British Television

People eat dinner earlier in the UK it seems 5-7pm. So The One Show is basically the launchpad of primetime proper. But yes it’s a fucking awful format and a waste of time.

Agree. The show is is the laziest most uninspired format I’ve sever seen on a major network in primetime stripped. It’s completely dated, forgettable and low hanging fruit television dumbed down for the masses. One of BBCs worst shows. How they don’t strive for better at 7pm with the huge audience they have who will clearly watch anything is beyond me

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By looking that this, your criticism of The One Show by far the strongest, since I am agreeing with you this show should be axed and replaced with more serious weekly current affairs slot similar to Victoria Derbyshire

I’m no fan of The One Show as a viewer but it is an important show for the BBC and kind of dates back to the Nationwide days of wanting something in the early evening schedules which is lighter than the news. It bridges the gap between the news hour and primetime programming perfectly and is very useful for the BBC to use for various unscheduled specials such as tribute programmes, launching telethons and specials such as last month counting down the top 20 BBC Programmes to mark 100 Years on the BBC and just this week marking 100 Days to the Platinum Jubilee.

Yes, it’s not for me - but it’s harmless at 7pm and does it’s job well. Indeed if EastEnders doesn’t stick at 7.30pm and ultimately they switch it to an hour at 8pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays I would fully expect that in that scenario The One Show will be doubled to an hour every night.

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Channel 5 has commissioned two new dramas Desperate Measures and The Winter Child, as it prepares for life without Neighbours. Both are 4x60’ series.

I’d say this was part of their plans to increase their output of original dramas given their recent success and continued investment in that area.

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All eight seasons of McLeod’s Daughters will be streaming in Britain via one of two new FAST channels on Samsung TV.

ITV has announced that it will launch its new streaming service ITVX later in the year. It will replace its current streaming service, ITV Hub.

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Good to see a unique name for the rebrand, and not something as basic like ITV+ or ITV Watch

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Television Centre (formally BBC Television Centre) was evacuated following a suspicious package in White City, resulting in ITV pulling This Morning and Loose Women from the air.

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ITV has confirmed that it’s commissions for its linear channels will decrease to fund new original commissions for ITVX

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as long as it still works with nord i’ll be happy

That’s understandable considering the plan is for some of the ITVX original programs (particularly dramas) to eventually air on linear TV 6 - 9 months after they launch.

Definitely not going to criticise that, I think - except I have to wonder if this is the inevitability of a much more polarised world; that even public broadcasters have to face, and whether it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If someone has grown up with a heavy Tory background and finds it hard to believe a public-owned BBC shouldn’t exist at all - why would you go there as opposed to initially trying to get yourself hooked up with the Murdoch media, or the Telegraph, or even one of the mid-market papers like the Mail or the Express I guess, than finding yourself somewhere in the Beeb.

[I don’t even know where ITN sits in this dichotomy anymore given they do such a wide gamut of programs; it’s hard to believe that bulletins for 4 and 5, say, come out of the same building sometimes…]

I know it’s not as simple as that - a journalist would likely prefer a job anywhere than nothing at all, and I’m sure there are many who would rightly prefer to open their minds to “the other point of view” or at least hold their nose until they can jump ship - but I wonder how much that actually happens now. Something something about Overton windows I guess, and it becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Indeed, to the point where you struggle to even find opposing-viewpoint stuff - and that runs both ways. My mind goes back to the early days of Insiders on ABC here and find it amazing they were able to get people like Piers Akerman (Murdoch city rag columnist) or Gerard Henderson (right-wing think tank guy who writes for The Australian now) on as a contrarian voice.

That’d never happen now; it’s considered “feeding the enemy” in the Murdoch press (after all, they can contribute to their own groupthink on Sky News After Dark here now!), and probably unsettled some of the left-er viewers as well.

I’m sure similar things happen in the UK; folks who might have appeared as guests on the BBC before are probably more comfortable sharing a pint with Farage on GB News now, or rub shoulders with Piers Morgan or whoever once talkTV starts, than feeling questioned by centre-to-left BBC reporters. Better controlling of the message, I guess.

All of this… although I’d trust the BBC or the ABC more than any Murdoch rag, for others to say the public broadcaster is above all reproach and that there is zero groupthink is ridiculous. There’s a need to be impartial, but on the other hand, the Tory media [Murdoch here but I imagine the likes of the Telegraph there also] have declared both the enemy, crowding out a “free press”. How can one not ignore that I guess? We should call them out on it when we see it, though, for sure.

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… that’s a lot (sorry), and doesn’t even address the original point about the dramatising Covid stuff. Some could argue that the more serious types would already be watching Channel 4… but especially during a pandemic, people will be watching the main two networks most and especially BBC One… without being a government mouthpiece, there’s a need for straight news without the drama crap.

Whether that’d engage the viewing public though in 2022, I’ve no idea, and I wonder if things like that are as much an indication that they haven’t snapped out of “we’re shit-scared of losing ratings share to ITV (in particular) and other places” mode, even during a pandemic (…especially during a pandemic, when everyone was locked down and couldn’t do much else than watch telly). I know the PSB buck doesn’t stop solely with the BBC, but with the requirements on ITV almost lip service now and who knows what’ll happen with Channel 4 in future, they’re uniquely important in the domestic market, for sure, and probably deserve more scrutiny than most.

With all due respect - although this is a good thing and Question Time (as with Q+A and SBS’ Insight here) is an important part of this… how they treat their bulletins at 6 and 10 is a lot more important, especially during a pandemic. (Same for ITV and 4, to be fair.)

Given basically everyone has an internet capable device that’s capable of watching iPlayer and the ITV Hub… you’d think just lobbing it into the electricity bill like some countries have would be more efficient than warbling on about so-called detector vans and such.

But on the other hand, the way it is now, the BBC gets the money directly and HM Treasury’s consolidated revenue doesn’t touch it… govt interference is limited to being told how much they’re authorised to collect each year. Some would see that as better (as they can’t withhold funding as easily… bluster being limited to “freezing the licence fee” usually). I’m not sure how you could easily replicate the “no treasury hands on the money” approach with a levy.

I guess the German approach of it being universal (now) but still collected by the public broadcasters directly is a third way, and would still get rid of the detector vans…

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The upcoming 14th season of MasterChef Australia will air on W later this year, after it is shown here on 10.

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BBC3 is currently showing a season of Masterchef Australia - not sure if that had previously been on W.

According to current schedule, BBC3 is showing season 10 of MasterChef Australia from 2018, which had been on W before.

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3 posts were merged into an existing topic: BBC