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Why no The Simpsons on E4?

(February 2019)

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AA
Amber Avenger
Family Guy is on the ITV Hub now but the BBC wouldn't or couldn't get iPlayer rights for it when FG was on BBC Three.


The BBC was apparently keen to keep the rights for Family Guy when BBC Three went online, keeping it on linear TV via BBC Two but apparently there was some sort of issue where Fox weren't pleased with the level security that iplayer offered.

Fox is quite precious about The Simpsons, although it's been in syndication for years, it was never on american cable until a few years ago when FX got a deal, which also included streaming rights - as far as I know pretty much the only service that offers all episode of The Simpsons for streaming, although not looked into it too much.

FX launched their involvement in The Simpsons in the US by doing a mega marathon of "Every Episode Ever" which was pretty successful - I'm surprised that Sky never tried anything like that off the back of it.
JK
JKDerry
I managed to talk to a Channel 4 scheduling representative and this is what they said about the scheduling of The Simpsons on Channel 4 and not on E4 etc, maybe it will give you a little insight.

"This is simply a decision our scheduling team have made and as with many of our programmes, they tend to be designated to one of our channels depending on their target audience and will air there on a regular slot. Furthermore, as we're sure you can appreciate, we have a huge variety of programming and so due to time-restrictions, it is not always possible to air all of these programmes across all of our channels."
MR
mr_vivian
Huge variety is debatable.
Larry the Loafer and PFML84 gave kudos
BR
Brekkie
JAS84 posted:
But DVDs only exist for the first 18 seasons. The current season is season 30.

Surprised the Simpsons World service has never launched here as an app through Sky and Now TV.
JA
james-2001
When the Simpsons World app first launched in the US they only put on the awful psuedo-HD copies of the first 19 seasons on there as well, until they got so many complaints and relented and put up the origials.
PF
PFML84
Huge variety is debatable.

Yeah, there's such a huge variety of Goldbergs and Big Bang Theory episodes to choose from it's hard to know where an episode of The Simpsons could fit in.
WH
Whataday Founding member
And Sky1 show those awful psuedo-HD versions of the first 19 seasons which to me is as good as them not showing it at all.


How can a 2D cartoon be pseudo-HD (or HD come to mention it)? If they've tidied up the lines and colours from old episodes then it's just higher quality, not HD.
LL
Larry the Loafer
And Sky1 show those awful psuedo-HD versions of the first 19 seasons which to me is as good as them not showing it at all.


How can a 2D cartoon be pseudo-HD (or HD come to mention it)? If they've tidied up the lines and colours from old episodes then it's just higher quality, not HD.


To say the lines are tidier is debatable. They look as if the originals have been drawn over with a marker pen which gives this weird effect of looking fresh and scruffy at the same time.
VM
VMPhil
And Sky1 show those awful psuedo-HD versions of the first 19 seasons which to me is as good as them not showing it at all.


How can a 2D cartoon be pseudo-HD (or HD come to mention it)? If they've tidied up the lines and colours from old episodes then it's just higher quality, not HD.


To say the lines are tidier is debatable. They look as if the originals have been drawn over with a marker pen which gives this weird effect of looking fresh and scruffy at the same time.

Inconsistent reframing for widescreen too. Sometimes it's cropped, sometimes it's stretched, sometimes it's 4:3.
JA
james-2001
And Sky1 show those awful psuedo-HD versions of the first 19 seasons which to me is as good as them not showing it at all.


How can a 2D cartoon be pseudo-HD (or HD come to mention it)? If they've tidied up the lines and colours from old episodes then it's just higher quality, not HD.


To say the lines are tidier is debatable. They look as if the originals have been drawn over with a marker pen which gives this weird effect of looking fresh and scruffy at the same time.


Looks to me like it's some sort of automated process, that probably wasn't even properly monitored. It's pretty awful, and still would be even if they'd kept the picture 4:3.

I say psuedo-HD cos I struggle to think of a better term to describe it. It's not proper HD as they clearly haven't gone back to the original film and rescanned it (like they have with Cheers, Seinfeld, Friends, Star Trek TNG etc.), just used some process to artifically redraw the outlines on the original SD footage, clear up grain and scratches and alter the colours to sort of make fake HD. Largely unsuccessfully. But it means Fox have been able to advertise and sell them as "HD versions".
PF
PFML84
And unfortunately they seem to have replaced the 4:3 versions on Sky 1, Channel 4 and now RTÉ. Are Fox making broadcasters take these versions or are the selecting them so it means less hassle to broadcast it on a HD channel without having to worry about SD via HD etc?
JA
james-2001
Have they replaced them on Channel 4? I haven't seen them on there... yet.

The last few weeks they've been running episodes from seasons 23 & 24, which were in HD anyway, so maybe that's what you've seen? The older episodes they've been running at weekends have all been 4:3 from what I've seen.

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