Perhaps I’ve missed something but does anyone really care about BBC 3?
Looking at its schedule its hard to see all that innovative and thought provoking programming we’re told it produces….what I see is 95% repeats…..or sensationalist tabloid type tat that it denounces the Daily Mail for…’Snog, Marry Avoid’ or ‘Secrets of South America….Generation Sex’ or the fascinating ‘Pop’s Greatest Dance Crazes’.
“I’m completely gutted, I think you’re completely ignoring our views,” said BBC Three fan Alice. “We’re not going to sit by and take it – we’re going to make a stand and try to save the channel.”
There’s a bit of infighting going on at the BBC just now……BBC 3 is to be re-shaped for the digital age, taking a pay cut along the way……
…….so far, listening to the interviews, it seems that it is mostly other BBC staff who are upset.
The BBC tells us that…..
The problem for the BBC is that Three is viewed by 16 million people a week and they tend to be people the rest of the corporation struggles to reach – the young, the less affluent and more ethnically diverse.
Comedy producer Ash Atalla said the BBC had at a stroke made itself “whiter, older and more middle class”.
Not quite sure how they have come to the conclusion that it’s only ‘the young, the less affluent and more ethnically diverse’ who don’t watch the BBC…quite a sweeping statement…but why limit it to those categories? Just how many others, the whiter, older, middle class, actually watch massive amounts of BBC1 or BBC 2, never mind 3 and 4? Looking at the schedules it doesn’t look particularly inspiring viewing for anybody.
Possibly the problem with the BBC is that it has had too much money and has been able to indulge itself and spend without regard to quality, spreading itself too thin….
Not a great deal of money is being saved here….BBC 3’s budget is £85, it will be £25 m in future, but £30 million of the cut budget will be used to fund BBC 1 drama.
Possibly the ‘cut’ is a negotiating tactic for the next round of charter renewal talks……
‘The BBC’s director of television, Danny Cohen, even refused to rule out the possibility of closing another channel, saying: “We don’t know for certain what will happen for BBC Four in the future”.
“We can’t keep offering the same with less money,” he continued.
“If future funding for the BBC comes under threat, the likelihood is we would have to take more services along the same route.”
Strange though that the pruning of BBC 3 is being cast as the end of comedy and innovative programming…..wasn’t that the job of BBC 2 before the BBC got too big?…..
Happy Birthday BBC TWO
Jane Root, Controller of BBC TWO, says: “The most enjoyable thing about the channel is that it brings surprise, sophistication and innovation to a range of things.
“It has always been famous for creating both popular comedy and thought-provoking programmes.
“That sense of variety has been there all the way though the channel’s history.”
A vast array of comedy, culture and highminded programming flooded out of BBC 2….The Young Ones, Ab Fab, Not the Nine O’clock News, The Ascent of Man, Life on Earth, The Office, Yes Minister…… never mind Monty Python…..etc etc…..
Here’s a list of just the comedy on BBC 2
And BBC One?
How about Mrs Brown’s Boys?……
Its opening in the UK won 16.4% of the ratings in its Monday night slot and was received well by viewers.[30] Despite the critical reviews, 2.9 million viewers had tuned in by the third episode.[31][32][33] The 2011 Christmas Special achieved 6.61 million viewers, winning in its 10 pm time-slot.[34][35] Consolidated figures revealed that the 2012 Christmas specials were the most watched programmes on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day respectively: “Mammy Christmas” had 11.68 million viewers (41.3%) and “The Virgin Mammy” was watched by 10.72 million (38.7%).[36] The episode “Buckin’ Mammy” was the most watched programme in the UK on Christmas Day 2013, with 9.4 million viewers.[37]
Must have been a few ‘ethnic’ people, or young ones, or ‘not middle class’ people watching that….or Top Gear.
Perhaps the BBC should go back to doing a few things well rather than trying to serve every niche market or exotic cultural sector of the community with their own personalised channels.
Family Guy, American Dad will be sorely missed. Seth may be a Democrat over there but over here I detect a right of centre bias. Plus its very funny.
i like both of them shows but BBC3 just seem to show the same episodes over and over all the time
Channel 5 ( or some other freeveiw channel ) will pick them up
They are available online, on demand, on DVD, Bluray etc…
You can still watch them anytime you like. Other channels will keep showing repeats of them.
we are on the brink of world war 3 with russia,immigration is out of control,we are under threat from the islamo fascists,and what have i heard for the past 2 days on radio 5 live,nothing but bbc 3 is closing down,it just makes me sick,here is the thing about bbc 3,it has always been modelled on channel 4 as a radical alternative station for vested minority groups and left wing type journalists and so called comedians who like to take a pop at ukip and the torys,bbc 3 is very politcal with its left wing leanings and good riddance to it i say,but this hysteria from nicky campbell in the morning to richard bacon in the afternoon to dullard phil williams in the evenings and the almost mourning over bbc 3 closing down is the most sicking inducing i have heard in ages on radio 5 live by all these presenters and there sycophants guests of there.
First they come for BBC3 and I said nothing, next they came for etc. etc…………we hope
Maybe they can follow the closure of BBC 3, in rapid succession, with closure of BBC 2 and BBC 4, as well. They seem to offer the same repeats between themselves ad-infinitum. The programme about coaches was on , again, the other night. It was an interesting programme, but after about twelvety-thousand repeats, I knew the dialogue off by heart.
Where they shoot themselves in the foot with these re-runs, is by showing us all how documentaries should be made, and alas, now are not.
BBC1 would not be missed either.
If there’s a reduction in output then there should be an appropriate reduction in the licence fee also. As BBC3 was
a load of chavvy crapthe shining star in Auntie’s handbag I personally feel that this should be in the region of 90% or so.Wonder if Matt Lucas, Prickstocke et al will withhold their tellytax payments in protest until it’s brought back ?
A pause in the ever-expanding Beeboid global broadcasting empire?
Is the D.G. HALL -approved cut in output of BBC 3 a straw in the wind? The BBC broadcasting empire has been expanded at the British people’s expense for generations. Continually increasing the Beeboid financial public expenditure each year is apparently a presumption beyond question. Real cuts for biased and unnecessary Beeboid output are needed now: globally, nationally, regionally and online.
Of course, the BBC should be treated worse that its propagandists treat the coal industry.
‘Daily Telegraph’ (£)-
“All change! The BBC is changing direction…
“In making BBC Three an online-only channel the director-general, Tony Hall, simply invites ever‑closer scrutiny of the anomalies in the licence fee.”
By David Elstein.
[Opening excerpt]:-
“Shock, horror! BBC TV says it will be closing one of its eight channels, in 18 months’ time, perhaps. A modest amount of money may be saved, only to be spent in other ways – on more drama, and on making original content targeted at young people available online. But only if the BBC Trust approves the proposal announced by Tony (Lord) Hall, the BBC director-general, who says he is “certain” that the decision is strategically right – effectively inviting the trust to dare to challenge his operational control of the corporation.
How typically BBC!”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10680900/All-change-The-BBC-is-changing-direction….html
Mr. Elstein is an interesting character.
He cropped up recently as a witness in the FOBBC inquiry:
http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/WrittenEvidence.svc/EvidenceHtml/5368
Certainly worth listening to more than many, but even so in that Telegraph piece the comments are well worth checking out in complement.
Some feel BBC Three is just a sacrificial pawn in the greater prize of the BBC remaining as accurate, objective, trusted, transparent and accountable as it is currently, but the £5B to let it stay that way simply morphs into something even more opaque than the licence fee.
And it can all be done because of public outcry, at least the kind the powers that be pay attention to:
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/mar/06/bbc3-closure-bbc1-drama?CMP=ema_546
There’s a poll.
I also liked this caption: ‘BBC3 shows such as Family Guy’ . Y’uh-huh.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/mar/06/bbc3-no-guarantee-future-bbc4-danny-cohen?CMP=ema_546
No poll, but Mr. Cohen not popular with the Graun crowd, some of whom looking beyond the naked ‘make nice or we’ll take this away’ attempt to his stellar efforts as a BBC market rate talent.
But he is a man given to sober reflection on weighing what gets ditched from the compulsory unique funding what many folk would clearly not want to fund at all.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/mar/06/bbc3-closure-danny-cohen-wait-less-risky?CMP=ema_546
Again, he does not appear the most engaging of spokesmen to seduce even the home crowd. Maybe the BBC needs to get back to those anonymous ones pronto?
Then of course there’s the BBC’s own BBC reporting.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26464007
That was originally open to comment, but there were none, possibly because they ‘had a a problem’.
That seems to have now been resolved by there no being no opportunity for comment, a very BBC solution to what doesn’t suit. Possibly wise. Hardly honest.
The there’s FaceBook:
BBC World News
Is watching television via the internet illegal?http://bbc.in/1hPbbop
Check out the video below from BBC News on YouTubehttp://bit.ly/1mYHZzX and see why the US Supreme Court will soon be asked that same question.
Tell us what you think in the comments section.
Living Online: Challenging the future of TV by broadcasting online – BBC News
youtube.com
As television networks struggle to keep viewers watching in the digital age, one company is bringing television content
The illegality of watching TV online must be troubling many around the world, as The BBC’s Brajesh Upadhyay reports, from the ever-swelling BBC cubicle gardens.
The comments requested are interesting.
You don’t have to pay to read that. Just delete the Telegraph cookies in your browser.
I’m beginning to think that the Telegraph is no longer worth bothering with, since its leftie stance has come to the fore, the use of the mad Jenny Jones and her stupid greenie stuff, and the departure of Delingpole to Breitbart. It’s becoming more Guardian, than the Guardian.
“In making BBC Three an online-only channel the director-general, Tony Hall, simply invites ever‑closer scrutiny of the anomalies in the licence fee.”
It’s not that there are anomalies in the licence fee – it’s that the licence fee itself is an anomaly..
Why not just shut down the World service and the Asian network?
Why should everyone be subsiding these specialist services?
Next on the list should be Radio 1Xtra and the Asian Network. Tony Hall, leave BBC4 alone, I like the old repeats of TOTP.
BBC2 did a perfectly good job in showing innovative comedies before BBC3 came along.
Look at BBC2 now. Antiques and cooking shows. Can anyone believe that the once great channel is showing sewing competition?
That’s very much the truth of it. The BBC has dumbed-down everything it has touched for decades, but the sad decline of BBBC2 is particularly stark.
‘BBC to save £100 million by axeing BBC3.’
Reality: The BBC never ever ‘save’ money. They merely reallocate it somewhere else.
They are ‘saving’ money by binning BBC3 in the same way that you are saving money tonight in the pub when you move off the beer and onto shorts.
You’re ‘saving’ the money you were otherwise going to spend on beer.
Hall your an *rse.
Just like the proposal to close 6Music and The Asian Network, it never happened!