channels is pointless.
Strangely parliament tv will be kept but not the only channel in UK that regularly makes documentaries and programmes about the only art form these wet and windy isles can claim any sort international success in POP MUSIC.
Of course we all have our favourites but keeping BBC1 going with it's endless diet of bad talent shows, badly made police dramas about autopsies, dreadful soaps and weak comedies wouldn't get my vote.
One last thing the BBC would build its support from the people who pay for it that bit more if they started to use language we can understand. Look at the title of the jobs of top salary holders released recently . Most of them fail the "elderly relative at funeral job test" ie how long it takes to take explain to a bright but deaf aunty over the ham sandwiches and stewed tea what exactly you do, "Director of Rewards" anyone.
Oh and most of Mark Thompson's speech is seemingly random business talk. So keep making documentaries about dodgy folk rock bands, make us laugh and occasionally cry and stop calling everything a "platform".
*I know we'll have a endless list of people who claim never to watch anything , or actively hate BBC3 and 6music well I used a broad brush get over it. Oh and BBC3 is great because it shows Family Guy, DR Who and Spooks.
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BBC4
Probably the only channel that we regularly watch stuff on as family together.
Until there is an easy and above all, cheap and accessible, way to stream iPlayer from the PC/Mac to a big TV and the national broadband capacity to handle mass market consumption - that mass market will not take up the use of the iPlayer. Unless Sky get hold of it!
Isn't I-player on a lot of people's
BT packages?
There is a cheap accessible way
to watch the iplayer on TV. It's called Virgin TV and comes through a cable. (I've never ever watched iPlayer or other on demand service on a computer - what's the point?). You either buy it as a top up to your existing Virgin TV package, or it comes as part of the top package.
You get on demand services from the BBC/ITV/Channel 4 and some of the other channels, plus you can watch various HBO/Warners/Comedy Central etc series
I don't work for Virgin btw, it just really annoys me that if Murdoch doesn't do it the assumption is that it can't be done
What's Virgin's market share nowadays?
I'd assume sub 10% last time I looked and lagging behind Freeview, Terrestrial and Sky by a HUGE amount.
Nowhere near mass market. Of course, Virgin could potentially use this as battle tool in the ongoing war/rapproachment with Sky...
Virgin's share
As a Virgin customer by default (I was with TeleWest before it got taken over) I'm surprised it's that big.
We are seriously thinking of ditching them for their hopeless incompetence.
I'll leave it at that; the alternative being possibly the longest post ever seen on this blog. I have also had a moanette about them elswhere on this blog.
Virgin Media
Now you've started me off! Spent 5 weeks of 'Carry on Virgin', arguing with to call centres, waiting for engineers that didn't arrive, dealing with Bill & Ted technicians... Wrote complaint letters to all and sundry, including their Chief Customer & Operations Officer in NY (no reply). Finally got action via their Twitter team, of all places. But we cant have a satellite dish on the building so I think we're stuck with them.
Ahem. Sorry, rant over. As you were.
Virgin cable, phone and broadband here
since we moved in in September - no complaints so far. Super fast internet. Made me realise what sh1te the BT package was.
VM
I also find their customer service to be as much of an oxymoron as military intelligence - their dispute with Sky was just retarded (I still haven't caught up on Battlestar Galactica). However the basic service is fine (if not cheap). I did look at moving to Sky but that requires a BT phone line which would cost me £150 to install because there has never been a BT line in the house (that box in the hall with BT stamped on it? Nothing to do with them. Nor the cable from the house to the BT pole. Not theirs. Really.)
If you have t'internet and a Wii you can get i-player through the Wii box (free app to download). Haven't tried it yet.
What proportion of the country is cabled up?
I don't think there's a cable within 20 miles of me!
Us too. No cable to the home likely here for decades.
There's a conduit owned by Colt running through the village with oojamabytes of cable capacity in it, but it surfaced in Pembroke and it ain't stopping until it gets to the smoke. It runs right past one of our fields...
Just think what I could do with the mini-JCB.
OoooooOOOO...
You *know* you want to... Would only take an hour with a mini-digger
Virgin & BT
both have a SELECTION of iPlayer stuff. It's mostly middle of the road balls, rather than the latest BBC4 folk documentary.
also why should you pay extra for something you've
already paid for?
According to wikipedia
Virgin TV has 3.6m customers compared to 8.2m for Sky, and approximately 33% of all iPlayer viewings are through Virgin. As it's wikipedia the figures must be taken with a pinch of salt, and regardless of the quality of Virgin's customer service (which I agree can be appalling), my basic point is that you can access on demand services through your TV already.
And I've yet to find a BBC programme that's available online but not on the Virgin on demand service - the only difference seems to be that programmes aren't available until 2 hours or more after broadcast on Virgin, whereas it's available pretty much straightaway on the web.
Virgin TV have the full
Virgin TV have the full iPlayer service which forms part of their free "Catch Up" service, along with ITV Player, 4OD and similar set ups for some other channels. This is free with all Virgin tv packages as far as I know. It's been in place since 2005.
The "selection" you mention are probably the extra shows Virgin have on their Virgin "TV On Demand" service, which are full series of stuff like Fringe, Sopranos, Peep Show, Doctor Who, Spooks, The Wire, Curb... etc. As a service this is charged at an extra £5 per month or free on the top tv package. BT Vision do a similar thing.
I've been a customer of Virgin Media and their predecessors for some years now and think they offer a decent service. Their V+ box is better than Sky+ (they were the first to bring out an HD box, it can record two channels while still watching a third, etc), the on demand stuff is very comprehensive and their broadband is very reliable.
I've not had many problems with their customer service (the many many mergers of cable companies over the past 10 years cannot have helped) and remain an advocate. I don't work for them but get a bit annoyed when Murdoch, Sky, BT VIsion etc are used as the industry standard terms for these services when there are (I feel) better alternatives available.
They've just released an iPlayer channel on the Wii.
It's very well designed and the quality is pretty good. I think it'll certainly change how I watch things now I can use iPlayer in my living room :D
iplayer on wii
We've got this and its good that you can watch programmes on your big telly in the living room rather on a pc - trouble is picture quality isn't as good as if it is broadcast & also if it cant find a programme - you get an error and iplayer locks up!
BBC4 meets BBC2
...and is combined into one great channel, in an ideal world. I'd be more than happy with that. I never watch BBC3.
BBC 6 Music
I listen to BBC 6 Music a lot , i'd be very sad to see it go.
I'd be interested to know
I'd be interested to know how many 'millions' it costs to run 6Music. Surely it can't be that much. Didn't they used to say that the whole of the world service costed less than one episode of a cotume drama (or something).
Er
I don't think so. It was probably the "or something". And the World Service is paid for by the Foreign Office.
BBC costs
A little while ago there was a posting on the Times Labs blog, analysing the costs of the various BBC services (http://labs.timesonline.co.uk/blog/2009/09/24/how-much-do-bbc-services-r...).
Apparently BBC4 is the most expensive TV channel, at just over 53p per viewer, per hour broadcast. 6 Music is the not the most expensive digital radio channel at 4.2p per listener per hour. (1Xtra and the Asian Network cost more, as do local and regional services. Radio 3 costs nearly 8p per listener per hour.
From their description of the methodology, I am not sure that these figures take into account iPlayer usage, which may well improve BBC4's showing. Likewise, podcast listening may well improve 6Music's figures.
but whatever the cost per listener/viewer
it would be too high for Times/news international. That being said I'm sure the is waste and extravagance at the BEEB.
I am rather dreading the day somebody notices
Radio 3 ---I think I'd pay 8p an hour for it if I had to, doubt if that'll be the choice though.
I read...
...in yesterday's Times that iPlayer along with ITVPlayer (should anyone require that) is going to be available to Freesat users at the beginning of 2010.
Still, it'd be a shame to see BBC4 go.
Director of Rewards?
"I decide how much we pay people"
Not really that difficult.
fair enough worth every penny of
his £196,550 a year plus expenses I'm sure but a bit less " close examination of the future of our service portfolios" would go along way.
Love the Beeb but
The top 11 personnel officers (I have an extremely jaundiced view on HR, dealing with every day) pull in two million quid between them.
Who directs the rewards
of the Director of Rewards?
This man does...
Makes sense to me
I've thought they should just go back to two channels for some time rather than spread themselves thinly over four. The novelty of extra digital channels has worn off now nearly all of us get them anyway and they are clearly mostly not worth having. Can't see the point of BBC3 - the only good things on it are also on 2 and 1. Decent stuff on 4 ends up on 2 again at later date or vice versa. Make one really good 'minority' quality channel and one wider appeal, more populist one. BBC1 and BBC2 then look better and perception of Beeb improves. They won't stop doing those bits 'we' like. Dr Who and Spooks are on BBC1 anyway, which you say you want to ditch?
but 4 into 2
doesn't go. I know people will say the chaff will get winnowed out but when it comes down to "Krautrock" Versus "never mind the Buzzcocks" and I have good guess which might get shown the door.
I think these music docs
will survive - I imagine they do quite well. In fact a lot of that stuff was previously shown on BBC2 anyway. Overall, personally I think it would be a good thing to go back to 2 channels.
but why ?
Why should we only have 2 channels - lets go the whole hog and scrap tv and go back to 1 station on the radio called the 'home programme' :0(
Although I do not watch BBC3 (I'm a big BBC4 fan) or listen to 5 live/radio 3 - they cater for different audiences.
I am happy to pay my licence fee - its a bargain compared with my sky subscription & although there are some overpaid execs - I am largely happy with the BBC - though they need to examine how it is funded given we live in the digital age and some without licences are watching programmes on iplayer for free
A pedant writes
It was 'The Home Service'
You're getting it confuddled with 'The Light Programme' or 'The Third Programme'
was delighted to see this
http://objectwiki.sciencemuseum.org.uk/wiki/Image:1985-1583_hi-fi_appara...
today, featured a tuner with just three stations (sorry, programmes) marked:
Home, Light and Third
(zoom in on JPEG to see it--on show in the truly excellent "Dan Dare and the making of high-tech Britain" exhibition
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/galleries/dan_dare_and_the_b...
at the Science Museum)
Very good! Far too complex for me though
I'd prefer just the one 'Home' preset.
(The hi-fi in that picture is a 1956 Leak system. My main listening system today is - within a year or so - contemporaneous with that!)
Indeed
"Third" would probably do for me-currently achieved as Freeview 703 because we had to move the TV antenna in the flat and VHF/DAB reception has bombed out ... progress goes boink etc etc.
I am sure it was a v good vintage for valve amps-both Leaks and your Quads.
Anyway, the exhibition is excellent, really worth catching for those in/near London; some other design classics including a Robin Day radio no less--I didn't know he was involved in them, as well as the chairs. I'd also never heard of Collaro, the makers of the turntable in the pictured system:
http://objectwiki.sciencemuseum.org.uk/wiki/Hi-Fi_System
- seems they morphed/merged into BSR but even the web doesn't have a lot of info.
Before the museum, we also popped into Harrods- should be a blog entry in itself but can't resist mentioning the Amplamp here:
http://www.futuros.co.uk/
Because
my feeling is that they are struggling to fill four channels with decent stuff so would be better putting all efforts/resources into just the two and do it better. Like C4, ITV, extra channels hasn't really given us more/added quality, just spread what was there already more thinly. I suppose eventually we will bypass conventional channel watching and pick what we want when we want via online type services as mentioned but personally I still watch channels in old way and so do others I know.
As a data point
I rarely, if ever, watch 'live' TV; I tend to scan the EPG on a Sunday afternoon and pick the programmes I want to Sky+ in the following week then, when I fancy looking at a bit of TV, select something from the Sky+ box.
I'd never think of checking what's on 'now'.
Live TV is for football
Yep! I'm with you, I think I've been watching television that way (apart from live sport) since I got a second VCR (so I could watch one tape and still record at the same time) back in about 1987. I rarely have much idea when a program was actually on especially with series links. I used to hate staying in hotels when the only options are what's on at the moment - its seems so 1970's in these days of no going anywhere without a laptop I rarely even switch on the television in a hotel.
But which minority should they serve?
If *I* was asked, I'd say ditch all the Dr Who/Spooks nonsense and have a minority channel mining the BBC's music, documentary and Play For Today archives.
That's my minority taste - others would I'm sure say 'minority' means something else altogether.
Er well,
various minorities, some less minor than others. Dr Who/Spooks is mainstream BBC1 fare anyway.
But if the BBC
retreats into solely repackaging it's back catalogue it will be sad day it should also make new programmes, film new bands/plays etc.
Oh and all the people who bang on about "play for the days" all the time I do wonder how many of them would actually watch (you all the way through) if they were ever shown again;-)
Play For Today
Some of the greatest British TV drama was broadcast under the 'Play For Today' strand.
Much of it would, I suspect, seem of it's time
these days but that concern never stops me listening to Louis Armstrong or The Beatles early work!I've certainly got a small but perfectly formed collection of PFTs downloaded from UKNova and The Box.
At least it might finally rid us of George Lamb
Even if he has been shunted off to the weekend, he's still around...
As long as they find a new home for Adam and Joe
I'll be happy.
BBC Dave
There should be 'Dave' style oldies channels from the BBC achives. Imagine thrillingly looking what's on each evening - oh look an old Play for Today at 9 followed by OGWT from 1979 and a MotD from 1974.
Indeed...
In this thrilling new multi-channel world, I'm genuinely surprised that the BBC hasn't done a proper 'BBC Archive' channel.
I'm sure they could fill a 7-midnight slot every day - documentaries, music, sport, drama, sitcoms - as Mark Hagen was explaining only last week, the archive is pretty well organised these days and has largely been digitised.
They could even stripe it for ease of use:
7-8 two sitcoms/panel shows
8-9 documentary (Horizon, Attenborough, Civilisation etc)
9-10 drama (PFT, costume drama, BBC Shakespeare)
10-11 music (OGWT, ORS, Later..., TOTP)
11-12 sport (MoTD, cricket, motorsport, rugby)
Maybe even fit in a 'News of 50/40/30/20 years ago today' in there somewhere
Agreed
that is something they really should do
The reason they don't
is that the BBC is part-owner of UKtv - the GOLD, Dave, Alibi, Gosh and Wow (I may have made those last two up) channel provider. Those channels are in effect the BBC Archive channels (which is why you get those "created by the BBC, shown on Dave" announcements).
That said, there are lots of programmes in the BBC archive that will never get shown on UKtv because the view is that they would not attract advertising, or sufficient viewers to merit the advertising.
On the main subject, I don't understand how any of the TV channels cost so much to run. BBC3 and BBC4 use the same channels as CBBC and CBeebies, and both have very little in terms of separate continuity/programming from BBC1/2.
And on the subject of 6Music, which of the other BBC radio channels would even think of having a programme like Stuart Maconie's Freakzone? It's too "pop" for Radio3 and too obscure for Radio 2 (if it ended up there, it would probably be broadcast at around 1am on a Thursday and then axed after 6 months because nobody listened to it).
iPlayer through the PS3
I can stream the iPlayer via my PS3/broadband connection to my TV and the quality is excellent
And it
beats the Wii version into a cocked hat.
My son has you two to thank
I have just yielded to his Christmas request for a PS3 (he has a PS2 and Wii so why does he need it?). All on account of what you two said about iPlayer - that's for the benefit of GLW & me, I hope you are right!
lose a TV channel but keep the radio
At the moment there are probably enough programmes to fill 3 channels if they cut out the repeats 2 days later. I really don't care what channel a programme is on and as I watch just about everything on PVR I'll be happy if my favourite shows are on at 3am because, in my world, they might as well be already. Once there's a decent quality iplayer in satellite platforms there'll be less need to schedule repeats anyway. The radio is a bit odd. 6Music, or a station like it could be run on a shoestring, if they take away 6Music, I'll stop listening to BBC radio again, not out of pique, just because they will have stopped catering for me again. I know they don't care but I do.
Don't cut the front....
It's not the channels or programmes that need cutting, it's the huge non-productive side that needs a cull. I forget how many people work in the BBC P.R. department, but it's frightening.
Just employ enough people to put the programme details onto a website and listeners/viewers will find the programmes. We don't need an army of people feeding tit bits of gossip to the other media.
Seconded
They are happy to have put experienced, talented technical camera people, sound recordists, editors etc. on tightly controlled freelance contracts but of course they don't work at HQ, sipping lattes with the boss,
I think the BBC accountants may be thinking ...
... that what they really need is a channel which people will watch persistently from 7pm until midnight pretty much every night. Whereas, in the real world, BBC4 either has stuff which I just have to watch / tape, or else stuff I can't be bothered with. However, that's enough for me to be genuinely sad if it disappeared at the click of some bean-counter's mouse.
BBC3, on the other hand, is just "Three Pints of Lager" repeated ad nauseum: is it just me, or does no-one actually ever watch that programme?
Is this the way forward in somebody's mind ?
"BBC Switch" ??
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00ntmdx/The_Season_Episode_1/
[sorry I see it:
Nurse-I think it's time for my Van Morrison
]
If BBC4 closes...
it would be a great shame. Wonderful channel at times.
No surprise
I've a feeling that the BBC won't be happy until everything they broadcast has dropped to Jonathan Ross's exceedingly low level.
When did the company lose its balls?
When it acted as the nanny of the nation and told people what they should watch ('Panorama', 'Nationwide', Dennis Potter, Harold Pinter, 'Play For Today') it was vital.
Alas, BBC4, being the jewel in the crown, is almost bound to be the first looked at for trimming! (See also Mark Lamarr's superb shows).
Personally, I thing the specialist music station is very poor (has it ever broadcast programmes from, or playing, the music of the 50s and 60s?).
Everyone on it seems to have a range of taste from Joy Division, via The Smiths, to New Order 'and everything in between'!
Strangely, though, its drama/comedy equivalent (BBC7) is fabulous.
Which is the specialist channel?
When you say specialist music station, do you mean 6Music or Radio 3 or maybe 1Xtra? Music from the 60's often gets played on 6Music but that's surely more the domain of Radio 2 and BBC local radio.
Despite it being very good, I think the station that is most ripe for cutting is BBC7 as it's really just lots of repeats. If they shoved the whole archive on the iPlayer then there wouldn't be much need for it.
I'm not quite sure why anyone would need to go via The Smiths to get from Joy Division to New Order though!
Why would music from the 1960s be the domain of
Radio 2 and/or BBC Local Radio?
Surely it's as legitimate for a specialist pop music channel to play music from the 60s as (say) music from the 80s?
Too mainstream
The only thing is that there is less "non-mainstream" recordings available from the 60's so inevitably there is more 60's stuff that doesn't fall into the 6Music remit. In fact I would suggest that most 60's music played on 6Music is actually quite mainstream. These days it would just about meet it's obligations if it didn't actually play any music before 2000!
Actually, a quick look at the daytime tracklists suggest that 6Music doesn't play much 60's stuff during the week (and not much 70's either!). Perhaps there should be another station that fulfils that need.
The irony being
of course that BBC4 is one of the few bits of the whole edifice that is genuinely providing a public service.