BBC and ITV quality

[DarloRich]

There really is more to life than getting excited about automated aggressive letters and feel good that it is keeping your postal delivery service occupied.

exactly - and nor is the operator of your postal service "judging" you for receiving any such letters.

 

[XAM2175]

and nor is the operator of your postal service "judging" you for receiving any such letters.

Come to think of it, I'm fairly sure that the last person I heard expressing concern about their postie' judgement was Hyacinth Bucket

 

[ChrisC]

For the record I don't use Iplayer at all or in any way, not a single program on there worth watching at all.

It’s all personal choice and everyone is different. I agree with others that the BBC is not as good as it was in the past but I find it difficult to believe that someone should feel there’s not a single programme on iPlayer worth watching. I don’t watch soaps, reality programmes etc but I do think the BBC still produces some good documentaries and drama.

As I said it’s all personal choice. I tried Netflix and gave up after a few months because there was very little on there that I liked. So much seemed too American for me. I used to have Sky until I realised that around 90% of what was in my planner was from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 & 5. I used to go through the Sky Channels and find nothing I wanted to watch. For the last 6 months I have subscribed to Britbox and I find so much, what I consider quality British tv from the past 40 years there, and I am spoilt for choice.

 

[gswindale]

A number of years ago, I purchased a new TV. Our TV license was in my partner's name - a few weeks later I received a letter reminding me I needed a TV License.

I wrote back advising that the property had a license and in whose name it was in. Heard nothing ever since.

Interestingly, I think they've stopped the link between retailers and TV Licensing now as the last few TVs I've bought, I've not heard anything and the name on the license is still my partners.

For the record I don't use Iplayer at all or in any way, not a single program on there worth watching at all.
The BBC do not deserve the the right to demand either information or cash from anyone who doesn't use their services, and they have no right to presume. Pensioners get these threats of a £1,000 and pay up even if they have no telly because they think they need one for a mobile phone, the wording in these letters is designed to make innocent people feel guilty.
Words like investigation are used many times in every letter to imply you are a criminal for not needing a licence.
If the BBC can't even be polite in their letters, they should not be allowed to operate in the way they do. Shut the evil company down, I won't miss anything about them that hasn't already been lost.

The BBC don't write the letters, the BBC don't even get the money directly when you pay the license (if you need to!). It goes to one of the TV Licensing contracted companies in the first instance, so wanting to shut down the BBC because you don't like what their contractors are doing seems a bit wrong - it's like me wanting to shut NPower down because I think Cadent are useless at digging up the road!

 

[Ediswan]

Interestingly, I think they've stopped the link between retailers and TV Licensing now as the last few TVs I've bought, I've not heard anything and the name on the license is still my partners.

That ended in June 2013. https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/business-and-organisations/tv-dealers-aud18

 

[The Ham]

25 years ago the BBC was still producing original comedy, whereas ITV seemed to be concentrating on increasing the frequency of soaps (ITV were still producing great dramas 25 years ago and even today I think their dramas are much better than the BBC’s drama output).

Forward to today and both channels seem intent on showing as many quiz shows and reality TV programmes as possible. One recent Saturday evening’s TV viewing had a total of 6 hours of quizzes across both channels.

The BBC in particular seems intent with showing cookery programmes at peak times, and quite a large number of them too (there’s 90 minutes of cookery on BBC2 tonight).

It’s all personal choice and everyone is different. I agree with others that the BBC is not as good as it was in the past but I find it difficult to believe that someone should feel there’s not a single programme on iPlayer worth watching. I don’t watch soaps, reality programmes etc but I do think the BBC still produces some good documentaries and drama.

As I said it’s all personal choice. I tried Netflix and gave up after a few months because there was very little on there that I liked. So much seemed too American for me. I used to have Sky until I realised that around 90% of what was in my planner was from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 & 5. I used to go through the Sky Channels and find nothing I wanted to watch. For the last 6 months I have subscribed to Britbox and I find so much, what I consider quality British tv from the past 40 years there, and I am spoilt for choice.

It's fairly unlikely that there's nothing that someone who thinks TV in the past was good, as there's quite a lot of older shows available to watch.

Depending on your vintage and taste there's:
Ab Fab
Auf Wiedersehen Pet
The Catherine Tate Show
Dad's Army
Fanny Cradock cooks for Christmas
The Fresh Prince of Belair
How they dug the Victoria Line (1969)
Jonathan Creek
My Family
Old Grey Whistle Test
One foot in the Grave
Porridge (original as well as the 2017 version)
The Thin Blue Line

Many on the above are several series worth and I've excluded things where there's only one episode (like The Two Ronnies and Yes Minister).

There's several programs on railways, cooking, wildlife, history, music, classic interviews (for examplea few with Frost), etc.

There's over 200 listings under "a" and that not counting each episode as 1 item, rather (as an example) the whole of Ab Fab (several series worth) as one item.

As such the likelihood of there being nothing at all that someone would wish to watch is fairly unlikely

Now whether someone thinks it's worth paying the license fee for is another matter.

 

[Gareth]

Don't watch either anymore. Occasionally, use the BBC News website to get quick headlines but even that can be an endurance, as it seems to be edited by woke sixth formers.

The last thing we used to watch by appointment was Match of The Day until we could no longer stomach Gary Linker nor Alan Shearer's dull analysis.

 

[DarloRich]

Occasionally, use the BBC News website to get quick headlines but even that can be an endurance, as it seems to be edited by woke sixth formers.

Could you provide a linked example of what you mean?

The last thing we used to watch by appointment was Match of The Day until we could no longer stomach Gary Linker

That seems odd. Gary Lineker seems like a very good presenter. His jokes can be a bit corny sometimes. Perhaps that is the problem.

 

[Typhoon]

That seems odd. Gary Lineker seems like a very good presenter. His jokes can be a bit corny sometimes. Perhaps that is the problem.

I agree. His pay may be debateable but he involves the experts and the interviewed to an extent that I remember their contributions and not his. That's what I want in a presenter. (To those who don't agree, there is always the mute button.)
If I wanted top notch jokes, I might be tuning to 'Dave'.

 

[davetheguard]

If I wanted top notch jokes, I might be tuning to 'Dave'.

I never knew I had such a reputation!

 

[Typhoon]

I never knew I had such a reputation!

There is every chance that you are funnier than Lineker, its not a very high bar.

 

[Bevan Price]

Comparing content from 25 years ago on any channel to today is unlikely to be a favourable result, not because what's being made today is rubbish, but because we only remember the great and memorable stuff from that long ago, not the dross and constant repeats.

Here's what BBC One was showing 25 years ago today - https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/service_bbc_one_london/1996-12-28 - looks like it was a Saturday, so you've got kids stuff in the morning, grandstand in the afternoon and casualty in the evening. But does anything really on that schedule stand out as high quality, must watch stuff?

If you look back even earlier, Christmas TV was equally a mixture of good and dross. Almost every Christmas Day there was an old. much-repeated film (e.g. Sound Of Music), Black & White Minstrel Show - where some white singers put on black make-up and pretended to be black - a rather tasteless idea; whilst some had good voices, they usually seemed to sing things like lame cover versions of lame old pop songs. On the "good" side, there was often a first TV showing of a classy movie.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

On the "good" side, there was often a first TV showing of a classy movie.

What, like "On the Buses" or "Carry on at Your Convenience"?

 

[adrock1976]

The BBC PR apology on twitter was:


The Sunday Sport replied

Quality!

Slightly moving sideways, but I thought the Sunday Sport rag ceased printing and publication years ago?

 

[Busaholic]

Slightly moving sideways, but I thought the Sunday Sport rag ceased printing and publication years ago?

It's still produced from that 159 bus on the moon, but they've not got the paper boys and girls to deliver it.

 

[The Ham]

It's still produced from that 159 bus on the moon, but they've not got the paper boys and girls to deliver it.

Maybe less of a problem now that there's companies offering delivery to the moon, as they maybe looking for cargo going the other way:

The companies offering delivery to the Moon

Intuitive Machines and its rivals hope to make the first US moon landings since Apollo 17 in 1972.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I feel that 25 years ago the BBC was very professional and of high quality in its presentation and news content. They were also particularly good with comedy, documentaries and things like panorama back then. Nowadays they are too left wing; so as well as coming across as politically biased, the quality of much of its programming has suffered too - comedy especially, and cancel culture hasn't helped in this regard. However, I think the website is excellent and whilst it has always been very informative and professionally designed, this is an area where I think it has improved.

That's kinda my impression, with the exception that I don't think there is a left wing bias per se: I would say that, in terms of Labour vs Tory coverage, the BBC do treat politicians of the left and right fairly equally. The problem is with the cultural values at the BBC - they've pretty much taken a metropolitan 'liberal' perspective as if it was uncontroversially the universal perspective, and not noticed that that perspective is quite legitimately not shared by a lot of the country - possibly, even, most of the country outside of London and academic/University towns. It's been a particular problem since BLM and identity politics came to the fore, resulting in an awfully biased coverage of almost anything BLM-related. These days, I use the BBC mainly for news, and the sense I get now is of a website/channel that I can trust to reasonably accurately tell me what's going on in the World, but which at the same time I have to be careful of because the stories often come from a perspective of presuming cultural/ethical values that are not mine.

 

[westv]

We watch terrestrial TV as well as streaming from Netflix, Amazon and currently a 3 month trial of Disney+
What does annoy us about Amazon is that you pay a monthly sub but then end up paying for individual films/series.

 

[birchesgreen]

We watch terrestrial TV as well as streaming from Netflix, Amazon and currently a 3 month trial of Disney+
What does annoy us about Amazon is that you pay a monthly sub but then end up paying for individual films/series.

It is annoying when seasons 1-7 of a show are free but once you are hooked you find 8-9 are not

 

[westv]

It is annoying when seasons 1-7 of a show are free but once you are hooked you find 8-9 are not

Yes, that as well.

 

[Gareth]

The real problem with contemporary television compared with the old days is that there are far too many channels chasing a diminishing audience, as there are more home entertainment options these days (online streaming, Spotify, video games) than there were back in the day.

Personally, I'd be happy with just a handful of general purpose TV networks. But "less is more" is a hard sell to most people.

 

[Non Multi]

It is annoying when seasons 1-7 of a show are free but once you are hooked you find 8-9 are not

Nothing new, US TV series would become hits on the BBC for example, and then Sky would outbid them for the later series (eg '24').

 

[MP33]

At one time a very small amount of the TV licence fee would go Ofcom to cover them investigating reception and interference problems to domestic TV services. The BBC took this back in house and did nothing to help any complainers.

 

[AM9]

At one time a very small amount of the TV licence fee would go Ofcom to cover them investigating reception and interference problems to domestic TV services. The BBC took this back in house and did nothing to help any complainers.

The interference issues are far less with DVB than they were with analogue VSB transmissions. Since there is a gradual move to DVB-t2 and 64QAM encoding together with statmuxing which allows more picture dependant bandwidth allocation within a MUX. So the incidence of adjacent channel and co-channel interference is virtually zero with DVB transmissions, and some ITV regions effectively use co-channel techniques in their single frequency networks (SFNs).

 

[D6968]

Nothing new, US TV series would become hits on the BBC for example, and then Sky would outbid them for the later series (eg '24').

Very true, not that I watched it but the missus wasn’t chuffed when Glee went the same way.

 

[LittleAH]

Always amusing when it comes to the BBC and seeing the usual tropes about it being 'woke' or 'PC', because people's views aren't confirmed by the output of the organisation. Problem with the BBC News/Politics output has largely come from the view that balance is two sides of the argument - it isn't. Even more worrying when the BBC’s director of editorial policy and standards says they will air the views of flat earthers. They should deal in facts. Ironically, the one area of the BBC News output that's come out well in the last few years is Ros Atkins' Outside Source and the explainer videos, which actually focus on facts and telling the story rather than needless opinion and the desperate need for 'balance'. It's also suffering from cuts, as the former Political Editor pointed out last week. Cuts, wherever you are, means less quality.

Still the BBC is far better than ITV, of which bar the EURO's, I didn't watch much of. On the Beeb Jimmy McGovern's Time was absolutely sensational, Line of Duty was great again, Vigil was intriguing, Strictly was fantastic, Inside No 9 hilarious, Gods of Snooker was one of the best sports documentaries I've seen in a while and BBC2 did a few good series on New Labour and the Capitol Riots too. That's just off the tope of my head. And the ITV Hub is literally the worst thing ever invented.

 

[Dai Corner]

Always amusing when it comes to the BBC and seeing the usual tropes about it being 'woke' or 'PC', because people's views aren't confirmed by the output of the organisation. Problem with the BBC News/Politics output has largely come from the view that balance is two sides of the argument - it isn't. Even more worrying when the BBC’s director of editorial policy and standards says they will air the views of flat earthers. They should deal in facts.

There's a meme that's been doing the rounds for ages.

If somebody says it's raining it's not a journalist's job to find somebody else who says it's dry and let them argue, it's his job to look out of the window and tell us what the weather's actually doing.

 

[Kez]

If somebody says it's raining it's not a journalist's job to find somebody else who says it's dry and let them argue, it's his job to look out of the window and tell us what the weather's actually doing.

I thought it was the Met Office's job to do that.

 

[52290]

There's a meme that's been doing the rounds for ages.

If somebody says it's raining it's not a journalist's job to find somebody else who says it's dry and let them argue, it's his job to look out of the window and tell us what the weather's actually doing.

Many moons ago when the weather announcer on the Today Programme said "it will be dull in the south and bright in the north" the late Brian Redhead famously quipped "just like the people!".

 

[Gareth]

There's a meme that's been doing the rounds for ages.

If somebody says it's raining it's not a journalist's job to find somebody else who says it's dry and let them argue, it's his job to look out of the window and tell us what the weather's actually doing.

Fine for weather forecasts but that analogy gets dodgy once you get into politics.