Ghostwatch: 25 Years On

Am I missing something here? He was never accused of being... one of them... was he?

I think the "obvious reasons" are that Mike Smith's episodes of TOTP are not shown, believed to be at his request as discussed on page 3 of this thread.

When the Mike Smith ToTP editions were during to be shown (ie in repeat and date order) and then were dropped from BBC Four, someone tweeted Sarah a well worded and 'respectful' message asking if it was something to do with Mike, and she replied that it was Mike's wishes that his television work should not be repeated. BBC Four are carrying those wishes out (no matter how frustrating that is to some pop music archive fans around the Internet)

Mike isn't the first or the last to ask for that after his leaving.
Dave Allen had a original broadcast and one full repeat request put on all is television work - which Dave's wife is still honouring.

It's why you don't see full episode series repeats of his work to this day, and Dave even sat with a VT editor when compilation or best of's were in being produced, so he had final say on which material went into those programmes.

Anyway, back to Ghostwatch..

I only heard about this show about five years ago, I have loved it every since. It manages to get the atmosphere right, and a lot of these fake shows never get it right, Ghostwatch did!

I don't really understand the negative hype. It was shown at night, if children were watching, that is down to the parents. As to what happened after, I don't really feel anyone is to blame, anything and everything in life could have a similar outcome. It just triggered a problem that was already there, in my opinion.

I would hope that if this had happened today, forgetting about social media, the British public would not be as gullible. But on the other hand, I feel we have more people looking to feel outraged over the slightest thing, so the BBC would never allow it. Sad!

How many other Screen One films are being discussed 25 years later? I think it's fair to say Ghostwatch was a success.

While not quite a hoax and more a mockumentary, I still have fond memories of watching 'The Day Britain Stopped' in about 2003, which used TV personalities and newsreaders from all the main terrestrial and news channels - including every BBC news region - reporting on a fictional transport disaster. Other than a bit of dodgy CGI it felt extremely realistic, even featuring digitally edited clips of Tony Blair responding to the events.

Could easily be repeated today as a fictional account of a past event, rather than the near-future of the time.

I remember The Day Britain Stopped, great programme that. Genome says it only ever had two airings - May 2003 and January 2004.
Unusually is still available on the BBC News website as a microsite. The Air Traffic Services went out of their way to totally debunk the chain of events in the programme...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_day_britain_stopped/

If that's the case, why are BBC4 regularly tweeting clips with him in from the likes of Breakfast Time, the Late Late Breakfast Show and the Saturday Picture Show? They do seem to be intentionally avoiding clips of him presenting TOTP, but we frequently see clips from his other TV work.

Also Radio 1's Independence Day UK, featuring Nicky Campbell and Mark Goodier, which started with an introduction recalling War of the Worlds

Using a clip as illustration / a story from the archive is one thing, repeating a whole programme, when he expressed his wish that they not be, is quite another.

According to Wikipedia, those behind Ghostwatch had, originally, intended to make it a six part series, with the "live" show being the final part. If that was true, it makes you wonder if the viewers would've been more "prepared" for the final edition.

Another thought. As the end credits were rolling, or afterwards, I think it would've been good for the BBC to announce an action line number, for those who may have been affected by the programme.

I think it had a bit of an edit too - the first airing used a clip of Tony Blair responding to a real life disaster (the Concorde crash?), which caused offence and was taken out of the repeat out of respect to the victims.