Do we think the "audience log" is the BBC term for the bin?
No - I can assure you it is both read and considered by BBC management.
However there is probably also a feeling that if ratings are high for a show, and it gets just a small number of complaints, then the bulk of the audience were probably happy.
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Back to Eurovision and don't really get how they can use the licence funded argument to justify spending additional licence fee money rather than just showing what is in front of them.
The answer is probably that the incremental costs are actually quite low (the EBU facilities are there, the London gallery is there, the presenters are there) - so you could equally argue it is getting more value out
of what facilities are there anyway... It also, presumably, makes the show more acceptable to a BBC Three commissioning team...
Honestly, to think it's now a week since the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 Grand Final. This time last week they were getting towards the end of the singing.
My in-depth report of the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 Grand Final is now available on my blog for you to enjoy. By all means comment on it there if you're a Blogger user; or if you prefer place any comments here (and feel free to quote relevant bits).
...with some questionable taste and decency for a native English-speaking audience...
Use of the word MILF, a joke about the Swedish attitude towards religion, depiction of some drinking, permanent-marker penises and a single bare arse.... It was hardly the sort of thing that would make make a Celebrity Juice audience even bat an eyelid. But of course, I understand that prime time Saturday night BBC One is different, and there was a possibility that children and Mary Whitehouse types would be watching.
It's just a shame that this didn't get shown in the UK, when it was clearly produced with a British audience in mind. Apart from the fact that the BBC is one of the few other broadcasters that don't take ad breaks, the self-deprecating humour seems to me to be very British in style. However, that may just be to do with the Swedes having a fairly similar sense of humour to the Brits anyway, and a grasp of the English language that makes that similarity apparent.
What's certainly not true is that the "questionable taste and decency" has anything to do with whether or not you're a native English speaker. I'm sure the vast majority of Swedes are familiar with the word MILF and its connotations. They're just less prudish as a nation.
Unlike the Swedishness clip, the cutting of the "MILF" bit was no great loss IMO. They could have cut out all of Eric Saade to no great detriment. I quite enjoyed the fact that Graham Norton, despite being very complimentary of Petra Mede and the Swedish hosting in general, didn't hold back his ire for Eric.
It's funny how times change, I think we've definitely become more sensitive about these types of things in recent years. I don't think Terry even apologised for that "f*ck you Ken" and "b*stard" during Aqua's interval act back in 2001 whereas today that would probably make the front page of Mail Online. Wonder if Denmark won't be holding back on the language when they host again next year?!
...with some questionable taste and decency for a native English-speaking audience...
Use of the word MILF, a joke about the Swedish attitude towards religion, depiction of some drinking, permanent-marker penises and a single bare arse.... It was hardly the sort of thing that would make make a Celebrity Juice audience even bat an eyelid. But of course, I understand that prime time Saturday night BBC One is different, and there was a possibility that children and Mary Whitehouse types would be watching.
Yes - and whilst the items in question were all post-watershed, the show started pre-watershed, and is one of those occasions when kids are often allowed to stay up late.
Personally, I think that a bit of a warning from Graham would probably have covered it, but I guess the BBC are being super careful at the moment - and in some ways it's a case of you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.
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It's just a shame that this didn't get shown in the UK, when it was clearly produced with a British audience in mind. Apart from the fact that the BBC is one of the few other broadcasters that don't take ad breaks, the self-deprecating humour seems to me to be very British in style. However, that may just be to do with the Swedes having a fairly similar sense of humour to the Brits anyway, and a grasp of the English language that makes that similarity apparent.
What's certainly not true is that the "questionable taste and decency" has anything to do with whether or not you're a native English speaker. I'm sure the vast majority of Swedes are familiar with the word MILF and its connotations. They're just less prudish as a nation.
That's where it gets tricky. If you're a native English speaker, you are fully aware of the offense that certain language and words cause, and they are really offensive to some people. Maybe not of my generation and younger, but certainly to an older generation, and certainly a chunk of the audience who are watching. Whether this is part of our language, or part of our culture is almost imposible to separate.
The Swedish language (or is it culture - again it's difficult to separate) has no real "unsayable" words - no words that can't be said in a drama for instance. The Swedish equivalent of the S-word is used all the time to mean "very" - and just doesn't have the same impact.
Similarly, a Swede saying the F-word doesn't really have any impact to an English-speaking Swedish audience, certainly nothing like the potential to cause offense that it does to a native UK audience.
Is this a lack of Prudishness? Is it a language difference? Probably a bit of both - but it doesn't change the difference between a Swedish audience (who have very good English, but are listening to it as a second language and from a culturally different background) and a UK audience.
Personally I think SVT were being a bit irreverent and trying to be a bit mischievous - particularly to a BBC (and possibly RTE?) audience.
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Unlike the Swedishness clip, the cutting of the "MILF" bit was no great loss IMO. They could have cut out all of Eric Saade to no great detriment. I quite enjoyed the fact that Graham Norton, despite being very complimentary of Petra Mede and the Swedish hosting in general, didn't hold back his ire for Eric.
Yep - I think the scriptwriters were trying their best with Eric. They didn't succeed though...
Also - having watched all three Lynda Woodruff films, they were far less funny than the first Melodifestivalen one weren't they? They were OK - but felt a bit forced. And if you didn't watch Melodifestivalen (which I suspect only a tiny percentage of the UK final audience, though probably a lot more of the semi-final audience? will have seen) it does take some explaining...
Personally I thought the three Eurovision History inserts with Petra composited into classic footage were much better - and would have been great for a UK audience.
I guess the problem the BBC Three team had this year is that the interval acts and commercial break fillers (apart from Eric Saade) were much better than most years (when often they've been dreadful) - so replacing them was a bit of a shame. (Though replacing at least one of the voting recaps in the semifinal we couldn't vote in always makes sense)
That's where it gets tricky. If you're a native English speaker, you are fully aware of the offense that certain language and words cause, and they are really offensive to some people. Maybe not of my generation and younger, but certainly to an older generation, and certainly a chunk of the audience who are watching. Whether this is part of our language, or part of our culture is almost imposible to separate.
I've encountered similar problems in both Spain and Austria. I remember sitting open mouthed in a English language business meeting in Spain when a colleague announced that we should 'just f-ing get on with it' and declared an idea to be 's**t'. She wasn't trying to be provocative but just wasn't aware that native English speakers wouldn't use those words in that context.
Similarly while teaching English here in Austria I have struggled to have people accept that the S-word and the F-word are not used in polite conversation or letters. Similarly I have had problems getting them to not use the N-Word because they are (generally) unaware of the cultural baggage that goes with it. As far as they are concerned it's a word rappers use.
And that's the problem with humour at Eurovision. It's very difficult to come up with a joke that will work across 40+ national cultures (and countless more regional ones). If we had used say Spitting Image as an interval act in the 80s many other Europeans would have been shocked at the disrespect to authority it showed (which to us seems perfectly normal).
Personally, I think that a bit of a warning from Graham would probably have covered it, but I guess the BBC are being super careful at the moment - and in some ways it's a case of you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.
Indeed, as gottago says above, it seems that things have gone backwards somewhat in recent years, particularly since Sachsgate, which was a great victory for the Daily Mail. I can't imagine how they would have reacted to the Swedishness video. But still, it's a shame it couldn't be shown.
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That's where it gets tricky. If you're a native English speaker, you are fully aware of the offense that certain language and words cause, and they are really offensive to some people. Maybe not of my generation and younger, but certainly to an older generation, and certainly a chunk of the audience who are watching. Whether this is part of our language, or part of our culture is almost imposible to separate.
The Swedish language (or is it culture - again it's difficult to separate) has no real "unsayable" words - no words that can't be said in a drama for instance. The Swedish equivalent of the S-word is used all the time to mean "very" - and just doesn't have the same impact.
Similarly, a Swede saying the F-word doesn't really have any impact to an English-speaking Swedish audience, certainly nothing like the potential to cause offense that it does to a native UK audience.
Is this a lack of Prudishness? Is it a language difference? Probably a bit of both - but it doesn't change the difference between a Swedish audience (who have very good English, but are listening to it as a second language and from a culturally different background) and a UK audience.
Point taken - I understand that the profanity of the language can be lost somewhat in a second language context. However, apart from the MILF bit, all of the material that was potentially objectionable (which I've listed above, but I may have missed some of it) was visual in nature. Bear in mind that the "f*** your mother" part in the extended version was not included last Saturday.
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Personally I think SVT were being a bit irreverent and trying to be a bit mischievous - particularly to a BBC (and possibly RTE?) audience.
It's a possibility, but maybe they just weren't aware of the uptight environment the BBC's been operating in for the last few years.
As for RTÉ, I'd be interested to know whether they would have shown it. I suspect they would have, as they tend not to worry too much about things like this. But they take ads anyway, so it wasn't a decision they had to make.
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Yep - I think the scriptwriters were trying their best with Eric. They didn't succeed though...
I actually saw him being interviewed on SVT before the final. From what I could gather (and I don't speak Swedish) the presenter of the pre-show was talking to him about how dreadful ESC green room interviews usually are, with presenters with bad English asking boring generic questions like "How are you feeling?". The tenor of the conversation seemed to be that he would do a better job. So it was a bit of a disappointment to see him get nervous at one point and actually ask one of the performers "how are you feeling?", the very cliché he'd aimed to avoid.
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Also - having watched all three Lynda Woodruff films, they were far less funny than the first Melodifestivalen one weren't they? They were OK - but felt a bit forced. And if you didn't watch Melodifestivalen (which I suspect only a tiny percentage of the UK final audience, though probably a lot more of the semi-final audience? will have seen) it does take some explaining...
Personally I thought the three Eurovision History inserts with Petra composited into classic footage were much better - and would have been great for a UK audience.
It's funny how times change, I think we've definitely become more sensitive about these types of things in recent years. I don't think Terry even apologised for that "f*ck you Ken" and "b*stard" during Aqua's interval act back in 2001 whereas today that would probably make the front page of Mail Online. Wonder if Denmark won't be holding back on the language when they host again next year?!
Terry didn't apologise, no. But then, we didn't hear those bits over here - we heard a different recording with a couple of car noises and instrumental bits - all we saw was Lene from Aqua doing her "w****r" motion so I assume as ever the Beeb had already planned this overdub.
I fully acknowledge your point about ESL speakers not getting the tone right sometimes, and not recognising the importance of context when using certain English words.
However, this year, for a British and Irish audience at least, I really don't think there
was
a problem with humour at Eurovision, because Swedish people have a very similar sense of humour, and an excellent grasp of English, including the nuances of what words are appropriate in different contexts.
I think they knew exactly what they were doing. Noggin thinks it was mischievous, I think they just didn't know that the BBC has to be paranoid nowadays. But, to reiterate one final time, I think it's a shame that in the one year when humour wasn't a problem at Eurovision, most British viewers didn't get to see what was a very funny (and IMO very British-esque) bit of self-deprecation on the part of the Swedes.
I fully acknowledging your point about ESL speakers not getting the tone right sometimes, and not recognising the importance of context when using certain English words.
However, this year, for a British and Irish audience at least, I really don't think there
was
a problem with humour at Eurovision, because Swedish people have a very similar sense of humour, and an excellent grasp of English, including the nuances of what words are appropriate in different contexts.
I think they knew exactly what they were doing. Noggin thinks it was mischievous, I think they just didn't know that the BBC has to be paranoid nowadays. But, to reiterate one final time, I think it's a shame that in the one year when humour wasn't a problem at Eurovision, most British viewers didn't get to see what was a very funny (and IMO very British-esque) bit of self-deprecation on the part of the Swedes.
I think that on balance you're probably right but it's probably not worth the BBC taking a bath over Eurovision when the vast majority of viewers won't care (and won't know what they missed).
Would it be possible to put up a BBC caption at the start of the voting commercial break warning that 'the rest of the Eurovision Song Contest may contain strong language' (I'm sure I've seen Channel 4 do this a few times with shows that straddle the watershed).
I fully acknowledge your point about ESL speakers not getting the tone right sometimes, and not recognising the importance of context when using certain English words.
However, this year, for a British and Irish audience at least, I really don't think there
was
a problem with humour at Eurovision, because Swedish people have a very similar sense of humour, and an excellent grasp of English, including the nuances of what words are appropriate in different contexts.
Exactly. They get what is funny and what isn't in English - they watch a lot of UK comedy, and speak English so well that they get idioms, irony etc. pretty much the same as we do.
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I think they knew exactly what they were doing. Noggin thinks it was mischievous, I think they just didn't know that the BBC has to be paranoid nowadays.
I think they are more than aware of the UK broadcast situation... SVT, NRK and DR are surprisingly up-to-speed on UK broadcast issues in my experience.
Whilst Swedish society in general wouldn't have a problem with the material in question, you can guarantee that the SVT team knew it would be an issue in the UK. (Whether they acknowledge this or not, I know if enough Swedes to know that...)
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But, to reiterate one final time, I think it's a shame that in the one year when humour wasn't a problem at Eurovision, most British viewers didn't get to see what was a very funny (and IMO very British-esque) bit of self-deprecation on the part of the Swedes.
Yep - if they'd toned it down just a single notch, making it totally family friendly (in a UK context), there really wouldn't have been a problem. The VT with the Swedish PM was really funny, just not quite right.
Put it another way - could you ever see the BBC commissioning a film with that content if they were hosting? Or even considering it? That's the difference.
To be honest I don't think it's paranoia in this case, I think it's having a different view of what the audience expects.
I fully acknowledging your point about ESL speakers not getting the tone right sometimes, and not recognising the importance of context when using certain English words.
However, this year, for a British and Irish audience at least, I really don't think there
was
a problem with humour at Eurovision, because Swedish people have a very similar sense of humour, and an excellent grasp of English, including the nuances of what words are appropriate in different contexts.
I think they knew exactly what they were doing. Noggin thinks it was mischievous, I think they just didn't know that the BBC has to be paranoid nowadays. But, to reiterate one final time, I think it's a shame that in the one year when humour wasn't a problem at Eurovision, most British viewers didn't get to see what was a very funny (and IMO very British-esque) bit of self-deprecation on the part of the Swedes.
I think that on balance you're probably right but it's probably not worth the BBC taking a bath over Eurovision when the vast majority of viewers won't care (and won't know what they missed).
Would it be possible to put up a BBC caption at the start of the voting commercial break warning that 'the rest of the Eurovision Song Contest may contain strong language' (I'm sure I've seen Channel 4 do this a few times with shows that straddle the watershed).
I don't think the BBC would view that as a solution. Eurovision is a family-friendly show. It starts pre-watershed, and you really need to be able to watch it to the end for it to be fun. (The voting is as important as the singing, if not more so!) Making it such that kids weren't able to watch it after a certain point would be a bit of a shame (and cause complaints I suspect).