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What's the point of BBC Two?

Sir Attenborough, former BBC Two controller, says the channel is now indistinguishable from BBC 1 (October 2014)

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:-(
A former member
WHY on earth is the BBC given us a BBC one plus one channel? its madness. Mind you should see the BBC one programmes all 45min formats with plenty of repeats section. All with an eye on export market.... Do people in France, Japan or Oz really care about UK Heir hunters or Homes under the hammer?
NT
NorthTonight
The BBC One +1 channel ( to answer the last comment ) could be advantageous for those of us with " only " Freeview if it's going to presumably show the UK schedule rather than the Nations opt outs.
RI
Rijowhi
cwathen posted:
markymark posted:
Do Sky Sports 1,2, 3 and 4 have different identities ? Of course they don't, events just get shown on any of the four, and that's how it should be. As far as the viewers are concerned they are watching an event on 'Sky'; simple as that.

Historically, the same type of programming was screened across multiple Sky Sports channels because Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2 had to be subscribed to separately and things just carried on from there.


Thus they deliberately distributed the same types of sports across multiple channels so that you had to subscribe to all of it or you'd lose out - it was just money making at it's most callous, not the result of Sky holding some kind of ideological belief in how broadcast TV should work. Now that there is just a single bundle for Sky Sports containing all the channels they are notably changing this and closeting specific sports off to specific channels as others have said.

It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the next big Sky rebrand sees Sky Sports change from numbered channels to sport-specific ones.

In terms of where BBC2 now sits, it is a shadow of it's former self, but that's because the meat of its remit has been split between 3 and 4, which is madness when BBC2 still has a budget that is more than both of them put together (and it can't all be spent on Top Gear) - it's a casualty of the early-00's madness which resulted in all broadcasters rolling out huge extended channel portfolios to give people more choice which now isn't needed with the OD services that are in place.

As I've said previously, I don't think traditional broadcast TV is going anywhere anytime soon but I do think that the current number of channels isn't sustainable any more (arguably it wasn't ever) and I believe that ALL broadcasters (but particularly FTA ones) will start cutting back on channel count soon. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the BBC eventually ends up as just 1, 2 and the news channel. ITV have also started paving the way for this by renaming ITV1 back to ITV and their newer launches having names rather than numbers and launching ITV Encore as a pay channel even though it only carries content which would fit perfectly onto ITV3 - I think they will end up ditching ITV2, 3 and 4 and end up having only ITV as their sole, main free channel, and anything else will be a named pay channel.

I think BBC2 will eventually reclaim it's position of glory, but it needs the axe to fall on 3 and 4 first.


Really good post in my opinion, agree with everything you've said. I guess with the BBC it's a way of reducing the Licence Fee and also answering the critics who say it should be paid for by subscription. Imagine a BBC where BBC1/BBC2/BBC News/BBC Parliament/CBBC/CBeebies are paid for by the Licence Fee with the rest part of an 'extra' TV package from the likes of Sky. This along with 'On Demand' means there will still be as much choice, it's just you'll need to look harder for this programming.

EDIT - I wonder if ITV will keep ITV2 as free to view with the rest going to pay? Hence the recent change in direction of programming on the channel...don't expect to see any Brian Cox documentary's like BBC2 though...
Last edited by Rijowhi on 16 October 2014 7:11am - 2 times in total
CA
Cando
623058 posted:
WHY on earth is the BBC given us a BBC one plus one channel? its madness. Mind you should see the BBC one programmes all 45min formats with plenty of repeats section. All with an eye on export market.... Do people in France, Japan or Oz really care about UK Heir hunters or Homes under the hammer?

Escape to the Country UK regularly tops the multichannel ratings in Australia. Grand Designs Uk also does big numbers for ABC
CA
Cando
cwathen posted:
- I think they will end up ditching ITV2, 3 and 4 and end up having only ITV as their sole, main free channel, and anything else will be a named pay channel..

What utter nonsense. The ROI on Itv2, 3 and 4 is massive, which is why they launched ITVbe.
ITV encore is just there to exploit their existing rights (and get some of the subscription pie). In the same way as UKtv have some of the same material on Albi/ Gold as the free to air 'Drama'.
If anything ITV will continue to squeeze their main channel to continue investing in the far more profitable digital channels
Last edited by Cando on 15 October 2014 10:27pm
ST
Stuart
NorthTonight posted:
The BBC One +1 channel ( to answer the last comment ) could be advantageous for those of us with " only " Freeview if it's going to presumably show the UK schedule rather than the Nations opt outs.

+1 channels were created because capacity was available and it allowed commercial broadcasters to sell further advertising slots, albeit at a lower rate.

The excuse used about allowing people to watch more programmes in an 'ever crowded prime time schedule' really doesn't wash since the mass adoption of VCRs in the 1980s and even less so since that of the PVR in the 2000s.

Nobody felt the need for a +1 channel in 1985, and I don't think they are really relevant now to the majority of the population.

BBC One+1 will be rather pointless given the vast number of opportunities for people to watch repeated programmes, on iPlayer, or recorded on a PVR. In view of the fact that they have no commercial advantage in being able to sell advertising slots, it's probably the worst time to suggest such a channel to the public.

If the BBC want to save money by closing BBC Three then so be it, but there is little point in replacing it with BBC One+1 and HD option. Just give up the transponder space and have done with it, don't try to suggest that anyone NEEDS a +1 channel.
NG
noggin Founding member
+1 channels are actually useful with Freeview+ and Freesat+ PVRs as they allow clash resolution to happen in the background. If you want to record three things at once, and one of them is on a +1 channel, it will reschedule rather than failing to record one of them.

There is also an argument that the +1 channels at least help people who don't have access to broadband suitable for access to iPlayer.
Last edited by noggin on 16 October 2014 12:58am
LL
London Lite Founding member
noggin posted:


There is also an argument that the +1 channels at least help people who don't have access to broadband suitable for access to iPlayer.


Or those who can't get fast enough ADSL broadband to stream iPlayer, especially in rural areas.

I don't get ITV Player or 4oD without using the inferior NOW TV box, so the +1's and 4Seven come in handy.
PF
PFML84
It would be nice if, THREE and FOUR closed, that BBC TWO went back to being the type of channel it was in the 90's. A great mix of comedy, music, arts and documentaries.

Heck, BBC TWO turned down another series of Red Dwarf, one of the biggest rating shows they had, and their longest running and highest rated sitcom ever. "They weren't interested in that type of audience any more" was the reason given, then they broadcast that abomination of a space "comedy" Hyperdrive. Whoever is in charge of TWO made a terrible decision, as well as letting Bake Off move to ONE.

I have always thought that there are too many channels saturating the market. Whilst most of the PSB channels could do with scaling back on their channels and some rubbish content, the chances of them actually doing it are very low. Lots of channels means lots more money from ad revenue.
MK
Mr Kite
Paddy posted:
Lots of channels means lots more money from ad revenue.


The thing is, it doesn't really, as there isn't more people to watch the extra channels. Therefore, the audience is spread more thinly. This means there's actually far less ad revenue to be made per channel than there was in the old days. The PSB channels, especially the likes of ITV, need to have as many channels as they can so as they can cast the net as wide as possible to catch as many viewers as they can in a crowded market. Thus, someone watching an old repeat on ITV3 will be helping to bring in ad revenue that will fund new material on the main channel. I'm actually totally down with having less channels but so long as we've a situation where we have tons of non-PSB channels, I don't think we should be insisting on cutting back the PSB ones. The BBC may be slightly different as it doesn't rely on advertising revenue but there may be arguments about whether channel consolidation would contract its market share significantly and whether this is a good thing from a licence-payer point of view.
JA
JAS84
Stuart posted:
If the BBC want to save money by closing BBC Three then so be it, but there is little point in replacing it with BBC One+1 and HD option. Just give up the transponder space and have done with it, don't try to suggest that anyone NEEDS a +1 channel.
They can't give up the space - BBC Three timeshares with CBBC! Even when Three goes, CBBC still needs the transponder.
IS
Inspector Sands
JAS84 posted:
]They can't give up the space - BBC Three timeshares with CBBC! Even when Three goes, CBBC still needs the transponder.

More accurately, CBBC shares bandwidth with BBC Three, the transponder/multiplex it's broadcast on is shared with lots of other BBC services.

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