The South Bank Show is one of those programmes that I always mean to watch, but then it ends up being on so late on a Sunday night that I simply don’t get around to it. I did want to see it last night, featuring a profile of author JG Ballard. But it turned out to be up against part two of the Spooks two parter which had an early showing on BBC Three (I still don’t quite see the point of these things). So I missed out.
But reading the news today that ITV would be making these shows available for download pleased me quite a lot. I’ll be first to subscribe/download.
Now I’m sure it’s first day nerves that means the site’s not quite ready. There’s no sign of video downloads as the Mediaguardian story implies, and I subscribed to the podcast (it would have helped if the iTunes link was clickable), but only ended up with a copy of the theme tune curtailed by around two seconds.
I suspect that the announcement was just made a little too early. The site looks unfinished with the latest show at the bottom of the page rather than the top, and a big empty box where the Next Show should be, and another empty box advertising the Coming Soon shows.
I’ll try later.
[UPDATE] Well they did manage to sort out the site a little. The big gap at the top for the next show has now been filled with Robbie Coltrane (no pun intended) as has the box on the right. Well – the other box has some text in it, if not filled.
And iTunes seems to be getting the podcast OK now. There’s still no sign of a video download. Instead we seem to get a 24 minute version of the interview that must have underpinned the show, probably giving us additional material cut from the broadcast version (not having either seen last night’s broadcast, nor listened to the full podcast yet, I don’t know). There are no rights issue with using any clips from films based on either Ballard’s novels or any other subject’s fare that way.
They still haven’t fixed the non-hyper iTunes link. The podcast is an enhanced one which means two things:
1) it has some photos, but
2) it’s in AAC format only. There doesn’t seem to be an mp3 option which is a shame for non iPod owners such as myself. I’d like both options thanks.
Also the quality’s a little low at only 56kbps as the file so helpfully tells us. The Tour de France podcasts that ITV put together (well VTV/the Television Corporation on their behalf I suspect) were better quality and just mp3 files to boot.
Still no sign of any video as the Mediaguardian report initially mentioned.
[UPDATE 2 – 1 Oct] When I was looking, ITV did put up the video equivalent to the audio it also put up. A 24 minute interview with JG Ballard.