The Orange British Film Academy Awards

It's The Orange British Film Academy Awards tonight (8th Feb) and looking at the schedules i'm a little confused. Is this normally a split broadcast with half of the program on BBC Two and the later half on BBC One? It starts on BBC Two at 8pm and changes to BBC One at 9pm, what would be the reason for this? Just seems a little odd to split a program that potentially will get a fair share of the viewing audience. The red carpet action is on BBC Three at 7pm which is usual protocol to have one channel showing build up coverage but i don't recall an event like this moving channels half way through before. Am i making an issue over nothing or does this seem a little odd to you to?

It's the first year they've done it. They used to have the entire ceremony on BBC One but it has never rated that well at all. I assume the reasoning behind this is that they can shunt the smaller awards on to BBC Two which generates less interest, then have the bigger categories on BBC One where it only takes up an hour of the schedule, and they can stick to their usual, more popular Sunday night programming for the rest of the evening.

... and add to the mix a Kermode - Jane Hill BAFTA hour on BBC News at 5pm.

Whether Ross' indiscretions might be in the mix of this bizzare scheduling I'm unsure.

It will be interesting to see how they handle the channel change. Does any other broadcaster take a feed of this outside of the UK?

AFAIK 'The British Academy of Film and Television Film Awards' (sponsored by Orange, but doubt the BBC will say this), is also broadcast on BBC America, certain US news channels and on BBC Entertainment/Prime. I MAY be wrong there though.

Also the BAFTAs will be on the BBC iPlayer in three different versions (according to Virgin Media).

There is the FULL version (BBC Two/BBC One mixed together)
Just the BBC Two part; and then the BBC One part.

I'm sure that it has something on BBC Four later this week. Just tried to search but the EPG has crashed - all I'm getting is "BAFTA Film Awards 2009: No results found"... hmm...

Remember that it's not live, so the eopo, pt elements can be easily handled.

How long is the delay approximately?

Is this BBC News Special at the Bafta's also going out on BBC World at the moment?

I believe two hours, starts at 6pm I think, done and dusted just after 8pm, so all the press can get their post event pics into the first editions.

edit 6.30 till 8.30 seems more likely as the red carpet continues now.

Yes. Razia Iqbel said that the programme was going out on BBC World when doing an interview

Oh, they will.

It's very questionable scheduling tonight and shows no respect for the BAFTAs really, especially in a year when the Brits could dominate them. Didn't coverage used to alternate biannually between the BBC and ITV?

The next time Mark Thompson trots out the line about the BBC not being interested in chasing ratings, tonight's BAFTA scheduling should be mentioned. By splitting them in 2, BBC1 gets a higher rating for the higher-profile, headline-making gongs... and the figures don't get dragged down by the first 60 mins of more modest prizes.

NBC would never split the Oscars in two. Why does the BBC think the BAFTAs deserve this poor coverage??