Charlie Brooker’s Guardian Guide column yesterday was not devoted to any programmes at all. Instead he rightly broad the barrel of his guns to bear on new BBC commissioning rules regarding end credits.
Now this might sound like something of an esoteric subject, of little concern to anyone other than editors who need to ensure that everything’s in the right place.
Well – it’s far more important than that.
It means that creatively we’re no longer leaving any time at the end of programmes for a little bit of reflection or even discussion amongst your friends and family. Instead, the nano-second that the action is complete, the credits will shrink and we’ll be immediately informed what’s coming next.
Of course, if you’re watching a channel aimed at people with short attention spans (BBC Three and, er, BBC Two!?) you already get “coming next” banners distracting you from the programme you’re actually trying to watch right now.
If I was a senior Equity or other broadcast medium union representative, I’d be extremely unhappy that credits are being treated with quite so much disdain. Never mind the fact that programme makers are now being creatively constrained.
To be completely fair, there is one very small part of the new rules I do agree with – horizontally crawling credits are to be banned. I’ve no problem with them creatively, but they tend to go by so fast you simply can’t read them. This is mainly because of digital/analogue transmission issues. If the crawl is slowed down – like those on news channels – there’s no problem.
Like all great new initiatives, these trends come from the US, where networks are desperate to hold on to viewers. It’s now very usual to have no gap between the end of one programme and the start of the next. The credits get shrunk and a programme trail plays alongside it. When the 30 seconds of theme are up, the next programme starts straight away. Other trails come around the copious ad breaks during the programme. They certainly don’t want you channel surfing.
Indeed they’re actually getting to the point where one programme is ending at the same time as the next programme is starting.
Add to that all the pointless DOGs becoming ever more present on programmes (It’s ‘Morse Weekend’ on ITV3. I know this because it tells me the whole time. And there’s the really completely pointless “Something For The Weekend” DOG on Tim Lovejoy’s not-at-all-like ‘Soccer Saturday’ Sunday morning show) and we’re in a wasteland of graffiti all over our screens.
And these things are becoming ever more pointless. I now find that I rarely watch live TV outside of the news and sport. So telling me what’s on next is useless unless I’ve already recorded it.