Maybe its time bbc overhaul its channels?

Yes - rights for talent (actors, writers, musicians etc.), archive, stills etc. were negotiated in a different way to now, and in some cases the costs of repeating older shows can be prohibitive. The BBC renegotiated a rights deal with Equity (actors union) a while back I think - which changed the payment model (as a reduced fee you actually get paid is better than a high fee you don't I guess) and allowed the Afternoon Classics strand to happen.

Whilst I don't want to see any more cuts to the BBC what I would like to see is for them to finally move towards a HD only future - there really should be a plan now to move away from SD and more specifically MPEG2. Yes, the regions complicate things, most notably on satellite, but the issue needs to be addressed - it feels like it hasn't moved on at all from where it was 6-8 years ago, and the only chance IMO of getting the regions on satellite in HD is closing the SD streams, and it would instantly half the mux space they need on Freeview.

You have to wonder when they will solve the HD regions issue. Yes it’s financially prohibitive for about an hour a day, but it will surely have to be tackled at some point.

I bet nobody watches The One Show in HD as nobody will remember to change from BBC One to BBC One HD after the news, and I bet that continues further into the prime time schedule.

Am I allowed to make a sort of dream schedule that’s related to the topic at hand?
Oh darn it, I’ll do it anyway!

I got tomorrow’s schedules for both BBC Two and BBC Four:

BBC Two
6:00 : An Island Parish
6:30 : The A1: Britain’s Longest Road (R)
7:15 : Chase The Case (R)
8:00 : Back in Time For The Factory (R)
9:00 : Victoria Derbyshire
11:00 : Newsroom Live
12:15 : Politics Live
13:30 : Canoeing Slalom World Championships
14:45 : Who Do You Think You Are? (R)
15:45 : Earth’s Seasonal Secrets
16:45 : Eggheads (R)
17:15 : Flog It (R)
18:00 : Letterbox
18:30 : Strictly It Takes Two
19:00 : Sam And Shauna’s Big Cookout (R)
19:30 : Great British Menu
20:00 : Monkman and Seagull’s Genius Guide To Britain
20:30 : University Challenge
21:00 : Black Earth Rising
22:00 : QI
22:30 : Newsnight
23:15 : Today At Conference: Conservative
23:45 : The Flu That Killed 50 Million (R)
00:45 : Celebrity Masterchef (R)
01:45 : Countryfile (R)


BBC Four
19:00 : Beyond 100 Days
19:30 : Handmade In The Pacific
20:00 : South Pacific
21:00 : A History Of Ancient Britain
22:00 : The Secret Life Of Landfill
23:30 : Storyville
01:00 : Bought With Love
02:00 : South Pacific (R)
03:00 : A History Of Ancient Britain (R)

You’ll note that out of 25 programmes on BBC Two, 10 of them are repeats. Over on BBC Four, you have 9 programmes, 7 of which are brand new and 2 are repeats of programmes first aired only a matter of hours earlier on the same channel. This shows that they are clearly struggling to fill their channel’s already meagre airing hours. Because I like to ignore my obligations I have rethought the schedule for BBC2:

Merged Line Up:
6:00 : An Island Parish
6:30 : Handmade In The Pacific
7:00 : The Secret Life Of Landfill
8:30 : Beyond 100 Days
9:00 : Victoria Derbyshire
11:00 : Newsroom Live
12:15 : Politics Live
13:30 : Canoeing Slalom World Championships
14:45 : A History Of Ancient Britain
15:45 : Some Mother’s Do Ave Em
16:15 : To The Manor Born
16:45 : Hi De Hi
17:15 : Flog It (R)
18:00 : Letterbox
18:30 : Strictly It Takes Two
19:00 : South Pacific
20:00 : Great British Menu
20:30 : Monkman and Seagull’s Genius Guide To Britain
21:00 : University Challenge
21:30 : Black Earth Rising
22:30 : QI
23:00 : Newsnight
23:45 : Storyville
01:15 : Bought With Love
02:15 : Today At Conference: Conservative

Ok, sure, I don’t think the Conservatives will appreciate that the conference report is now at 2am (even though it is easily accessible online) and BBC Three programming may make more sense on air at certain points, but I’ve managed to fit the BBC Four programmes in where the repeats were, with a some relation to demographics and scheduling. I’ve also decided to re-establish afternoon classics which was a slot I loved.

Sorry if this was utterly pointless and lowers the tone of the whole thread!

No.


Yes it was.

The MPEG2 to H264 migration will happen when DVB-T is switched off and all terrestrial services migrate to DVB-T2. There will be no need to retain legacy MPEG2 at that point - as all DVB-T2 receivers will support H264. How you handle people who currently only have DVB-T/MPEG2 receivers will be part of that discussion I guess (just as some analogue-only viewers were when DSO happened)



There are two issues that are often conflated :

1. When will BBC One HD carry regional content in England?
2. When will BBC One English regional studios be running in HD?

Both are expensive, but I expect 1. will happen (with SD studios upconverted to HD) sooner than 2., but the planned approach to delivering 2. may well inform how 1. is implemented.

What is pretty clear is that the current model of feeding BBC One network to every English regional centre 24/7, and then backhauling it back 'regionalised' 24/7 for coding and muxing is unlikely to be continued in the HD era. It's much more likely that the individual regional studio outputs will be fed to a common location(s) much closer to coding and mux (in connectivity - not physical - terms) for remote opt-out switching, following a more ITV-style model. That would remove a large chunk of distribution costs, and mean the regional centres don't need to be as resilient too (bye bye the need for backup power?)...

Likewise !! And the disappointment during the summer of not having Test Card F 11:25am through until late afternoon, but Cricket (or some other sport), Pah !

Plus the OU or BBC Schools programmes that were on before Play School.

The problem with closing BBC Four is that it actually has a very loyal audience, and one of their most discussed programmes is a repeat run of a show from 30+ years ago. Yes, it's true most people like programmes, not channels, but I think a lot of BBC Four viewers come back to it every night because it's usually showing something they'll like. I'm not sure a merged BBC Two would still be able to cater to this niche audience. Would slow TV be suitable for BBC Two, for instance?

Oooh, this was pre OU days ! Schools programming was on BBC 1 back then, (because BBC 2 was UHF and not available everywhere, and in any case many schools (my own included) still only had 405 line tellies) ! My school only had a Band I TV aerial too, so not even ITV was available.

They bought a UHF telly in 1972, with a set top aerial, as the newly built Hannington tx dominated the skyline, (It's amazing I learnt anything there really)

That’s a very fair point. It was discussed that BBC Four changes to an online channel such as BBC Three. The best rated shows would air on BBC Two and the best would be on the iPlayer. The same occurred on BBC Three with programmes like Russel Howard’s Good News. However, you could of course argue that BBC Three is targeted at the tech savvy youth and that BBC Four viewers are likely to be more dependent on television.