Robert Williams' posts

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RW
Robert Williams Founding member

…and finally

commseng posted:
Can I just say that as one of the older members of this forum, I have been so interested to see that many of the posters on here were and are so young. For me that is wonderful, it is not just us older ones who could be stuck in the past, but a whole new group of people who are interested in bringing things of interest to viewers and listeners now and in the future.


Well I was 24 when this forum started so I'm not sure I counted as one of the 'younger members' even then, I very much suspect I don't now!

MarkT76 posted:
I’ve had an interest in idents, logos & graphics and the ‘behind the scenes’ of TV from a young age, and enjoy(ed) browsing sites like TV & Radio Bits (to my year 6 teacher’s bemusement!)


Heartening to see this having been mentioned a few times - I was the one who used to run that site, and I'm amazed people still remember it 13 years after it closed! For those who aren't aware, I have more recently put some of the material back online, although not being regularly updated: https://www.desandmick.co.uk/television/

Back on topic, and this might be my last post on this forum - but then again, it might not be!
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Robert Williams Founding member

Five is a brand

I think the problem with the 2002 rebrand is that it's okay to have a single word as a brand name if it's a distinctive, unique name - eg Pepsi, Google, Adidas etc etc.

But 'five' is just an everyday word - you have to add the word 'Channel' to clarify what you're talking about. Given that absolutely no one outside of presentation circles has ever referred to it as anything other than 'Channel 5', it made total sense to officially make it the channel name once again.
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Robert Williams Founding member

BBC Publishes Annual Plan

JKDerry posted:
I have just seen this on RTE News website, that BBC Four will be an archive only station - is this correct?

https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/2021/0330/1206992-bbc-four-to-become-archive-channel-only/


As far as I can see, that's just RTE re-reporting what the Media Guardian have reported, which is their interpretation of the BBC's annual plan. But what the plan actually states is:

Quote:
This approach will necessitate a shift away from commissioning a high volume of lower cost programmes on BBC Four, which are less effective at reaching audiences on the channel and
on iPlayer. Instead, BBC Four will become the home of the most distinctive content from across the
BBC’s archive.


They're shifting away from commissioning original programming for BBC Four, but it doesn't explicitly state that there will be none whatsoever. The use of the words 'high volume' implies to me that there may still be a 'low volume' of original commissions.

So things like The Sky at Night and the TOTP: Story of... documentaries may still survive - as the latter accompany the start of a new year of TOTP repeats on BBC Four, it wouldn't make much sense for them to be on BBC2 (although they have been recently repeating older editions presumably to pad out their schedule).
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Robert Williams Founding member

BBC Publishes Annual Plan

JKDerry posted:
You do ask why are they bothering keeping BBC Four on air if they are slashing their budget and transferring it to an increased budget for arts and music on BBC Two? Why not end BBC Four and transfer their best home produced programmes to BBC Two?


My theory is it's because trying to close down a BBC channel is actually a whole load of hassle, as we've already seen with the likes of 6 Music and BBC Three, what with the public consultations it would need to undergo, as well as the inevitable campaigns to save the channel.

Far less trouble to simply skip to the inevitable end result, and just keep it going as a low-cost repeat-heavy channel.
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Robert Williams Founding member

New Schedule Pages on BBC Sounds

Jamesypoo posted:
Interestingly the old schedule pages are still live - old vs new.


That's not really any different to how the BBC television schedules are duplicated:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/schedules/p00fzl6p
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/guide/bbcone

So I would think, and hope, that the existing radio schedule pages aren't going anywhere - for one thing, they are archived all the way back to 2007, whereas the new pages reflect BBC Sounds availability by only going back a month or so.

At least they've taken the opportunity to finally update the local radio station names, some of which changed last year: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/stations
AndrewPSSP, Ghost and VMPhil gave kudos
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Robert Williams Founding member

Digital Spy axes General Discussion forum

johnnyboy posted:
Does anyone remember the network of sites which eventually formed together to become Digital Spy?

I really liked it back then and probably for the 10 or so year after the merger because there wasn't anywhere near as much fluff on it as there is now.


Yes, although I only got the internet a few months before the Digital Spy forum was formed, for those few months I had been visiting one of the predecessor message boards, the ONfaq forum. When DS launched, their successor ONdigital message board was one of the main parts of the forums - it's still there as the Freeview forum but has since been shoved much further down the page in favour of more of the 'fluff' boards.

These days I mainly visit for the radio forum simply because if you want to talk about radio, as far as I can see it's really the only active place to do so.
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Robert Williams Founding member

New BBC One North

Steve in Pudsey posted:
In the latter days of Inrix providing the broadcasts I heard them commit the Cardinal sin of mispronouncing a local village name which is notorious for having a correct pronunciation, the one the locals use and the totally incorrect (but phonetically most likely) one that the BBC Pronunciation Unit apparently insists is correct.


Likewise, in my area, the settlement of Salfords near Redhill is nearly always incorrectly pronounced on local radio travel reports like Salford in Greater Manchester - possibly because that's a city we tend to hear quite a lot about in broadcasting. There is one travel presenter who gets it correct - it should be pronounces 'Sal' as in 'Sally'.
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Robert Williams Founding member

The BBC Coat of Arms

Markymark posted:
Spencer posted:
Inspector Sands posted:
A couple of years ago one BBC local station whose patch I regularly drive through had a promo for their rugby coverage that would trigger the RDS travel flag. Happened for weeks, it wasn't just a one-off


Radio Leeds had a problem at one point where a particular high frequency sound in the travel jingle matched the tone to turn the RDS off, meaning it would switch on and then off straight away. This was solved by re-saving it at 32kHz which meant the jingle sounded rather flat, but it filtered out the offending note. I suspect something similar was going on in the case you mention.


Similar problem at Radio Solent. Presenter Nick Girdler could cause the 19 kHz stereo pilot tone at the transmitter quench by making a certain squeaky noise in the early days of stereo broadcasting (1990 ! for them)


Here is a clip I recorded on Christmas Eve 1993 of Nick Girdler using 'cherry-flavoured fizz wizz' to make the stereo go out. As I live a long way out of the Solent region, the stereo signal is very noisy, but it does mean it's obvious when the stereo has gone out.

Later on, he realised he didn't need the fizz wizz and could simply make the stereo go out by making a sucking noise, so it's followed by a second clip from early 1995 of a listener attempting, and failing, to do the same thing!



Such a shame Nick got booted off Radio Solent two years ago - he was a unique presenter, I've never heard anyone quite else like him with his bizarre and mischievous sense of humour.
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Robert Williams Founding member

BBC News - Venetian Blinds and Chinese Lanterns

Steve Williams posted:
JamesWorldNews posted:
I'm still unsure why they changed the marque from burgundy to blue though.


The change was when the Nine was relaunched with the flying fish fingers titles. That had a blue desk and presumably the weekend bulletins came from the same set with a different background, so by changing the colour scheme to blue they didn't need to change the desk.


I'm sure the change happened earlier in 1985, though? Indeed, this clip shows the blue titles and set (which I always took to be little more than a case of refreshing the look) were in place by May 1985, while the Nine O'Clock News didn't relaunch until September.



However this means the blue titles must have co-existed for a while with the red titles on News After Noon and the Nine O'Clock News. News After Noon eventually changed to blue, but before that, for a while had a set that was a rather strange mauve colour:

https://www.tvark.org/?page=media&mediaid=105103
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Robert Williams Founding member

TVF Confessions

Asa posted:
"That's all from the BBC News at Six.


This reminds me of a particular dislike of mine - the BBC's use of 'News at...'. When I was growing up, 'News at...' was very much associated with ITN - News at One, News at 5.45, News at Ten. Over at the BBC, it was '...O'Clock News'.

I can understand why the BBC uses it now - to reinforce the 'BBC News' brand - but whenever someone talks about the 'News at One' or 'News at Ten', it just makes me think of ITV. I still refuse to call the BBC's bulletins anything other than the 'One O'Clock News', 'Six O'Clock News' etc.
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Robert Williams Founding member

BBC News nostalgia, including BBC World

johnnyboy posted:
thegeek posted:
I found this CD in my garage, which I think I must have rescued from a bin in TV Centre before it closed, and I'd entirely forgotten about it until now.

*
(shonky logo alert!)

*

Weekend 24 was on for an hour on Saturday mornings on BBC Two. I'm not sure when either versions of these title music were used, but it would only have lasted up until October when the bleeps and pips were introduced. I've had a quick look and can't easily see any captures of the bulletins on the web, but perhaps someone else can.

Anyhow, I thought I'd be nice in the forum's dying days and share them - they're too big for Metropol in one file, but here are two seperate zip files with Version 1 and Version 2.


Great find and thanks for sharing.

I used to get up at 7.45 on Saturday mornings just to watch the flags on Weekend 24. I also thought the opening sequence was cool - like some metropolitan couple doing middle-class things at the weekend with their widescreen CRT in their converted shoebox of a flat.

Happy days.


Yes I remember that title sequence now - it amused me to think that the couple themselves must have been presentation enthusiasts since the only thing they seem to be watching is the News 24 flags!
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Robert Williams Founding member

TVF Confessions

OboeShoes posted:
I talk way more about TV presentation than I should considering I barely watch any TV of my own choice


Likewise - other than the ongoing Top of the Pops repeat run, and Click on the BBC News channel, I actually watch virtually no present day television at all - nearly everything I watch is old programmes on DVD.