BBC Three

Series 2 of People Just Do Nothing starts on BBC Three on Wednesday. Unlike Series 1, it isn't being shown on iPlayer first.

Which goes completely against their own argument.

Sorry for digging out an old thread... BBC Three isn't showing Reading Festival this year - instead, it's going to be shown on BBC Four.

Bit of an odd move seeing as the channel is still broadcasting. Can't see this kind of event really suiting the channel or pulling in a lot of the viewers who would normally be watching it on BBC Three.

Incidentally, the readingfestival.com website is listing the broadcast partner as BBC iPlayer. It seems the BBC Three brand is truly dead, whether continuing online or not.

I don't think this is evidence that the BBC Three brand is truly dead...

I'd be surprised if they get rid of the brand BBC Three. People know the brand (as they do BBC Four which surely couldn't continue with that name if Three were to go) and by removing the brand name the press would pounce on the channel being axed rather than moving online.

The channel is being axed - the brand is the channel, not a sub-section on the iPlayer. BBC3 is being axed whatever way the BBC try to spin it and this is yet more evidence of the BBC deliberately running down the channel before they've been given the go-ahead to close it.

If they were planning on retaining the brand, then surely they would continue to promote it rather than iPlayer.

I hate to say it, but I think iPlayer is a stronger brand with BBC Three's target audience.

Consider that BBC Three's soon to be audience are CBBC viewers who are already using iPlayer to watch their favourite kids shows, it's the natural progression to promote iPlayer over a linear brand.

Fair point, but then it comes back to the argument about whether iPlayer can serve the target demographic of BBC3 in areas where broadband/mobile internet coverage is crap and will be for a long while yet.

I'm also still baffled by the decision to shove the coverage on to BBC4, leaving repeats of Don't Tell The Bride etc in its place on BBC3.

As an aside - the posting experience on TVF on a mobile phone is awful.

It always been said BBC three would go online, its just expected to happen around 2020 onwards, not super fast.

How crap a connection would it have to be? Just how many people are subject to a connection that awful?

I have a connection which maxes out at ~4.5Mbps (sometimes you see 5Mbps overnight), which regularly slows down to 1-2Mbps at peak times; iPlayer is (pretty much) always stable in SD.

This is a city centre exchange which I'm on the outer reaches of (no FTTC yet). Lots of my family live in little villages in Norfolk and they have much better connections. How many people still have sub-1Mbps connections?

Enough for it still to be an issue. Until I had fibre I was around 2-2.5mbps and it really was pot luck whether I could watch iPlayer content - some days it was fine but others it was impossible.

It's not just about that though, it's about how those in their 20s and 30s are served by the BBC. A couple of hours of content a week on BBC1/2 isn't going to cut it and you look at the existing schedules for BBC1/2 and there is very little there which is targetted at people under 50, and even less not targetted squarely at Dave and Sue.

I think there's a minute minority still with a sub 1Mbps connection, some are in urban areas. My bog standard ADSL2+ is 17Mbps as I'm near the local exchange, but a check of the BT Broadband DSL checker shows speeds of between 3-17mbps depending on the exchange and location.

However, iPlayer uses adaptive bitrate streaming, so a viewer could still watch a programme even if it's at 512x288