[QUOTE=Mk VII]
Nowadays people are sufficiently accustomed to the concept of the teaser that this practice has been dropped, and a lot of British dramas use it too
[quote]
True - but at least no channel has done that awful cramming of an advert between the teaser and the credits.
Unfortunately, there’s also a received wisdom in many quarters that American TV is excellent quality, and that if the BBC was commercial it would be just as good. The problem is, the people holding this view think that all American TV is just like the Simpsons, the Sopranos and CNN. I agree that nobody who’s spent an evening with nothing but American network TV for company will claim that we don’t have it better.
Very hard to say - there’s a multitude of reasons people may like the BBC. Certainly, there’s an affection for it as an institution in itself, that kind of justifies itself by its very existence (a bit like some people’s reverence for the Queen). Others strongly believe that commercial broadcasting has inherent problems, and these people (myself included) feel this is demonstrated well by the state of American network TV and also by the decline in standards of the cable news channels. There’s also the fact that the BBC turns out a lot of very good stuff. So yes, some people do hate adverts, but it’s not the only reason they might prefer the Beeb.
at its best, American TV can produce high-quality drama with sound production values. Naturally the buyers cherry-pick what they deem to be the best when selecting stuff for transmission here (though they seem to buy some turkeys too). The real turkeys never get to us.
No, everybody gets Channel Four, and most people get Channel 5 too. We don’t have VHF TV here any more, though, so cheapskate viewers without satellite or cable have only five networks. OTOH, non-subscription digital terrestrial TV is growing like mad, and it includes… well, mostly a load of channels that nobody would pay to watch. But it’s there, and it’s free.
Yes, I was wondering when the licence fee was first mentioned in this thread – since it’s just for BBC, it would seem like that would only be fair if that was all there was. If changes are made, is there any proposed option that seems likely to win out?
Just curious – when you say “unique awfulness”, what part(s) of American network TV are you referring to? Specifically the programming nowadays? or the way things are run via the advertising? Or something else?
In general, I would agree that there is some definite unique awfulness about prime time network TV over here these days – and in this, I’m mostly referring to the programming. Primarily, the ridiculous plethora of so-called “reality” shows. A fad that I was hoping would die out as fast as the “game show” fad died out (started by “Millionaire”, and resulting in many short-lived copies and variations).
There are definitely still a few good shows on network TV over here. And every once in a while, a new worthy show is introduced. But for every good one that’s introduced, there are at least a half-dozen new craptastic shows that get farted in our general direction at the same time.
Thanks to all for the info – I’d always wondered how the programming worked over there. Never gotten to see it, myself, since I haven’t had the opportunity to visit the UK. The only other countries I’ve been to are Spain and Cuba, and in Spain at the time (1986), the programming was essentially sports, news, bullfights, and American TV shows dubbed in Spanish (like “Miami Vice” and “Greatest American Hero”…)
“awfulness” - not so much the programmes as the way they are transmitted. The numerous commercial breaks (far many more than in England), the way they leap up on you without warning (we usually get a flashcard to indicate that the programme is breaking and you can leap up for a comfort break or a cup of tea without getting caught by the commercials) and the way they become more frequent as the movie nears its climax. The monotonous unimaginative commercials where somebody just stands there, grips the product and extolls its virtues remorsely.
I’ve just spent 3 weeks over in the US and watched a fair bit of TV as my mate was ill quite a lot. It isn’t that bad, but the adverts do get very annoying, very quickly. By far the most annoying practice was to show an ad break (and they’re all 3-4 minutes long, whereas UK breaks are typically 2-3 minutes) just before the final credits. I wouldn’t want the BBC to show adverts as I’m glad I don’t have to watch them, and I think it forces the other channels to limit the amount of ads they show.
I beg you - don’t read Doug Naylor’s ‘The Last Human’, it’s truly awful. The Grant Naylor duo wrote two Red Dwarf books (IWCD and Better Than Life) then they both wrote a book that followed on from the end of Better Than Life. Rob Grant’s ‘Backwards’ is a much better book, and makes sense. The same goes for the TV show; I think only Naylor wrote the last series (series 8) and my God it was bad. It started going downhill after 5, but it became unwatchable in places.
Thanks, Mk VII. My beef is more with the programming these days, and I guess I’m just desensitized to the amount of commercials, since it’s what I’ve always known. Not that I like them – I typically tape things I want to see, then fast forward through the ads.
But I can see how it would be much more annoying if you are used to shows with a lot less advertising interrupting them.
I’ve just been watching a tape of a 60-minute British show. Until recently you could expect three breaks at roughly equal spacings. In recent years they’ve increased it to four - and we find that annoyingly too many.
In some American shows, if they plan it right, the commercial break works to good effect (although I’d agree with you that there are still too many). Example would be the drama “24” (and one of my current favorites).
Big suspenseful moment comes up, and just when things are looking rough, “tick-CHUNK… tick-CHUNK… tick-CHUNK…”, the “24” clock comes up and cuts you to commercial. You leap up, adrenaline pumping, exclaiming “Oh my Og!”, rush to the bathroom and relieve yourself while ignoring the woman on the TV now hawking feminine products in front of a field of wildflowers and telling you how much fresher she feels than she used to, and all the while you’re letting the suspenseful moment sink in and excitedly anticipate the next segment while you refresh your drink.
So those kind don’t bother me so much, but I wish they would shorten them…
Most shows, the lengthy ads are just downright annoying, though. Especially in the half-hour shows where you get barely 21 minutes of show time.
I also find the licence fee to be good value, because I watch more BBC stuff than the other networks put together. But I think those in favour of the mandatory licence fee (who I concede are in the majority, certainly around here) have a tendency to overlook the word “mandatory” when extolling its virtues. You can actually end up in jail if you fail to pay the fee, even if you hate the BBC’s programmes and never watch them. To me, that is fundamentally wrong. Ad-free TV is not an essential public service, it should not be funded through taxation. It should be paid for by the people who watch it, i.e. through voluntary subscription, like HBO is in the US.
If the fee is the bargain that we are always being told it is, there should be no problem getting people to pay it voluntarily, eh?
You have a good point, and one that’s been mooted several times. The difficulty, as I see it, is how to get there from here. How would the BBC ensure that only those people who had paid their subscription were able to receive channels which are broadcast freely over the airwaves? When UK TV broadcasting changes over to all-digital then I can see it as an option, but not until then.
What is often forgotten in these debates is that the BBC, by its charter, has a requirement to produce public service broadcasting, and that every time the licence fee comes up for renewal, more and more restrictions are put on it: quotas for programmes from independent producers; quotas for minority programming; limits to the percentage of foreign-made (read american) programmes; etc.
And then there are other hoops to jump through too: “The BBC wants more money? Why should the public pay more for programmes that constantly get fewer ratings than the commercial channels? Give the people more of what they want and we’ll see what we can do.” A few years later: “More money? Why should the public pay a fee to see the same type of shows they can see on commercial TV? More quality public service programming – that’s what the BBC should be providing.”
To be honest, I imagine there are a good many in the Beeb who would love to get away from the licence fee – so long as all the strings that go with it are removed as well, and they’re allowed to compete on a level playing field with the other networks.
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To return to the OP, though: it ought to be pointed out that there are, in fact, “seasons” on British TV, but that the meaning is different. A “season” in the UK refers to one channels total programming output for a period of time, which roughly corresponds to the natural seasons of the year – Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring. At one time in the deep and murky past (back in the 60s and 70s) a run of 13 weeks for a particular programme was more usual than not, and a 26 week run was not unheard of. This started to change in the 80s: with more channels chasing fewer viewers, it seems the executives became shyer of committing too much money and airtime to shows that weren’t guaranteed ratings-grabbers. It needs to be remembered that there’s no system here for cancelling a show part-way through a run in anything but the most compelling circumstances – it would simply cost far too much.
Little Britain comes on BBC America. Or at least it ran once, BBCAs lineup changes more frequently than any other station I know of–it might be in a different timeslot now. Never watched it myself since I wasn’t home when it aired, but I’ve heard nothing but praise for it.
Apologies for continuing the hijack that I am partly responsible for, but I would like to address this point:
Owning a TV is not mandatory, but neither is it a luxury. How about a tax on refrigerators, or vacuum cleaners? You can get by without them, too, but nevertheless everyody has one. And I would say that a TV is more essential than a fridge or a Hoover, since it is has the capacity to “educate, entertain, and inform” (mantra of the BBC, for those who don’t recognise it).
As for fee-objectors who do in fact watch BBC programmes sometimes, you should take into account how much they watch, and whether they’d watch it at all if there were an entrance fee. The technology is there, and has been there since the pre-digital era, to prevent non-payers from viewing subscription TV. I note that the BBC lobbied strongly afgainst subscription-based digital terrestrial TV (“Freeview”), and apparently they were successful, because it is now hard to find DTT boxes that have a slot for subscription cards. Why did the Beeb care so much about this? Because they don’t want us to have the option of subscribing to their services.
THe thing with the Beeb is that the stuff that most people notice (and would probably support itself financially on subscription) is what keeps all the other stuff afloat.
BBC 1, BBC2, Radio One and Radio Two would probably be OK. However what about radio Three which supports a large number of orchestras and the Proms? Radio four would cease to exist in any recognisable form if it had to rely on adverts (endless bloody You and Yours and Moneybox - no news, no current affairs and worst of all no Archers!).
Now if the Beeb cross subsidised, for instance, Radio London with the money from BBC1 then GLR and capital would have kittens - and would be into court before you could say “Danny Baker’s a fat wanker”.
You have to accept that if we have the BBC then the present arrangement is about as good as it’s going to get.
Things have come to a pretty pass when owlstretchingtime is the voice of reason in your debate. Nevertheless, I oppose the licence fee and think that the BBC is too powerful. We don’t have a print BBC, but we somehow manage to have pretty good newspapers.
If the orchestras matter, people will subscribe to Radio Three. If they don’t subscribe, then I have to ask why they were forced to pay for it in the first place.
Or are you arguing that the masses don’t know what’s good for them, and should be forced to pay for the production of stuff that they don’t (yet) appreciate? Sounds kind of, dare I say it, socialist.
