You're not allowed to disagree with Mr Boulton. He'll have to stamp his little feet, change his name again and then pretend to leave.
I'm not the one stamping feet here, as far as I can see. Just someone who happens to say something that doesn't agree with your point of view. The reaction I receive every time I happen to question you shows exactly who has the attitude problem.
If they were to have the controls it doesn't mean they could refuse to do something.... not without a P45 ending up on their desk soon afterwards!
What a lovely atmosphere to work in. I wonder, how many Secret Santa gifts have you ever received from your subjects, Your Highness?
This is one of the most bizarre comments I've read for a long time I must say. If I refused to do something at work, whether I have control or no control, I would expect my boss to be handing me my P45. One can only assume that your job allows you to ignore any orders from above, since the notion of being given orders by a boss would take away the lovely atmosphere. I love the idea that Red Bee Media is somehow a disgusting place to work compared to most other workplaces - anybody would think a CA was a normal company employee! We can't have that surely.
Bizarre? In what way? So totalitarian and dictatorial management is a thing to treasure and nurture? People are only allowed to do their jobs if they never say boo to a goose and never question anything anyone ever says to them, ever, whoever? Ever?
You think all businesses can run that way? A group of 40-100 people all just walking around saying "what shall we do now?" "I don't know, I daren't suggest anything" "what about you?" "no, I shan't say anything" "No, I can't say anything either..."
Anyway... getting back on the topic, I was expecting somebody to recall the time a similar item was done on Right to Reply on C4 a few years back concerning the 'volume' (or 'perceived volume') of commercials.
I'm sure it was well discussed at the time that the perceived volume was a result of extreme compression and limiting, and that C4 had been recommended to install SI (Sound Intensity) meters for superimposition onto their TX monitors rather than dB readouts.
Now, I don't know whether Red Bee's sound level meters are dBs or SIs, but one thing's for sure - compression and limiting have increased on the BBC greatly over the past few years, and strangely only AFTER the C4 'controversy' (such that it was).
The Red Bee representative gave the usual whitewash about the problem being viewers who were 'disturbed' (again just goes to show the great respect they have for their end customers/users) by trailers for programmes that they're not interested in. However, this is not the case - there are many programmes trailed which I would most probably be interested in, but after hearing the booming voices and music in the trailers for it, I'll be put off, not just from watching that programme (because I'm no longer thinking about what day and time it's on, just reeling from the assault on my television's speakers) but I'll also make more effort to switch channels immediately at the onset of a credit sequence so as not to be deafened again.
Very often I then find later on I forgot to watch the show that was being trailed even though I realise afterwards it was something I would have really enjoyed watching.
This situation is not only repeated by my other half, my friends, her friends and both our families, but everyone I've ever described this to at work. Promotions, and in particular the BBC and ITV's, are off-putting and don't do anything to reduce channel hopping - they increase it.
The guy from Red Bee posed the opposite end of his argument being that if viewers see trailers for programmes they're interested in, they won't find the trailer intrusive. This seems to display a believe within Red Bee or BBC Marketing that a trailer should only appeal to the viewers who would watch the show being trailed anyway. So they've missed the whole idea of promotion - to convert viewers, customers or whatever to something they wouldn't have considered without the promotion. Promotions that only work because they don't 'intrude' on the people who already regularly watch what is being promoted are preaching to the converted, surely.
The Red Bee representative gave the usual whitewash about the problem being viewers who were 'disturbed' (again just goes to show the great respect they have for their end customers/users) by trailers for programmes that they're not interested in. However, this is not the case - there are many programmes trailed which I would most probably be interested in, but after hearing the booming voices and music in the trailers for it, I'll be put off, not just from watching that programme (because I'm no longer thinking about what day and time it's on, just reeling from the assault on my television's speakers) but I'll also make more effort to switch channels immediately at the onset of a credit sequence so as not to be deafened again.
And I thought I was the only one who, in order to AVOID ECPs, had started to switch over the moment I heard the first note of the closing music. Nice to know that I'm not, and it begs the question how many others are doing likewise simply because they don't want to be promoted to.
Of course, if I knew the credits weren't going to be interrupted I'd stay with them to the end, as I can with a good Network DVD.
Incidentally, I see that on the Points Of View message board, BBC playout has been renamed "Pillock Central" by one regular contributor. I just couldn't stop laughing...
Nice to know that I'm not, and it begs the question how many others are doing likewise simply because they don't want to be promoted to.
I normally hit the mute button, or 'Stop' as most of our viewing is off PVR these days.
They totally wrecked the atmosphere built up by ending of LOM last night, babbling over the theme tune.
If you bought a book and found the front and back pages scribbled over with ads for other books (or even the same book !) you'd complain. I don't buy this 'only following orders' malarkey. Red Bee staff, the CAs, and the idiots in BBC Marketing are all of the same mind set IMHO.
If the broadcast log states there is to be a VO trailing a show then the announcer will be expected to do it. It's not a case of free choice - they are doing their job - particularly if the network director (or whatever they are called) is issuing instructions in their ear - I can't imagine Duncan just sitting back thinking sod it I like this theme tune.
It's a job and they are following directives as are Network Directors, Marketing etc etc.
Those who think the CA's on any channels are choosing when they speak are ill informed.
I normally hit the mute button, or 'Stop' as most of our viewing is off PVR these days.
Well here in darkest rural Devon, where ITV1 is still commonly known as Westward, most of us still watch most of our programmes when they are broadcast, myself included.
That said I do have a Humax, though I'd get more from it if I could retrieve the video files as DVD-compliant MPEGs and not *.TS files...
If the broadcast log states there is to be a VO trailing a show then the announcer will be expected to do it. It's not a case of free choice - they are doing their job - particularly if the network director (or whatever they are called) is issuing instructions in their ear - I can't imagine Duncan just sitting back thinking sod it I like this theme tune.
It's a job and they are following directives as are Network Directors, Marketing etc etc.
Those who think the CA's on any channels are choosing when they speak are ill informed.
You misunderstand, if it was my post you were responding to.
Red Bee staff, and the CAs wouldn't be happy day in day out trampling all over the end credits of programmes, and generally annoying discerning viewers, if they didn't feel what they were doing was OK.
If someone's job changes to something they consistently don't enjoy, they normally leave to do something else.
If the broadcast log states there is to be a VO trailing a show then the announcer will be expected to do it. It's not a case of free choice - they are doing their job - particularly if the network director (or whatever they are called) is issuing instructions in their ear - I can't imagine Duncan just sitting back thinking sod it I like this theme tune.
It's a job and they are following directives as are Network Directors, Marketing etc etc.
Those who think the CA's on any channels are choosing when they speak are ill informed.
You misunderstand, if it was my post you were responding to.
Red Bee staff, and the CAs wouldn't be happy day in day out trampling all over the end credits of programmes, and generally annoying discerning viewers, if they didn't feel what they were doing was OK.
If someone's job changes to something they consistently don't enjoy, they normally leave to do something else.
Really you are talking rubbish.
There are a dozen aspects to my job that I consistently don't enjoy. That doesn't mean that I intend to quit or look elsewhere.
I live in the real world and I have rent to pay. I'm not going to move on because I don't agree with some aspects of the work. Its taken time and effort to get to where I am and I have to accept that some things are just very unpleasant - that's all.
How about when you are required to take somebody through a disciplinary procedure, or worse, sack someone?
Do you even have a job? You're speaking as if you live in cloud cuckoo land.
If they were to have the controls it doesn't mean they could refuse to do something.... not without a P45 ending up on their desk soon afterwards!
What a lovely atmosphere to work in. I wonder, how many Secret Santa gifts have you ever received from your subjects, Your Highness?
This is one of the most bizarre comments I've read for a long time I must say. If I refused to do something at work, whether I have control or no control, I would expect my boss to be handing me my P45. One can only assume that your job allows you to ignore any orders from above, since the notion of being given orders by a boss would take away the lovely atmosphere. I love the idea that Red Bee Media is somehow a disgusting place to work compared to most other workplaces - anybody would think a CA was a normal company employee! We can't have that surely.
Bizarre? In what way? So totalitarian and dictatorial management is a thing to treasure and nurture? People are only allowed to do their jobs if they never say boo to a goose and never question anything anyone ever says to them, ever, whoever? Ever?
You think all businesses can run that way? A group of 40-100 people all just walking around saying "what shall we do now?" "I don't know, I daren't suggest anything" "what about you?" "no, I shan't say anything" "No, I can't say anything either..."
Bizarre in the way that comments such as "Your Highness" and some irrelevant blabbering about Secret Santas seem to suggest your astonishment that not every workplace enjoys the freedom that you appear to expect is a norm.
I'd be extremely interested to hear how my comments thus far suggest that totalitarian and dictatorial management are things to "treasure and nurture", and that my "promotion of that type of culture is exactly what industry of any nature can really do without". Firstly, I'd like you to elaborate on the evidence you have used to suggest that Red Bee employs "totalitarian and dictatorial management". Secondly, I'd like you to share the evidence you have about my own views on work ethics, including the ways in which I seek to promote "totalitarian and dictatorial management". Thirdly, if possible, I'd like you to explain how any of this is relevant to the fact that announcers, whether you like it or not, speak too loud for your ears.
I think my conclusion that your comments are bizarre are fairly well founded in the context of what you have written so far.
In addition to making your own conclusions about my own views on workplaces (views I have never expressed and do not intend to express since they are not relevant), you seem to have made a very strange jump from argument to argument. The point you seem to take issue with is the
fact
that announcers do not have the control you think they have or should have. This is because an announcer is not a great deal - in fact, any - different from any other employee of any other company; they carry out their job within the boundaries of their job description, and follow the instructions of their superiors. Superiors who, incidentally, follow the boundaries of their own job descriptions.
And like it or not, we are in 2007 rather than 1967. The superiors' jobs are to market the channel in as effective a way as possible. ECPs are, evidently, an effective means of marketing, despite the various protests from Lúxtonites on Points of View messageboards and TV Forum. Let's fact it, these mediums are not completely representative are they? The average Joe will enjoy EastEnders without feeling the need to jump off a bridge or send a letter to Terry Wogan becuase the announcer spoke over the music at the end.
So this takes us back to the main point. I am sure announcers don't always agree with their superiors in the way that I rarely agree with my boss. She is rubbish. Yet if I failed to follow an instruction, I would expect to be sacked.
So now tell me. Where have I said the world SHOULD be like this? Also tell me how your bizarre comments about Secret Santas fit into ANY argument about ECPs and Red Bee Media? Why is Red Bee somehow different to the majority of workplaces across the country? Why should it drop everything and go back to the old days to satisfy the Lúxtons and the Boultons (the former in terms of quiet announcements and spinning mechanical globes; the latter in terms of introducing some sort of communist work ethic so it would seem... this is a deliberate exaggeration for comic effect by the way Mark Boulton, before you see fit to misrepresent my own views about something else).
DAS, can I please remind you that any censored words are censored for a reason? And you make yourself sound like one of Red Bee's mouthpieces. ECPs are clearly NOT an effective way of marketing, else they would not provoke so much hostility either here or on the BBC message boards.
DAS, can I please remind you that any censored words are censored for a reason? And you make yourself sound like one of Red Bee's mouthpieces. ECPs are clearly NOT an effective way of marketing, else they would not provoke so much hostility either here or on the BBC message boards.
Simon, your logic is flawed.
The fact that ECPs and programme pointers grate on some people's nerves does not negate their effectiveness.
The fact that they are noticed rather proves the point.
I don't want to segue too much, but is there a reason why you insist on your name being censored when we all know exactly who you are?
I'm not the one stamping feet here, as far as I can see. Just someone who happens to say something that doesn't agree with your point of view. The reaction I receive every time I happen to question you shows exactly who has the attitude problem.