Transdiffusion MediaBlog

Second rate or second to none?

2012-05-07T20:09:13Z

As the digital TV switchover nears final completion, the BBC's second channel appears to be coasting along in reasonable shape and can still draw a sizeable audience for programmes such as Top Gear. But is BBC Two fulfilling a long-held promise or still in dire need of a complete rethink?

In this interview for the Guardian, it's stated that controller Janice Hadlow "has finally got BBC2 where she wants it", but of course this might conceivably be a place that could be somewhat inappropriate or alternatively forced in to out of sheer necessity.

To be fair, the channel has been both a victim of cutbacks and a recent revision of the BBC's general strategy. BBC Four has now become a 'twin channel' to BBC Two (likewise BBC Three to BBC One), though this particular approach has been forced upon the corporation for budgetary reasons more than anything else.

This is self-evident in the increased number of repeats across the board; daytime BBC Two is going to have almost nothing but repeats fairly soon, presumably also replacing CBBC/CBeebies content when digital switchover's complete. (It would be great if we could have regular peak time repeats of comedy other than Dad's Army sometime soon.)

BBC Two controller Janice Hadlow describes the channel as "intelligent pleasure", which to a certain extent sums up elements of a lifestyle/factual mix that seems to be all the rage nowadays. But BBC Two used to be much more than this, mixing Open University with Play School, Gardener's World, avant-garde comedy and intelligent thinking.

And that seems to be a key problem nowadays, namely BBC Two being more of a children's paddling pool as opposed to the deep blue ocean it was 30 years ago - it nearly all seems so superficial with a lack of depth characterised by an almost pathological aversion to challenging viewers too much.

Perhaps with BBC Four now being a paired channel, some of that "place to think" ethos can filter back to BBC Two, because television could and should have substance as well as pleasure, especially given the fact that BBC Two still features documentaries. Big budget, large audiences and real substance should happily co-exist if done correctly.

Documentaries like Horizon can still be worthwhile nowadays but are too often stuffed full of visual tropes and gratutious repetition to the point of annoyance. Count the number of facts contained in a modern edition and you may be shocked at just how few there actually are in an hours' worth of television.

Some of this can be attributed to the demands made by foreign broadcasters for resale and (especially) if a programme is co-produced; room needs to be made for commercial breaks and a requirement to 'recap' many things in order to avoid alienating new viewers, or so the theory goes in relation to commercial broadcasting in particular.

Talking of broadcaster requirements, I'm personally suspicious of channel controllers being pressured into shaping programme formats so that they can be easily resold to other broadcasters, eg. commissioning comedy panel games featuring "witty banter" so that they can be easily be sold on to the Dave channel and foreign broadcasters.

Such pressure could have been a major factor in a recent change of the Room 101 format from a fairly intimate chat show-style discussion between two people to more of a generic panel game, introducing an element of competition and that so-called "witty banter" factor that seems to be endemic in modern television.

Then there was a problem with BBC Two having its contents 'snatched' by newer digital channels; comedies with a young demographic became BBC Three's speciality whilst opera and serious drama moved to BBC Four. The Open University switched to night-time broadcasting before withdrawing to the internet and computer-based interactive learning.

(It also didn't help that most sporting events were also being acquired by BSkyB, leaving even more space in the schedules.)

This left BBC Two with holes to be filled, and the removal of key contents also gave a strong impression of something that lacked any real sense of direction as well as just being a dumping ground for anything that didn't quite fit neatly elsewhere. (When CBBC/CBeebies content moves away shortly there will be even more empty space.)

Janice Hadlow's tenure at BBC Two hasn't been exactly uncontroversial either. Aside from commissioning Life's Too Short, she axed the comedy quiz Shooting Stars shortly before it won an award at the British Comedy Awards which was somewhat embarrassing to say the least, even if her decision was probably based on financial reasoning.

She may have described Life's Too Short as a place "where you feel you are not quite sure", but I would strongly argue that as a whole it was an extremely safe 'risk' to take; the Ricky Gervais fanclub guarantees a modest degree of success as a bare minimum unless the idea is completely rotten to begin with.

Real risk is taking three little-known comedians off the street, giving them an experienced producer and a blank sheet of paper to come up with a completely new idea for primetime television which is developed and aired as a series; trusting people as opposed to watching and checking up on their every move.

The recent post-Sachsgate compliance clampdown has also scared several independent comedy producers into the open arms of Sky, armed with a fat chequebook and a mission to beef up its original programming (Stella, Spy, Trollied, etc.) in order to further increase its attractiveness to subscribers.

So BBC Two has been forced to play it relatively safe with comedy, though to its credit the channel has still managed to develop worthwhile ideas such as Rev and Grandma's House despite all the obstacles, financial or otherwise.

As for the channel's current schedule, BBC Two still relies too heavily on derivative lifestyle programming, especially cookery (Great British Menu, Hairy Bikers, Instant Restaurant, Saturday Kitchen, Two Greedy Italians, etc., etc.), and antiques (Antiques Road Trip, Flog It, Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is, etc.) in particular.

It seems then that BBC Two still has some way to go before it can really claim to be a champion of quality, though the BBC really needs to concentrate more on addressing rarely-mentioned issues such as quality control in relation to the use of independent producers that effectively applies to all BBC channels in equal measure.

And by that I don't mean adding and maintaining layers of bureaucracy just to prevent another Sachsgate from happening. Indeed, compliance structures need to be simplified instead and this process needs to extend further back through the management structure than it has allowed to so far.

But for major change to become reality, the BBC needs a new director-general that refocuses on quality across the board as opposed to merely planning cutbacks and ideological whims under the banner of so-called necessary progress, therefore it could be a while yet before we discover exactly what the BBC is still capable of doing.

More blog posts about: BBC, BBC Two, Janice Hadlow, Sachsgate

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Storify: what's wrong with BBC commissioning and scheduling

2012-03-27T20:58:30Z

An interesting discussion on Twitter, Sorified in strict chronological order (so you'll need your wits about you in keeping up with who is speaking to who and when, unless you already use Twitter).

More blog posts about: BBC, BBC Four, BBC One, BBC Three, BBC Two, drama

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ITV: Running forward just to stand still?

2012-03-05T14:19:11Z

Running a major broadcaster is of course significantly different from running, say, the Post Office, so the appointment of Adam Crozier was always going to be a gamble especially as he was recruited from a non-media position to lead the broadcaster into relative prosperity under relatively difficult circumstances.

So how well is ITV now doing under Crozier's leadership, and does ITV's management truly appreciate how much work remains to be done, especially when the Simon Cowell money machine begins to run out of steam as may now be the case?

Crozier took over from Michael Grade, whose much-heralded return to ITV after a spell at the BBC was always meant to have been a temporary position in order to stabilise what was formerly a broadcaster on the critical list partly as a consequence of a Granada-Carlton "shotgun merger" and the failure of the ITV/ONdigital pay-TV service.

Grade's obvious weakness was a lack of 'new' media understanding, but ITV still got by on the traditional strengths of being a broadcaster; something that from ITV's perspective thankfully never really went away. Friends Reunited was always a very risky purchase but others made even more reckless decisions and had their fingers burnt badly as well.

ITV1 now faces competition from a resurgent BBC, with Call the Midwife being a runaway success that concerns ITV bosses far more than something like Sherlock because Call the Midwife also happens to be popular with exactly the sort of viewer that would also watch ITV's 'cosy' soaps and dramas (Downton, Emmerdale, Foyle's War, etc.).

Then there's The Voice, which is the BBC's latest talent show acquisition that has already performed very well in other countries such as America and France. Directly scheduling Britain's Got Talent against The Voice is a sure sign that ITV takes any threat extremely seriously, and ITV management must privately be very anxious as to what might happen.

The danger for ITV of course is that Got Talent has already peaked, with recent success perhaps just being due to a lack of credible (and direct) opposition in terms of "shiny floor show" reality-style television. The Voice has the potential to unseat (or at least seriously undermine) one of ITV's biggest cash cows so what happens next will be very interesting.

Of course The Voice could still turn out be an embarrassing flop for the BBC, with success or failure ultimately riding on how the judges and format are perceived by its viewers. But if the end result is fresher and less aggressive than the emotion-laden Cowell offerings then ITV could be in real trouble because it still has a bulk of its eggs in two baskets.

Perhaps the greatest sign in recent months that ITV still has much to learn in its current incarnation can be found in the performance and execution of last year's much-hyped 'quiz' show Red or Black, which was almost universally panned by the critics and arguably met with muted indifference by most of its viewers.

Apparently Simon Cowell wanted to do another music-based show (safe territory for him), but ITV apparently had "other ideas" so a previously-piloted old format of dubious merit was dusted down, tweaked and presented as the next and greatest new thing, which in turn resulted in perhaps the ultimate expression of style over content in recent times.

ITV still seriously seems to think that Red or Black has a chance of success with further prescribed tweaking and a second series commissioned perhaps to save loss of face as opposed to allowing a 'difficult' format time to find its feet, which in itself isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of ITV's commissioning department as it stands.

There were aspects of Red or Black which purely through commonsense (you might have thought) shouldn't have been implemented for its first run, including the cardinal sin of running a new series consecutively over several nights meaning that it's literally forced down the throats of ITV1 viewers whether they wanted it or not.

Running a new series over a short period of time also provides negligible opportunity to make changes in real time; a situation made even worse when you have potentially embarrassing revelations about contestants, whether justified or otherwise.

(Just because lots of ITV viewers are happy with Britain's Got Talent or the X Factor doesn't mean that a devoid-of-content gameshow stuffed with sob stories will attract anything like the same following.)

You can't automatically just tick boxes on a form and commission something that meets such criteria as a consequence, though ITV isn't by any means the sole guilty party in this respect with all the major broadcasters suffering from this syndrome to a certain extent; witness all the cooking/gardening/reality TV clones that have proliferated over the years.

The Daybreak fiasco also reinforced perceptions of a lack of judgement, even if any GMTV replacement would always struggle to find favour with a conservative audience familiar with its cosy format. Just transplanting two popular presenters (Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley) to mornings doesn't guarantee success in any shape or form.

Other alarm bells for ITV include a continuing lack of fresh ideas aside from Downton Abbey that have performed consistently well; even Foyle's War is now belatedly being recommissioned, which may not be a bad idea in itself but still betrays a lack of real imagination in terms of innovative drama and might be construed as a sign of desperation.

Then there are erratic and occasionally counterproductive scheduling decisions such as shunting Coronation Street around the schedules; it may show that ITV is prepared to be competitive but advertisers are far less impressed with such tactics, much preferring to have Corrie's regular viewers in a regular timeslot in order to promote their products.

It's arguable that the conservative nature of some advertisers is what's really holding back ITV from ultimate success, but there have been enough experiments (and experimental failures) elsewhere in the schedule to justify some room for manoeuvre without upsetting the status quo too much. Trust on both sides ultimately needs to be engendered further.

So is ITV in a prime position to prosper or heading for yet another fall? A surprisingly significant factor will be the success or failure of rival show The Voice, and ITV Studios' ability to produce and deliver new ideas will also be under heavy scrutiny, especially in an environment where failure is tolerated much less compared to somewhere like the BBC.

Also BSkyB will be another rival to watch as it continues its quest to commission more original programming; it has already spent lots of money luring independent producers of comedy (Spy, Stella, Trollied, etc.) away from cash-strapped BBC commissioners hobbled by their post-Sachsgate red tape compliancy nightmare - ITV could be next on the hit list.

ITV shareholders will start to ask very awkward questions if ITV Studios fails to deliver the goods, and renewed pressure to split the broadcast and production divisions into separate units may happen if Adam Crozier fails to build on any momentum so far gained.

It's also fairly unlikely that ITV's plans to monetise content will be successful if it decides to go alone, especially since BSkyB/Lovefilm/Netflix/etc. are also jumping on the internet video-on-demand bandwagon. And exactly how many people will be prepared to make 'micropayments' to ITV.com for anything other than, say, clips of One Direction?

The significance of the success of Britain's Got Talent and the X Factor cannot be underestimated because they have bought ITV management valuable breathing space in (hopefully) preparing the broadcaster for a prosperous future, but will they be truly prepared for what happens next?

it may be the case that just like Channel 4's dependence on Big Brother, ITV won't know what to do until it's actually too late to do something, and in ITV's case the stakes could end up being even higher.

More blog posts about: Britain's Got Talent, ITV, The X Factor

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The strange case of HD Thames

2012-01-29T19:02:19Z

An interesting exchange on Twitter, started by TV director Marcus Payne, about a strange subsidiary of Thames from its post-franchise days. No conclusions, but the story is fascinating. Created from the tweets concerned using Storify.

More blog posts about: Isleworth, Pearson, Thames Television

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Obligatory showing of teeth

2012-01-23T11:30:01Z

If you thought that the BBC Trust would object to the BBC's planned �15m local radio cutbacks under the "Delivering Quality First" proposal, then you guessed correctly, though it doesn't take Nostradamus to realise that the BBC Trust has to make an occasional objection purely for the sake of remaining in existence.

Local radio is something that major players in the commercial sector are quickly abandoning with perhaps the exception of the major conurbations, leaving what's left of the smaller regional groups and community radio stations to take up the slack, leaving a very patchy radio landscape with some regions almost devoid of local coverage.

Then there are the BBC locals and regionals, which vary in terms of quality and quantity much like the commercial sector. In London you get Danny Baker (love or hate him), but most of BBC local radio has an ageing listener base and often relies heavily on anodyne generic phone-in formats with relatively little to distinguish between them.

It's not hard to see how all these "TalkSPORT (usually) without the sport" local radio formats appear on paper as an obvious duplication of precious resources that could be diverted into just about anything else that the BBC does, and high on the list where obvious savings can be easily made from an accountant's point of view.

So what's wrong with the BBC saving a bit of precious TV licence fee money by cutting back on local radio?

For starters, it's perfectly possible to claim that local radio is precisely what the BBC should be doing if the commercial sector doesn't want to do it, though this has to be balanced with the requirement to provide such a service in the first place. If people just aren't interested then there's little point in utilising precious resources to do so.

However it's also easy to conjecture that there's still an obvious requirement for local radio in specific areas but the BBC just isn't providing it at present. Or alternatively the BBC has wilfuly neglected its local radio stations for so long it's no surprise that they're rotting away in many cases, having been the sustained victim of cutbacks over the years.

This in turn provides a big challenge for the BBC, because to improve certain local radio stations up to the required standard will require significant investment and commitment, with the former obviously being unavailable for the foreseeable future. Plus the original cutback plan by default suggests a distinct lack of heart (no pun intended).

Basically speaking, all those years of local radio neglect have finally caught up with the corporation, and it will now be very difficult for BBC management to formulate a credible action plan to effectively deal with the consequences, especially whilst maintaining its crucially important public service credentials.

Perhaps one way out of the conundrum might be a new-found commitment to provide radio services on a regional level at a bare minimum, mothballing the smaller local stations so that they can be brought back into action at a later date relatively easily if required.

This would enable the BBC to make savings without losing face from a public service perspective, as well as providing potential leverage in future licence fee negotiations, as in "We'll bring back into operation a number of local radio stations if cash is available for doing so..."; it's much easier to do this than to recreate something from scratch.

However the BBC desperately needs to send a clear signal that it is still committed to public service broadcasting despite all the external pressures to do otherwise, because the BBC has all too frequently been losing the PR war even if it has belatedly started to win over more support more recently, most notably in relation to the BBC Trust.

More blog posts about: BBC, BBC local radio, BBC Trust, radio

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Sorry Hazel, but what did you expect?

2012-01-18T19:00:00Z

As you may be aware, the BBC recently moved a chunk of its operation to Salford. I must, before we continue, express an interest as I used to work at the BBC and my role was one of those that moved.

Unlike my role, I stayed in London and left the BBC in June. But before I left I was one of the people who got to sit in meeting rooms interviewing people for all those jobs that suddenly needed filling.

Well recently the BBC released some figures and they showed that 3,172 people from Salford applied for jobs with the BBC at MediaCity and just 24 people were successful. Local MP Hazel Blears is demanding an enquiry and calling the figure "incredibly disappointing".

Well I'm sorry that sounds low but come on Hazel, use your bloody brain. Really? What else did you expect?

For starters 1,846 jobs were moved to MediaCity, from both London and the BBC's former local base of New Broadcasting House in Manchester. The jobs that moved from Manchester were already taken and the jobs that moved from London had to be offered to the existing staff who were all given the chance to relocate. The BBC couldn't close all those existing roles and create new ones. That would be plain dumb.

So the roles not taken by previous employees was 680. 246 of those went to residents of Greater Manchester. 24 of those were from Salford. (Note there are ten boroughs in Greater Manchester giving an average of 24.6 people from each borough getting a job � Salford's 24 is pretty much on the money here)

That leaves 434 from outside Manchester. Too many? Well the BBC is a large organisation which requires a range of specialist skills. These are not jobs in call centres. It can take years to develop the right skills, and the BBC could not simply shut down for a year whilst it got everyone up to speed. To maintain continuity of service it simply had to recruit the most qualified staff.

And when we look at a map of Britain and try and work out where those skills are going to be, well let's just say that you're simply not going to find a huge bunch of unemployed people with the right skills in Salford.

Before Hazel turns up and demands my head on a stick for that comment, it's not a slight on Salford, it's a simply fact that the people with the right skillsets are mostly in London, with a handful of other people dotted around the country. Many of them are even, like me, northerners who had to move to London in order to get a job.

The fact is Hazel that in years gone by, when we had a regional TV system with lots of TV bases dotted around the country, you might just have got more local staff in MediaCity. You can demand your inquiry but the chances are any inquiry will just come up with one simple, result: well, durr. What did you expect?

More blog posts about: Hazel Blears, Media City UK, Salford

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Necrolog 2011

2011-12-31T15:54:19Z

A list of some of those we have loved and lost in 2011 - mainly British and Irish actors, writers, producers and theme composers who died in the past year, with apologies for the anglocentrism. Errors and omissions in the comments, please.

JANUARY →	Pete Postlethwaite Actor	Anne Francis Actor, Honey West	Jill Haworth Actor
Dick King-Smith Presenter, Rub-a-dub-tub →		Noel Andrews RTE boxing commentator ↓	David Nelson Actor, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
Susannah York Actor	Tony Geiss Composer, Sesame Street		John Barry Composer ↓
Helene Palmer Actor, Coronation Street	FEBRUARY →	Margaret John Actor, Gavin & Stacey
Trevor Bailey Test Match Special	Alfred Burke Actor, Public Eye	Nicholas Courtney Actor, Doctor Who →
MARCH →	Louie Ramsay Actor, The Ruth Rendell Mysteries	Bob Greaves Granada TV presenter	Gerald Barry RTE journalist
Keith Fordyce Presenter, Ready Steady Go! →		Michael Gough Actor, Doctor Who	Johnny Pearson Composer ↓
APRIL →	Yolande Palfrey Actor, Blake's 7	Trevor Bannister Actor, Are You Being Served?
Elisabeth Sladen Actor, Doctor Who ↓	Islwyn Morris Actor, Pobol y Cwm	MAY →	Ted Lowe Snooker commentator
	Oliver Elmes Graphic designer, Doctor Who	Big George Composer →
Edward Hardwicke Actor, Sherlock Holmes →		Flick Colby Choreographer, Pan's People	Janet Brown Impersonator
JUNE →	Peter Murphy RTE presenter	Miriam Karlin Actor	Roy Skelton Actor
Christopher Neame Producer	Robin Nash Producer	David Dunseith BBC Radio Ulster presenter	JULY ↙
Anna Massey Actor	Keith Wilson Production designer, Space: 1999	Ahmed Omed Khpulwak BBC journalist	AUGUST ↙
Richard Pearson Actor, The Wind in the Willows	Michael Bukht (Barry) Founder, Classic FM	Huw Ceredig Actor Pobol y Cym	Gun H�gglund First female TV newsreader in the world
Robert Robinson Presenter, Stop the Week	John Howard Davies Producer	SEPTEMBER →	Jonathan Cecil Actor
David Croft Writer	OCTOBER →	George Baker Actor, I, Claudius	Peter Hammond Actor, The Adventures of William Tell
Sue Lloyd Actor, Crossroads ↓	NOVEMBER →	Richard Morant Actor, Poldark	Dulcie Gray Actor
	Hugh Burnett Producer	DECEMBER →	Bev Smith ATV newsreader
Phillip Cottrell BBC journalist	Ronald Wolfe Writer

This article has been revised since publication to add Robert Robinson, who died in August, and again to correct "Start the Week" to "Stop the Week".

Frosty reception

2011-11-15T14:37:54Z

Some people may be alarmed that the BBC has decided to make the Frozen Planet's climate change episode ("On Thin Ice") optional when it comes to overseas sales, but the reality is that many commercial broadcasters are often very conservative in terms of what they are willing to show on their channel(s).

This is typically the case in the US, of which I suspect this particular decision is specifically aimed at, and BBC Worldwide is canny enough to realise that Frozen Planet sales would be given the cold shoulder (or at least made more awkward) as a consequence.

Whilst it may be easy to criticise the BBC (and BBC Worldwide) for allowing such acts of censorship to take place, this form of selective marketing has taken place for years, especially as certain countries may not share the same 'liberal' values of our Western European neighbours hence requiring extensive edits or dropped episode(s).

If the complete series including "On Thin Ice" was only offered on a take it or leave it basis, certain broadcasters would be very reluctant to effectively pay for an episode they have no intention of showing, and given the intense competition for nature and wildlife documentaries it's a price that BBC Worldwide is willing to pay.

Anyway, it's perhaps ironic that anyone attempting to obtain the Frozen Planet series by 'illegal' means may also end up with the climate change episode as a consequence, and withholding the episode from being broadcast in certain countries could also make it more desirable to collectors.

This might not be the sort of thing that the BBC should normally be doing as a matter of course, but perhaps the BBC could consider revising "On Thin Ice" to make it more sensationalist along the lines of "The programme they tried to ban, containing facts they don't want you to know".

After all, certain TV channels don't seem to flinch at the prospect of showing programmes which claim that the manned moon landings never happened.

More blog posts about: BBC, BBC Worldwide

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I'm with Matthew Wright. Are you?

2011-11-14T21:30:13Z

The BBC's Delivering Quality First initiative has certainly caused a few headlines for its treatment of local radio, however much less discussed has been its impact on the BBC's regional TV output. However its changes there have been no less controversial.

Whilst regional news programmes have escaped relatively unharmed, their safety has come at the cost of England's regional magazine show, Inside Out. The weekly magazine programmes are facing a 40% budget cut and a reduction from 11 regional versions to just six.

Naturally there are many who are not impressed, including presenter Matthew Wright. Whilst better known for his daytime Channel 5 show, Wright has presented Inside Out London since 2007 and has come out all guns blazing at the potential treatment of the show.

Quoted in a piece on the Guardian, he sums up the problem, quoted as saying that "the problem is that regional programming isn't very sexy" and arguing that viewers want to watch shows about their region, not others.

But there-in the problem. Viewers increasingly can't watch content that's related to their area. In days gone by this was an area ITV excelled at, however consolidation and cutbacks mean you'll see very little regional programming at all if you're in England. The advertising revenue is, apparently, not there to make it pay.

And yet with its licence fee funded income the BBC is ideal for leaping in and providing the content. But instead it's cutting back.

Yet at the same time the BBC is spending huge amounts of money on flagship programming for BBC One and building up offices outside London, with particular focus on its new Salford base. Moving staff and programmes out of London, the organisation seems to be crying out "Look what we're doing for the regions! Look how less London-centric we're becoming."

But given how many mentions there have been of their new glittering palace, and how many special events have been hosted in the city, the BBC is simply swapping London-centric for London and Salford-centric.

It's a dangerous game given that part of the move out of London was to help the BBC connect better with people across the country. After all, a viewer in Cornwall or Newcastle isn't going to connect with the BBC any more just because You and Yours and Five Live will be coming from Salford Quays.

But what better way to connect better with your audience than regional programming?What better way to help cure the London (and now Salford) centric appearance than by investing in content created for people living in a certain area?

Instead the BBC gives the appearance of thinking that regional output isn't important. That our regional variations are an expensive waste of money that could be pumped into paying an inflated salary for the latest Saturday night TV presenter. Even the decision to pretty much ring fence Radio 4 from the cuts is like someone putting a knife in regional TV's back and turning it very slowly. Radio 4 has a (often deserved) reputation as a station that serves a minority, and southern biased, middle-class centric one at that. And I write that as a fan of the station.

Instead of cutting back on its regional content, the BBC should be creating far more of it. If BBC Scotland can have its own sitcoms, why shouldn't BBC Midlands? If BBC Wales can do Welsh Assembly coverage, why shouldn't viewers in London be able to get some of their own regional government? And given all the great music that comes out of the area, why not a live music show for the North West to celebrate local bands?

The BBC has the facilities and the talent to do great regional programming which would be watched and would help it connect better with its viewers. It's about time the BBC's English regions got the support and attention of their colleagues in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Matthew Wright's stance needs to be supported; regional television celebrated. And I for one will firmly nail my colours to his mast.

Thankfully you too can have your say and if you haven't done so already, you can take part in the BBC Trust's public consultation on Delivering Quality First on the BBC Trust website.

More blog posts about: BBC, BBC One, BBC Radio 4, Delivering Quality First, Mark Thompson, regional broadcasting

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Redefining Auntie

2011-10-06T10:27:10Z

After what seemed like an eternity, the BBC's lengthy "Delivering Quality First" consultation has more or less drawn to a close and the final verdict has been delivered pending Trust approval. Unsurprisingly many of the rumours turned out to be accurate, and just as predictably there's no mention of a BBC Four closure either.

There are a few surprises in store, namely things that weren't obviously hinted at before the final announcement but are obviously related to changes in a wider context, namely a refocused sense of purpose based on the realisation that the BBC cannot afford to pursue its earlier (and now outdated) multichannel strategy.

It's wise at this point to bear in mind that all of this is subject to approval from the BBC Trust, though Lord Patten's initial public reaction to the final report seems to concur strongly with this assessment therefore there's unlikely to be much in the way of change before final implementation.

Aside from the obvious headlines (BBC Two HD, moving out of White City, BBC Three moving to Salford, further cutbacks affecting daytime BBC Two/local radio/Asian Network, etc.), there are other proposals that are perhaps just as far-reaching; for example, BBC One getting a third of BBC Three's drama funding which is a real surprise in itself.

More to the point, this is a tacit admission that major drama series require significant investment; co-productions with US producers have seriously upped the ante in terms of production values (e.g. "Torchwood: Miracle Day"), and there's no way that BBC Three's standalone budget could ever hope to compete with even a fraction of this.

Perhaps of even greater significance is that BBC Three will be more closely aligned with BBC One as opposed to being that standalone "young person's channel" - though inevitably it will maintain a younger profile at least in the short term - and could be a concerted attempt to drag down the average age of BBC One's viewers.

(Think of BBC Three as being BBC One's younger and poorer Northern cousin, in other words.)

Also of note is what appears to be a mission statement: "Drama and comedy for BBC One; and serious science, history, business, arts and natural history programmes for BBC Two and BBC Four". Will the BBC contemplate the purchase of new foreign drama for BBC Four? And what about edgy comedy series that fall outside of BBC Three's remit?

Then there's the downgrading of the daytime BBC Two schedule; the most popular option by far when it comes to BBC cutbacks (at least according to a recent survey on the Guardian website), but should BBC Two take this idea a step further and not broadcast at all during the afternoon unless there's a special event?

It's also amusing to note that the concept of more repeats is still being given the well-worn positive spin of "using multiple showings on television and radio to offer more chances to view and listen to BBC programmes"...an excuse that sounds eerily familiar even to those who don't read BBC press releases on a regular basis.

Having only two high definition television channels available for the foreseeable future has inevitably brought about the creation of BBC Two HD as a replacement for BBC HD; if anything the BBC HD channel was already a microcosm of the future of BBC Two, complete with restricted broadcasting hours and a wide(r) spectrum of content.

Indeed BBC HD has recently suffered from significant scheduling problems as anyone trying to record Dragons' Den in HD recently will no doubt tell you (its showing has already been postponed twice in less than a week for reasons that seem relatively obscure), so hopefully these scheduling crises will soon be a thing of the past.

This also means that everything else will be condemned to a standard definition future, which is somewhat ironic given the significant expense and upheaval of moving most if not all children's programming to state-of-the-art HD-equipped studios in Salford. (Some productions are still sourced from elsewhere.)

The BBC is unsurprisingly still committed to its News Channel at least for the next four years with a refocus on domestic breaking news, but various radio news bulletins in particular will end up being shared across networks.

And the same will apply to much of the programming found on BBC local radio, which will be a real shame for some existing stations that have a truly local voice; this comes at a time when much of the commercial sector has retreated from local radio with a few broadcasters like Absolute now even duplicating the same music across national stations.

I'm not pretending that all of BBC local radio is perfect or serves its purpose admirably, but good work will inevitably be lost and the BBC should be supporting local radio in regions that have recently become poorly supported by commercial stations (namely, many areas outside of major conurbations).

If much of this sounds relatively reasonable so far, bear in mind that these reforms are also on top of ongoing changes that may not have made their full impact felt as of yet, such as the downsizing of the BBC's website along with other staff changes.

On top of this there are proposed cutbacks that still haven't been finalised, and planned changes that will prove to be highly controversial, such as the "reform of redundancy entitlements to align better with industry practice" - so-called industry practice may not necessarily be the wisest path to follow in relation to what the BBC should do in the future.

The BBC should be setting examples as opposed to following them, and this applies as much to programme making as opposed to just the programmes themselves; you can't have a truly distinctive array of first class programming if the respective programme makers are treated with the same disdain as the often cash-strapped commercial sector.

(This lack of distinction seems to be a theoretical handicap when it comes to sourcing programming from independent producers as opposed to in-house production.)

Public service broadcasting shouldn't just be about box-ticking demographics and hitting ratings targets (if not blatantly chasing audiences); it should be about "doing the right thing" regardless of the ratings, and implicitly trusting professionals to deliver the goods.

Which of course brings up the highly controversial subject of the post-Sachsgate compliancy maze established as a sticking plaster to help restore 'trust', but if you remove some of the pressure to perform ratings-wise then those same professionals will be better minded to deliver higher quality product which can be trusted more.

Such a compliancy structure costs money, and it's this along with lingering doubts about management performance despite promises to remove layers of management where appropriate. Shouldn't management also be forced to reapply for their own jobs along with the radio producers?

There is also not much in the way of reassurance in relation to maintaining programme quality as a consequence of all of this, with no word of a Plan B if Plan A happens to fail spectacularly for whatever reason; very ironic when so much expense and effort had been formerly put into compliancy checks.

If we want a truly independent and dependable BBC, it will now have to publicly stand up for itself and become more valuable and accountable, and to that end the BBC needs to comprehensively prove to outsiders that it still fully understands its purpose in society, which requires far more than just mission statements.

Because failure to do so will render the BBC both impotent and untrustworthy as a consequence, and any TV licence fee opponents (still in the minority at time of writing) will have won the day.

If you wish to comment on any of the proposals before final implementation there's an online public consultation form available here to give feedback to the Trust - after all, it's your BBC.

More blog posts about: BBC, BBC Asian Network, BBC Four, BBC One, BBC Radio 1Xtra, BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC Three, BBC Trust, BBC Two

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The s-word

2011-09-21T19:08:08Z

One dictionary defines the word synergy as "the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects", which in theory sounds impressive on paper until you realise that any "combined effect" might not be the desired one after all.

Problem is, BBC Four as a channel almost revels in its distinctiveness compared to any other BBC television channel - perhaps Radio 4 is its closest neighbour, but that of course is radio - and bears little resemblance to the modern BBC Two, so any plans to bring 'synergy' to the two needs to be examined with utmost care and attention.

Of course I've mentioned the future of BBC Four before but more in the context of which service(s) are likely to be selected for downsizing above and beyond the 20% target for ~~cutbacks~~ savings across the board, but how other services will also be affected as a consequence has yet to be truly revealed.

When BBC2 started in 1964 it was very similar indeed to what BBC Four is nowadays, but since then it has evolved towards a more populist 'lifestyle' remit (Gardeners' World, Top Gear, even Dragons' Den), with current affairs, mainstream documentaries and anything else lacking a home elsewhere.

Such a dumping ground strategy created by having newer channels with narrower remits has caused BBC Two to lose some of its identity; up to now this hasn't been too much of a concern due to its major channel status, but any changes to BBC Four will reflect back to BBC Two and what it does, or much more pertinently in this case, what it doesn't do.

Nothing has yet been hinted as to how BBC Two will cope if BBC Four is downgraded, and even though it's easy to see that (a) the BBC might want to keep the exact details secret, and (b) its plans still seem to be in a worrying state of flux, the very absence of any speculation aside of a calculated 2% ratings drop is disconcerting to say the least.

Indeed that 2% figure was mentioned solely in connection to removing programmes from daytime BBC Two, perhaps with a News Channel simulcast to fill the gap, with nothing whatsoever to suggest what any impact of moving any BBC Four programming to the channel might have.

At the moment we're only being exposed to part of the picture, so to speak, and although the BBC says that nothing official has been announced yet, there have been numerous "official leaks" (or "trial balloons" if you must) as official attempts to gauge public reaction are made before any axe is wielded in the direction of public broadcasting services.

But unless the public is fully informed as to BBC management's intentions it's effectively useless to make sensible judgements, hence that online petition to "Save BBC Four" later provoking a BBC response along the lines of "We weren't going to close the channel down altogether"...

Therefore how can we, the TV licence fee payers, be expected to make an informed decision about ~~pressuring~~ advising BBC management into a particular course of action?

At the moment the BBC still appears to be half-hearted and dithering as to its public policy, which doesn't inspire confidence at all, because there are still many more questions than answers and there's still not enough information for any outsiders to guess the right answer to whatever this week's question happens to be.

Will BBC Four's foreign language crime series (Spiral, The Killing) vanish altogether? Will there still be the strong overall commitment to documentaries that helped BBC Four gain nine Grierson documentary award nominations (out of 40, an astonishing achievement) over the past year?

It's easy to envisage something like Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe moving to a late slot on BBC Two (and Only Connect moving to a teatime slot), but what about series like Hidden Paintings or Michael Wood's Story of England? Will Storyville either stay where it is, moved back to BBC Two, or cancelled altogether instead?

Some things may inevitably vanish given cutbacks, but it may be better to sacrifice something derivative like "Escape to the Country" if it means something like "Chemistry: A Volatile History" being produced in its place, even if it only gets a third of the viewers.

Whether we can currently trust the BBC to make the correct decisions - with or without BBC Trust influence - is another matter altogether, and an absence of enough information to make informed choices as to exactly how service(s) will be affected doesn't exactly inspire that much confidence in the process even if it's still meant to be 'secret'.

More blog posts about: BBC, BBC Four, BBC Two

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Boris Johnson - more knowledgeable about TV production than broadcasters themselves

2011-09-19T15:34:18Z

From the "Boris Johnson is clearly an expert on making television - better at it than even the BBC" file comes this rather farcical story....

Basically there was a plan that the EastEnders studios might move to the Olympic Park in Stratford in 2012. It's fallen through and Boris isn't happy. In the Evening Standard he accuses the BBC of being "bureaucratic, wasteful and out of touch" about not going through with the move which would, according to him, be better value for money.

Naturally the BBC aren't taking this lying down with sources telling the Guardian that whilst it would have been great, the proposed move would have had a number of problems including that a 23 feet high wall around the sight would have got in the way of filming, that there were privacy concerns caused by the site being surrounded by housing and that the crew would lose up to 30% of their shooting time due to the proximity of London City airport. Oh and the studios would have cost more in rent as well.

But hey, clearly London's Mayor knows best. After all, it's quite obvious that a studio with higher rent costs and less time to film would be less wasteful. Much less wasteful indeed. After all Boris Johnson knows far more about television than anyone in broadcasting. One only needs to remind oneself of his cringe-worthy attempts at presenting Have I Got News For You to know that...

More blog posts about: BBC, Boris Johnson, EastEnders, London

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Reshuffling the news

2011-09-13T15:21:33Z

It's been the way it has been for so long that we just accept it. However I can't be the only one who finds the fact that at 6pm ITV1 shows the national news after the regional news?

In terms of ordering it seems rather strange - almost curious. That hugely important international and national stories play second fiddle to, well, whatever's happening in your part of the country. Sometimes those will be major stories themselves. But lets be honest, sometimes they're not.

Of course it all dates back to the fact that ITV's tea time bulletin was at 5:45, lasted for the whole of 15 minutes and then was followed by up to an hour of regional news. Err. No. That didn't really make much sense either.

Much of the reason for ITV's current arrangements lie in the fact that ITV was once a regional network of companies. Regional broadcasting was at the heart of the organisation, and it was a rare ITV company that wanted to play second fiddle to the network.

But ITV has changed. It's now a single national (well if you call "England, Wales and a slither of Scotland" to be national) broadcaster based in London rather than a network of companies spread across the UK. The old internal politics of the network have mostly disappeared. So no surprise then that ITV is looking at its evening news provision and wondering if it makes sense. And one of the things its looking at is the format of the 6pm bulletin and whether integrating the national and regional bulletins together better makes sense.

Certainly changing the ordering around a little would allow it to compete better with the BBC and allow the programme to have a focus that makes sense, and would mirror that used in other ITV bulletins at lunchtime and late evening.

Without doubt there will be fears by some that any changes could see ITV devaluing regional news however whatever the changes are would still need to play nicely with the non-ITV plc companies of STV, UTV and Channel. STV in particular is unlikely to play ball with any changes that devalue its Scottish output, although that in itself could give it enough incentive to try and bring back the idea of a fully integrated "Scottish Six" news bulletin containing Scottish, national and international news. However change may not necessarily bad and a boost for ITV's evening news ratings could help ITV's regional news teams whose 6pm programmes have struggled to compete against their BBC counterparts.

Quite how the changes would play out remains to be seen. At this stage ITV is purely looking at running some pilots and analysing the impact as a full change would require approval from Ofcom.

More blog posts about: ITV, ITV News, ITV plc, ITV1, news, regional broadcasting, regional news

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You can't beat a good daily start-up

2011-09-09T11:02:19Z

The Socialist paradise (ahem) of North Korea's NCTV starts the day with a march. Literally a march. If you've seen much in the way of 1950s ITV daily start-ups, you'll know that they can be a tad strong on the military ethos, full of suggestions of Empire and might. Really though, they've got nothing on North Korea.

More blog posts about: NCTV, North Korea

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TV's most boring ident?

2011-08-20T14:12:08Z

Sat on my computer's hard drive is several gigabytes worth of recordings of VHS tapes which I've been meaning to do something with for, well, err, years actually.

So recently I made a start and took the contents of one video and searched through it to see what there was. The contents were mostly Tyne Tees based and I've been busy uploading them and using them to replace some of the rather elderly RealMedia video files on Transdiffusion.

Amongst them was a copy of what I've always believed to be one of the most boring TV idents of the last 30 years. It's the Tyne Tees ident from 1998 which replaced the much maligned Channel 3 North East logo.

As idents go it's frankly tedious. Whilst the rather pompous jingle plays there's simply an outline version of the new TTTV logo with a vague map of the North East in the background. After some flickering the jingle reaches a loud crescendo and the logo gets filled in. Nine seconds of logo delight and no mistake.

Terrible I thought. Can there be an ident worse than that?

Well it appears that there can be. On the same tape was, somewhat mysteriously, a set of HTV Wales idents. There were all the old faves. The eye splitting Harlech one. That blue aerial one. And of course, the one after that one. You know the one I mean.

Then there was a copy of the HTV Wales ident from 1989. This was the year that the ITV companies first tried uniting behind a common ident package. I say tried as several companies refused to use the idents, however HTV was one of those that did.

I've always liked that ident package so naturally that 1989 HTV ident is not worse than the Tyne Tees one above. However the tape also contained another ident from the same time period.

It starts off in exactly the same way as the ITV ident in that the HTV logo sits there, but that's about where the similarity ends because unlike the rather fancy ITV ident, absolutely nothing happens. The ident just sits there with some wavy blue lines near it until ten seconds in, the jingle meets its climax and... wait for it... the words "HTV Cymru Wales" scroll in from the left. It must have taken literally seconds to come up with the idea and makes Tyne Tees's effort actually look interesting, and that says something.

Which makes me wonder... can there be any other idents between 1981 and right now that are so boring and dull? Any suggestions, pop them in the comment box below and maybe we can create some sort of "Tedious ident gallery"!

More blog posts about: HTV, ITV, presentation, Tyne Tees

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