Over on the BBC’s Editors’ Blog, Newsnight Editor Peter Barron invites readers to post their thoughts on the current state of British television. He’s one of the organisers of the Edinburgh Television Festival and he’s planning on putting the comments on both the festival website and the walls of the conference centre (I assume they’ll be digital in some way).
Go away and read what people say – they have some quite interesting thoughts. And for completeness, I’m reproducing my thoughts here:
- Show some respect for programme makers – stop telling me what’s on next before the programme I’m still watching has finished, and then shrinking the credits to an unreadable size whilst telling me again about what’s coming up.
- Stop putting ever more invasive graffiti all over the screen – I’m trying to watch your programmes and don’t actually care that much about how colourful and jazzy your DOG is, or the fact that this weekend is a “Morse Weekend.”
- Address the training shortfall. With the BBC shrinking, we’re left with media studies students wandering around with cameras a touch better than a home videocamera recording footage without caring about getting their white balances correct or worrying about whether the sound’s audible.
- Step away from the overnights – big numbers are not the only criteria a programme should be judged by. Do not cancel a series or banish it into the wee hours if episode one under-performs. If you carry on doing this, I’ll never bother even trying to watch your programmes again. If you’re not going to invest your time in them, I’m not going to bother either.
- Combat internet downloads by airing shows as close as possible to US release dates.
- Stop paying silly money for US imports that are never going to be *that* successful, then leaving yourself high and dry with two of them when Sky One outbids you for season two.
- Stop stealing shows from one another’s channels. Remember the outcry about Thames when it “stole” Dallas? It’s a free market, but how about building your own shows.
- Don’t behave like a petulant four year old when negotiating which channels your competitor’s cable service can carry.
- Just because BBC Four exists (for now), that doesn’t mean that BBC Two has to “dumb down” – step forward British Film Forever. This could have been a wonderful series, but is spoilt by a demeaning narration and spurious interviewees. The whole series is pitched at a level somewhere around the average Channel 4 list programme. Wasn’t it nice to see an episode of Civilisation over Stephen Fry weekend?
- Prevent the seemingly likely severe cut backs in the budgets of such wonderful fare as Storyville, Timewatch, Horizon and other factual programming.
- Let’s do something to combat the diminution of science on television. Guess what? Science is actually really really important.
- Stop public service channels featuring a single reality show across upwards of a third of a year. Channel 4, you do realise that I avoid your channel during the whole of this period don’t you?
- Explain exactly why BBC Three costs twice as much as BBC Four. Isn’t there enough television for 15-34s?