noggin's posts, page 107

BBC News Channel Presentation - 21/03/16 onwards

When BBC Three moved from being a linear channel to an online only service its budget was cut from £85m/year to £25m/year. That's not a closure, but it meant a massive reduction in content produced for the service and its audience. To many the old BBC Three ceased to exist and 'shut' when it disappeared as a channel, and the new service was effectively something else.

The issue wasn't the move online, it was the massive cutting back of content creation for the BBC Three audience. The move to be online early was needed to 'hide' this to a degree, as a linear channel run at that budget level would have been hugely repeat-heavy. Audiences treat 'content available online for 12 months' very differently to 'content shown repeatedly on a linear channel for 12 months'...

Since then BBC Three's budget has slowly increased (I suspect there is a budget increase for shows also shown on BBC One now) but it's still running at less than half the level it was before it moved online.

Eurovision 2019

It would potentially put a number of countries in a difficult situation since the Russian state-sponsored chemical weapons killing, and attempted murders, in Salisbury... The first use of chemical weapons in Europe since WWII...

Plus all the US election and UK Brexit referendum meddling stuff, and the background sponsorship of social disruption via Social Media.

Russia in 2019 is seen very differently to Russia in 2009.

Of course, by letting the Russians enter the contest, the EBU has to accept that they can win it and host it. But I suspect they would be very happy if someone else did, causing far fewer headaches within the organisation.

X Factor

Yes - two cases where C4 were able to benefit from the BBC's misfortune.

However there's a significant difference between picking up sports rights to F1 that unexpectedly become available, and buying in a third-party, shiny floor, entertainment format, rather than developing one from scratch.

Bake Off - that's an exception that proves the rule, and was taken under a different watch... It was also not uncontroversial and caused a significant amount of 'Not what C4 should be doing' push back. I think if anything they 'got away' with Bake Off and won't push their luck further for a while... (Plus Bake Off was an unusual situation - as the BBC were never going to get a renewal due to the unique situation they found themselves in)

Plus - neither Bake Off nor F1 are shiny floor entertainment. (F1 is Sport and Bake Off is Reality/Fact Ent)

X Factor

Those are hardly recent purchases though - and nor are/were they derivative shiny floor... Remember C4's PSB status and, to a lesser-degree, remit have changed significantly over the years...

I don't think C4 in its current state would pick up big-ticket, existing, primetime entertainment formats.

International News Presentation: Past and Present

Ah - wasn't sure if Arqiva were using the same encoders/encoding as the BBC.

BBC Scotland channel - service to also launch in HD

Yep. It's always a bit depressing to see phrases like this mangled, and used without understanding their actual meaning. (Though it's not as depressing as 'could of' or 'should have'...)

How many times have people seen 'Tow the line' used instead of 'Toe the line'?

International News Presentation: Past and Present

Historically 720p has compressed a bit better than 1080i if you are using MPEG2 or h.264 (interlace isn't compression-friendly) - and was seen by many (outside the UK) as a good transition to 1080p. Lots of European PSBs went 720p for broadcast (*) - SVT, NRK and DR in Scandinavia, ARD & ZDF (**)in Germany for example.
(Freeview HD on PSB3 uses some clever dynamic encoder switching to flip the encoders from 1080p25 to 1080i25 mode based on whether content has any interlaced motion, so benefits from improved efficiency when carrying 1080p25 content compared to leaving the encoders in 1080i25 mode - even if MBAFF interlaced coding is used.)

If you are using ATSC 1.0 MPEG2, as the CBC are, and need to carry more than one HD service, then 720p may deliver a better subjective picture than 1080i. With modern encoders the difference may be less - but may still make a difference with MPEG2 (which is less optimised for interlace than h.264)

If you go to HEVC then don't use interlace. There is no optimisation for it - and it sends each 1080i field as a 540p progressive frame effectively (like the terrible first gen h.264 encoders)

(*) The Scandinavian PSBs run 1080i internally (and produce drama in 1080/25p not 720p25) and convert to 720p for broadcast.
(**) ARD and ZDF accepted both 720p and 1080i delivered content ISTR - and now run 1080p50 on DVB-T2 using HEVC. I don't know if they are producing 1080p50 content or just upconverting 1080i25 to 1080p50 using a high-quality deinterlacer.

X Factor

Reality is that C5 and Sky would be the only real possible destinations for a return of 'Idol' - and I don't see it fitting into either channel's current strategy.

The BBC would get slaughtered for buying in a premium format (as they did with 'The Voice') rather than developing their own, and C4 would face a similar argument (though probably less extreme).

BBC News at 10 to be shorter

CIF = Comment Is Free

Sky News | General Discussion

Don't NBC and ITN still have a newsgathering/co-operation deal? Wouldn't that make Sky News / NBC News co-operation somewhat trickier?

BBC News Scotland | News at Nine

The BBC also now funds S4C - that's also a service aimed at a minority audience...



Though countries like Germany and Sweden have replaced their licence fees with an equivalent revenue generation system of either a household tax or a personal public service tax to fund public service broadcasting, in recognition that ownership of a TV is no longer required to consume public service video broadcasts.

Good Morning Britain

Whilst she did work on both of those shows at some point - I don't think she's currently in either shows' regular presenting/reporting line-up.