Right to reply returns as "The TV Show"

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/right_to_replystyle_strand_returns_to_c4.html


Basically Krishan Guru Murphy will host a monthly 30-minute edition, produced by Princess Productions. Unlike Right to Reply though, it's focus will mainly be on C4.


I wonder if it'll last longer than the last replacement - Think TV, which after just one edition on C4 was consigned to a live alone on the web.


I'd rather see them just go ahead and resurrect Right to Reply - if not on C4, it would be ideal for More4 - and I think a show looking a TV as a whole is really needed now.

There certainly needs to be a more heavy weight alternative to Points of View, which has become little more than an extended BBC trailer in recent years.

Points of View is terrible now. All you get is a "tut..oh well" from Terry then onto the next complaint. Especially when there's a complaint involving EastEnders - its a case of "leave our show alone peasants!". I'm using that as an example. Generally, there isn't much interviewing with the top dogs anymore.

I hope this new C4 show is something more demanding. Right to Reply brought politics into the equation and often created a board meeting structure - there seems to be nothing like that nowadays.

The main problem with Points Of View is its removal from the midweek prime time slot. And its commuting to limited runs.

why was right to reply given the boot?

How can scheduling other than ratings be a problem. No one is going to watch that show in their masses in a prime time slot. They will be switching elsewhere. It's best suited to a late afternoon Sunday slot.

I think the official reason was due to there being more places to discuss the ins and outs of TV on the internet, and C4 felt they could deal with it better online with channel4.com/thinktv

Funny how it held the slot until at least the end of the 1990s in that case!

The problem with the Sunday slot, besides being hidden away, is that it restricts POV to only discussing "family-friendly" feedback due to the time.

Also, POV is no longer continuously shown, allowing it to disappear at times convenient to the BBC (ie. when they know the postbag would be inundated) such as when a channel is rebranded or the new ECP layout came in.

Come on Simon, you know times have changed in the last 10 years. Although satelitte was on the up at the end of the 90s, the choice of channel has really exploded since the word "digital" has become commonplace and the majority doesn't want to see a cosy 15 minute
programme of letter reading during primetime. It would be suicide for any main channel.

I sure POV get moved because of good old lotto Mid week draw!

Nobody ever expects any crticism of the BBC to come out of POV. Despite the plethora of complaints about squeezing/squashing credits, the interview with the executive prepared to accept responsibilty for the policy wasn't so much a grilling as a tickle with a feather.

We need a decent programme on a main channel where broadcasters are called to account. It's all very well having internet fora and messageboards, but it's better to see a public apology and a good squirm before a decent interviewer. Perhaps I just have a sadistic streak!

You're absolutely right though - the amount of times I've watched POV and felt it's failing to take complaints quite as seriously as it should, in the sense that there could (and should) be more attempts to follow up complaints and really grill those responsible.

For the most part, letters are read out, met with indifference and that's the end of that - what is the programme for nowadays anyway? If the thinking behind it is just for some members of the public to get something 'off their chest', that's no good, but that's what is seems like to me - I want to be able to see something more being done about these things, and less of the casual screening of a complaint followed by the 'oh well' of sorts as was mentioned earlier here.

well, there have now given us Scottish viewer HIGNFY in the same slot all time now.

but everything is still to pots?