BBC America

The answers to your questions, in order: On Beasts/Prehistoric Beasts, you've gotta ask The Discovery Channel - they hold the US rights to Beasts & Dinosaurs both. (If I recall correctly, they co-produced along with BBC) There were some other changes, I'm not sure who the narrator was on the US version of Beasts, but I know that Avery Brooks (late of Star Trek Deep Space Nine) was the domestic narrator of Walking with Dinosaurs -- wasn't there someone else who narrated it in the UK?

'Sorry, the address you have found is not currently a public BBC server ' comes up when I type in http://www.bbcnews.co.uk/

BBC America's site (and BBC Canada's for that matter - http://www.bbccanada.com/ ) were designed on this side of the pond, by someone else entirely. I would much rather both sites being pulled in house at BBC, and made a part of BBCi, but of course, these things end up being out of our control.

Finally, I wish I knew - I would much rather it be readily available as opposed to having to resort to watching it on the net, or by getting a grey market Canadian satellite dish.

M

(Edited by mhking at 2:16 pm on Dec. 18, 2001)

Kenneth Branagh narrates both Dinosaurs and Beasts in the UK.

Unless, of course, you are watching the more detailed narration via BBCi on Sky Digital, where you hear some woman

Believe me mate, you don't want to get a grey market Canadian satellite dish. The only thing worthy thing on Canadian satellite services are:

- Most, if not all regional stations across the country, both networked and independents
- BBC World
- Canadian news services
- Canadian music channels

Other than that, it's rehashed American channels ie) MTV Canada, MSNBC Canada, Food Network Canada, etc...

BTW, which PBS station do you have mhking? It probably shows BBC World News.

'The Ballard Of Big Al'
sounds so much better than
'Allosaurus' don't y'all think?

We've got two -- WPBA/Atlanta (PBA/30) and WGTV/Atlanta (GPTV - Georgia Public Television). Neither one shows BBC World News. We get ITN's 'World News for Public Television' on PBA/30, but no world news of any form on GPTV (unless you count 'The News Hour' which appears on both PBS stations).

So, other than BBC America, we don't regularly get BBC World News. However, we've been getting additional newscasts from BBC World, courtesy of Newsworld International (NWI). Since the CBC is weathering a strike right now, NWI is simulcasting most of CBC Newsworld to the US (and I'm impressed, especially with the documentaries). CBC Newsworld is running BBC World News several times a day - and of course, this is getting passed through to the US viewers.

For those not familiar, NWI is available to many Digital Cable viewers, as well as DirecTV satellite viewers in the US.

M

I forgot CBC had NWI. We never get it here... silly me, we have newsworld! http://web.ukonline.co.uk/tv.home/forum/emoticons/cheesy.gif Like the whole News 24/World concept... CBC tries (and fails miserably) at copying the BBC. One wish is that the CBC goes under and BBC takes over. Mwha ha ha...

Does NWI also have a new corporate look that CBC English Television took up this year? Oh, and if you have a TV tuner, would you be able to capture it?

Unfortunately, I don't have a tuner/capture card, so I'm not able to grab it.

And no, NWI didn't go over to the new corporate look like the rest of CBC did. NWI is actually owned by USA Networks, and they supposedly have use NW and CBC material under a 'license,' whatever that means.

Their regular programming is incredibly dry - they've got a stable of newscasters of their own (Karen Hawryluk, Sandra Lewis, Jim Reed, Terry Glecoff, Doreen Kays, Ron Izawa, and Nerene Virgin). And in between running their own news at the top of each hour (with video tape from CBC, CBS and APTN), they run both English language newscasts (CBC's 'The National,' DW's 'Journal,' and NHK's 'Japan Today' ) and English-dubbed newscasts (from RDI-Canada, CCTV-China, TV Azteca-Mexico, and from Russia). The dubbed newscasts are dry, and sound terrible. The other newscasts are excellent, and a pleasure to watch.

I would love to see them dump the dubbed newscasts, and add English language newscasts like CBC's 'Canada Now,' something perhaps from Sky or ITN, either Seven or Nine from Australia, Star from India, and something from New Zealand, as well as probably South Africa and Hong Kong. Quiet as it is kept, I would probably add BBC's 'The World Today' at 12 Midnight Eastern as well.

The other thing I would do is to dump the US-centric top of the hour newscasts ('International NewsFirst,' they call it), and run top of the hour casts from CBC/NW instead. I'm sure their viewership would increase dramatically.

M

They carry

(Edited by mhking at 9:36 pm on Dec. 21, 2001)


(Edited by mhking at 9:37 pm on Dec. 21, 2001)

Oh well that's too bad. I thought that NWI was something to look forward too or envy. Guess CBC Newsworld is the better channel. http://web.ukonline.co.uk/tv.home/forum/emoticons/biggrin.gif

ON the subject of Canada now, it's a great program, but I have two complaints...

1. Lack of regionality. All the regional news across Canada are also called Canada now in tandem with the main news (a la BBC Sixty Seconds)

2. The weather presenter. Methinks that all 13 regional news programmes are sharing 1 weather presenter from Ottawa.

I don't think that NWI would be adding BBC World News to their lineup, seeing that the BBC (well its union anyway) is quite annoyed that CBC Television is using BBC News to replace many of their programs during the strike, including regional news. But who knows.