Heh, The Office was fantastic!
It's just one of those brit things I suppose, like the Royle Family. Genius.
Can't blame you for not watching Eastenders though.

Panorama

Extremely late-night. Why not put it at, say, eight when more people'd be watching, a la my home country's equivalent(s)?

Horizon

Easily the most concieted, overstretched and overdramatisised science programming ever. Takes at most fifteen-minute stories and stretches them indefinately by showing the same silly dramatised sequence to overpowering music again and again and again...

The dramas and comedy programs are probably the BBCs historical strong point, although in the two years I've lived in britain only HIGNFY, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and Room 101 have really got to me in this area. I found The Office dreary, for instance. Of course, I don't watch Costume Dramas... or Eastenders.

Snapcase
News Editor
http://www.apolyton.net

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. The secret treasure is under the Big W. Rent the movie, laugh your ass off!

BUDDY HACKETT!!

Mousegunner

The Licence system is flawed and needs revamping. The licence should be a lot lower and they should charge more forsat/cable licences (to the companies, let them decide the end cost) this would be fairer to the masses.

Actually I'm with bagpuss on this one The licence fee system gets us a lot of high quality programming across a wide variety of media (local radio,national radio,tv,satellite, internet etc). It does also give us crap. It does all this for next to nothing.

If the BBC were to move to a pay per view model (which is the 'fairest' mechanism you only pay for what you watch) or a subscription model then two things would happen.

1. Prices would rise.
2. Choice would diminish - local radio and the gobsmackingly brilliant Radio4 and world service would die or be severely emasculated.





Anvil

That's exactly what I was thinking, man! The flying W. Rock on,

=w= Jedi =w=

I detest paying for my TV licence when I listen to commercial stations on the radio and I pay for Cable TV. I watch possibly 1 or 2 programs per month on BBC1 or 2. I must admit that I have been watching Band of Brothers on UK Drama (TV licence funded?)

Do people know that there are loads of channels funded by your licence that most cannot watch? Stuff like UK food, Drama, Choice, news24 etc? The Licence system is flawed and needs revamping. The licence should be a lot lower and they should charge more forsat/cable licences (to the companies, let them decide the end cost) this would be fairer to the masses. This way companies can tailor their packages to see if people use the "other" channels and thus pay for them if necessary.

it's under the big 'W'

I know that's a quote from some pop culture reference that I'm too sheltered to have learned, but I must say that the band Weezer has a big 'W' above them on stage at shows, and to me, there's gold in them thar hills.

I wish they would make some more Blackadder episodes.

Do they still have people driving around looking for TV's where people haven't paid the tax?

I remember seeing a tv show about it. Seems strange to me.

Deep breath...

BBC1 has news at 6pm until 6:30pm with regional news from 6:30 till 7pm (I get Reporting Scotland for instance). The next news is at 10pm for 25 minutes, with a 5 minute regional roundup after that. It used to be at 9pm, but 10pm is a better time slot for a lot of people (and there was a whole thing with ITV news being at 10pm and them moving it, so the BBC moving to that slot - blah, blah, blah). But 10pm is what people want anyway. If you want more than that, there's a 24 hour news channel on satellite/cable/digital terrestrial and BBC2 does a 50 minute Newsnight usually around 10:30.

Channel 4 is an excellent channel as well, but it can't touch the BBC for primetime documentary and factual programming, although it does have a good go sometimes. BBC1 and BBC2 offer up programmes like Panorama and Horizon on a regular basis, and have done since before Channel 4 was even concieved. Then there's the original dramas, comedy, arts, childrens programmes and more. And this is just terrestrial. The original programming to come out of the BBC allows about four commerical satellite channels to fill their schedules with everlasting repeats, without any of them showing the same episodes - that's how much of it is (plus the original programming on the BBC's own non-terrestrial channels).

Don't knock the BBC based on what you might see on BBC World, or what might be exported, like all television it needs to be looked at over a period of time (in my case, 23 years). Sure, there's a lot of crap on there (the aforementioned National Lottery Jet Set, now thankfully replaced) but as a whole - there's not a wider range of quality programming on any other available service in the UK.

- Bagpuss
http://www.chatbear.com/
Get your own free messageboard today (just like this one!)

As an outsider to Britain, I have to say the BBC is nowhere near the set of channels I expected it to be from its exports and BBC World. Astounding anounts of half-hearted populist nonsense gets thrown into the best Prime Time (National Lottery Jet Set, etc.), the news are stuck away at ten (!) and only last for fifteen minutes, responsible and interesting programming gets stuck away at ungodly hours (Hands up who watches Newsnight Review, the only cultural review show on the entirety of terrestial television, at its lovely slot of eleven on a friday night?), good ideas are overextended (how many home makover shows?).

Of a very weak british terrestial field, I find Channel 4 the strongest. A proper, evening-time news hour, often extremely challenging primetime documentaries and factual programming, by far the best american imports. Damn pity about Big Brother.

Snapcase
News Editor
http://www.apolyton.net

Actually, the UK public do. Each household pays a TV license. The ratings do matter though, because the BBC has a mandate in which they make promises to the public that they have to keep. This includes making programs that people want to watch.

And I love the BBC and certainly don't believe the license is just another tax.

6 National Radio stations (one digital only, with more to come), loads of regional radio stations, 2 terrestrial TV channels, four more (could be higher) TV channels if you have satellite/cable, and a seriously high quality website (it's HUGE) with the best online news service available - all without any advertising - for £100 a year? ($150). Bloody bargain.

- Bagpuss
http://www.chatbear.com/
Get your own free messageboard today (just like this one!)

As i understand it, the british government funds the television so ratings would not matter as much to the bbc, i could be mistaken of course

=============================
<insert clever witty remark here>

Blue, that was a Mad Mad Mad Mad reference. WTG.

You'd think it actually hurt them that it got good ratings, wouldn't you?

In general I like the BBC - they produce a lot of quality television that wouldn't get made otherwise. Their documentaries are first rate, for example, at a time when ITV and Channel 4/5 are producing more and more "When waitresses attack", "When Badgers go wrong" and other "Real" Life programs (like that Big Brother nonsense).

In the case of ditching decent syndicated series (both domestic and international) in favour of the Cricket or whatever arse they decide is more important to show though I think it's a pretty bloody poor show.

Eon

Yup, it's known through the UK that the BBC program schedulers have mince for brains.

It didn't matter how many awards Seinfeld got, or how many newspapers told people they should watch it, the BBC still put it on a different day and time every week, slowly getting later and later until episodes were starting at 12:45am. Then they started showing them at different times than they were listed for, really messing people about (and messing up my TiVo).

- Bagpuss
http://www.chatbear.com/
Get your own free messageboard today (just like this one!)

Oh yes... Of course, the BBC's inbred planning section and it's illogical hatred of Sci Fi.

And it's not just produced at home Sci Fi either - the minute a Sci Fi show gets much of a mainstream following they immediately reschedule it to 2am on a Tuesday Night to put a stop to it.

Eon