Hence the reason moria Stewart and peter sissions, where thrown out with the bath water. Wasn't sue the first bbc presenter/journalist?
Alot of good people were lost because of this.
Not sure what you are trying to say there?
Peter Sissons was a journalist (at one point he was injured as a foreign correspondent I think, and I think he was then a sir UK Correspondent/Editor) at ITN, Moira Stuart had an acting background (She was famously a dragon in 'The Adventure Game')
4.3m/22.6% share last night compared to 4.7m/20.2% for the previous series first show.
So last night's show got a higher share (i.e. more people watching TV watched Top Gear than the previous show) but fewer people in total were watching TV.
For a first show those figures are not too shabby. Will be interesting to see how the run goes.
IIRC Lukwesa has little or no formal training in journalism, either at degree level or by a respected (by the BBC) course, such as the Beeb's own in house training, and little or no reporting experience. Aren't the BBC a little wary of employing people to newsreader or presenter roles at national or international level (I.e. network news, news channel, national radio programmes, World News & Service etc.)?
That never used to be a problem up to the early 80s or so.
Times have changed since then, though. In the 70s and 80s, news bulletins were usually of a fixed length and very well rehearsed. There were very few occasions when a newsreader would be required to interview guests/contributors live. The creation of rolling news channels has meant that presenters with a journalistic background are required because they may have to interview people at a moment's notice as well as deal with pretty much anything that's thrown at them. Even the national bulletins are completely different in format than they were 20-30 years ago.
Yes - there was a big change at the BBC in the 80s in both national and regional news. Originally newsreaders were 'presenters' who were simply that, people who could present. They could read scripts clearly, and looked OK on camera. Quite a few of them came from acting backgrounds and had no journalistic training or background at all.
ITN was a bit different - as were BBC current affairs shows like Nationwide - which were distinct from News and made by a different department (News at TVC, CA at Lime Grove).
Then in the 80s the shift from presenter-presenters to journalist-presenters started, as live interviews became routine presenters needed journalist abilities to be able to do the job. These days it's rare to find BBC News presenters without at least something approaching a background in journalism.
Completely unsurprising but irrelevant. 300+ comments on that site last count? Millions more tuned in, and at least half of those will tune in again next week.
I very much doubt it, judging by the terrible reviews and Twitter comments it has been getting. I'll be surprised if it even lasts a series. I expect this series to be Top Gear's last.
Be quite difficult to do that if it has any overseas sales already... And Twitter is not the same as real life. Top Gear got 4.2m last night according to Richard Osman (on Twitter...) and built across the hour (so more people were joining than leaving)
It will take time for the team to work out what works with Chris, Matt, Sabine et al, and what doesn't. There is a huge amount of pressure on them, and hopefully the BBC will give them the time they need.
Others have said it - in fact I've probably said it - the first series of the previous reboot (before James May joined) was terrible. It takes time for chemistry to happen, and it takes time for production teams to gel.
I think it was far from the car crash many had predicted. I know people who have said they prefer this to the previous series. I think I did.
Looking forward to seeing how it develops. There's no doubt it's a major challenge for a production team.
I just hope people stop harking back to the 'good old days' with Clarkson (where it was OK to use lazy racial stereotypes for gags and to punch a producer...)
It reminds me of when the BBC tried to keep Live and Kicking going on Saturday mornings after Jamie Theakston and Zoe Ball departed, initially with two presenters who were inexperienced and lacked any kind of chemistry, followed by a group of four presenters who were utterly hopeless and unsuited to Saturday mornings.
Correct me if I've got this wrong but the main reason for this was because there was something infinitely better on the other side, so it didn't really matter what they put out, even though yes the presenting choices at the time were… interesting (and the "edgy kool!" revamp was embarrassing). When SMTV ended and the BBC finally put something decent out in the shape of The Saturday Show 2.0/Dick and Dom, circa 2003, viewers came back.
Top Gear doesn't really have any competition like this… in another universe it'd be going up against ClarkHamMay on ITV or Channel 4, but they're on a subscription service where we won't get any real viewing figures, and there's not really another show like this (Fifth Gear is now officially over).
Yes - Netflix and Amazon don't release viewing figures, and aren't currently included in BARB ratings (would be VERY Interesting if BARB did include them, but I suspect that would only happen if someone funded them to do so)
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For that reason I can't see the BBC cancelling it, especially not after just one series, but I can see them retooling it to fix what hasn't worked. I wouldn't be surprised to see Chris going even though he is the most high profile, if he hasn't calmed down by the end of this run.
Chris is more than a presenter though - he's effectively show-running alongside a BBC Exec and the Series Editor... (Just as Clarkson + Wilman did before. AIUI Clarkson effectively wrote the show)
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I watched Extra Gear last night and thought it was a decent show. Bizarrely enough it seemed a bit rushed at 23 minutes despite the fact it could theoretically go on as long as they want to. Rory Reid is very good and I can easily see him presenting the main show.
I didn't see it. Did they do it from the same location? If so they will have had time constraints on crew etc. - so they will have had to work to a duration. (Also it will probably be budgeted for a certain duration)
Surely there must be a way of using an algorithm to even out the population differences between countries in the voting system?
Of course there is - but that totally flies in the face of the spirit of the competition. One of the whole points of the competition is that Malta has just as much power as the UK, Cyprus has just as much power as Russia.
It also causes a real problem for two reasons.
1. The largest country, by population, is Russia (at 143.5m), so they would have the most power.
2. You can't vote for yourself, so larger countries are able to receive fewer points than smaller ones. (Russia would effectively have the least points available to it - because the largest block of votes would come from Russia)
If it happens, it's the death of the contest, as it basically says "Big countries are more important than small countries", and that flies in the face of an equal playing field.
It would be like giving a football team from a bigger country more men on the pitch than those from a smaller country...
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Serbia, Croatia, Latvia et al get the same voting effects as the UK, Germany and France, despite having far fewer numbers of people voting.
It's rather like the EU system of democracy, where a country like Luxembourg has the same veto rights as the UK, despite having a population the size of Sheffield.
But that's the point of the contest - every country is equal. It's just like a football tournament or The Olympics.
No.
Press TV lost the licence to broadcast from Ofcom for continued breaches of the broadcast code (bias, offensive comment etc)
Sadly, paying of the staff is not (the last time I looked) a breach of the broadcasting code.
It could be that Sky will get fed up with them, being pulled off, and then to 'arise' again on the EPG, and then loose patience, but until then this sorry farce looks set to continue.
Sky have to be careful too though. They can't be seen to be restricting access to the EPG.
Isn't 907 encrypted though? I thought the whole deal with the Swiss rebroadcasts was they can legally do it because they're clear.
I though they had licensing deals like the Benelux cable operators. They wouldn't be allowed to rebroadcast BBC services as part of a pay-tv service without payment - that would be piracy. If they are paying then they could legally be given the decryption keys.
Not sure what the FTA legislation has to do with this?
You don't have to source your content from FTA sources do you? If you are licensing and paying for the services then you can be given the decryption keys?
Or are you saying that the commercial cable operations are using FTA sources and NOT paying the BBC?
Swiss viewers can now watch Channel 5 HD on Zattoo in 720p. Presumably they're getting it from 28.2e. I have no idea what size of dish you need to watch it in Switzerland, but I thought all of the UK FTA services are on a tight beam which covers the UK, Ireland and parts of northern France, Belgium, Holland etc?
With the exception of Channel 4, all of the UK PSB's on Zattoo Switzerland are HD for paying customers.
Assuming they get them from 28.2 - which I expect they are. The other option is that they are sourcing them from the Arqiva Sat Back service on 907 which may be easier to receive (and as they are official professional operators the equipment required would be straightforward for them to integrate?)
Done the maths (ranked based on 1 point for 1st, 25/26 for last) and it doesn't make too much difference to the UK - up a couple of places. Does change the winner though, while Spain jump from 22nd to 15th.
Does just show though how when all these shows say they'll combine viewers and judges votes 50/50 without ever really explaining how that different systems can give quite different results.
Think the BBC took quite a lot of effort to explain it - both in commentary and by pointing people to the Richard Osman video explainer.
They were clear to say you vote in the same way, but didn't say that the system hadn't changed.
There had already been two different ways of combing Jury and Televotes since the juries were reintroduced. Originally it was a dual 1-8/10/12 - with the two 1-8/10/12 added together and then ranked to deliver a single 1-8/10/12, then it went to combined ranking instead. (So Juries ranked songs 1-26, Public voting ranked 1-26, add the two together and then allocate the 10 different points to the top 10 ranked songs)
