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Archive: CBBC

The big Freeview re-tune — more digital dregs?

2 October 2009 09:00

Categories: Current affairs, Media, Technology, Television, The Pod Delusion

This is an accompanying article to my contribution on this week’s episode of The Pod Delusion. You can listen below.

This week, Freeview has had one of its occasional retuning events. As new channels come and old channels go, the channel list becomes increasingly messy until the point where the powers-that-be decide enough is enough and it’s time to bring some organisation to it.

This sort of thing is a necessary evil of the digital era. But I feel sorry for those, particularly older, people who are used to setting up their television once when they buy it, then making do with two and a half channels for the rest of their lives.

A couple of weeks ago in the first episode of The Pod Delusion, James O’Malley spoke about the bonkers-sounding Conspiracy Channel. Sadly, I do not have Sky, so have been unable to sample its delights for myself. I must rely on humble Freeview for my post analogue switch-off telly fix.

Freeview brings a wealth of choice that simply did not exist on analogue terrestrial television. That is of course a good thing, and I personally cannot imagine going back to making do with the five analogue channels. But there is an element of truth to that Fry & Laurie sketch, where a dining Government minister is dumped on by the waiter with a “choice” of cutlery which turns out to be countless plastic coffee stirrers.

At the same time as this week’s big retune, the long-awaited launch of Quest, the new channel from Discovery, has taken place. Its original launch had already been long delayed and finally aborted at the last minute several months ago.

While a channel that promises something resembling quality struggled to get off the ground, there has been no shortage of utter crud getting airtime on Freeview. In fact, I struggled to think of any half-decent channels that had launched recently. So I decided to look it up, and see what changes had been made to Freeview over the previous year.

10 September — Smile TV 2 (a mucky Babestation-style channel; closed on 19 March)
January — Rocks & Co (shopping channel)
8 January — SuperCasino (roulette channel)
8 January — NetPlay TV (broadcasting shopping programmes or infomercials)
15 January — CNN International — 4 hours per day
22 January — Dave+1
2 February — Russia Today — 2 hours per day
3 February — DirectGov (text service)
12 March — Partyland
1 April — Gems TV — 5 hours per day
5 April — CNN increases hours to 7 hours per day, 2 hours of which is SuperCasino
1 May — Gems TV closed down
13 May — Smile TV 2 relaunched — 5 hours per day
14 May — Quest — 14 hours per day — launch aborted!
20 May — Virgin 1 goes 24 hours per day
20 May — Virgin 1+1 — 12 hours per day
23 May — Film4 extends hours
1 July — Create & Craft (shopping channel) launches — 5 hours per day
4 July — Russia Today gets second slot — 2 hours per day
15 July — Big Deal (quiz channel) launches — 7 hours per day
27 August — Price-drop tv returns
27 August — Smile TV 3
27 August — Babestation
30 September — Quest launched

So a couple of channels — Film4 and Virgin 1 — have extended their hours. A couple of news channels have been able to find scraps of space here and there. I say news channels, though in the case of Russia Today, propaganda may be a more accurate description. These channels broadcast at quite obscure hours. It is certainly an interesting spin on the concept of “24 hour news”.

Beyond that, the vast majority of new Freeview channels are pure trash. There are two new “+1″ channels, replaying exactly what was broadcast on a channel an hour ago. By my reckoning, there are now at least five such channels on Freeview, which doesn’t seem like the best use of limited bandwidth.

Beyond that, there is a collection of shopping channels, gambling channels, quiz channels and adult channels. Frankly, this is the sort of stuff you expect at the arse end of the darkest nooks of the Sky EPG. I am not quite sure this is what they had in mind when the digital revolution was promised.

The Babestation channels have long been a fixture on Sky. But their presence on Freeview is relatively novel. They are interesting for the fact that it hasn’t taken long for four of them to crop up. It is surprising because their appeal seems rather limited to me.

If you have never seen it (er, not that I’m an expert, of course), basically the format is quite simple. A few glamour models who couldn’t present their way out of a paper bag sit on a couch trying to encourage people to phone in for a mucky chit-chat.

Once someone with more money than sense takes the bait, the microphone is switched off, and some cheap-sounding music is turned up. The women proceeds to talk dirty on the phone — without the viewer being able to hear a word. They sort of wriggle around on the couch in a way that I assume is supposed to look sexy, but it really just makes them look vaguely like they need the toilet.

In short, it is the modern-day equivalent of the dodgy services advertised on business cards left in piss-stained telephone boxes, only with the beady eye of Ofcom overseeing proceedings. There is nothing extreme in the slightest about these channels. You wonder what goes through the mind of people who would sooner pay through the nose to sample such services when you could quite easily find more enticing free porn on the internet.

Up until this week’s retune, the positioning of one of these channels — Partyland — in the channel list was certainly interesting. It was channel number 50, but with no channels occupying numbers 51-69, the next channel up was CBBC. Even though the broadcasting hours do not clash, I can imagine plenty of children just pressing the down button on their remote and coming across a strange new channel promising a party land. It certainly would provide a more eye-popping rite of passage than accidentally stumbling across the frilly knickers section of the Argos catalogue.

It remains to be seen whether these channels remain a long-term fixture on the Freeview platform. One trashy genre which sadly appears to have stood the test of time is quiz channels. These late-night televisual travesties are hypnotically awful. A slightly desperate presenter will appear to engage you in a stare-out competition while goading you into answering questions with non-existent answers.

Even though they still live on, such quiz channels are not quite as prevalent as they used to be. They were a major victim of the collapse in trust that broadcasters faced a couple of years ago. Into the vacuum came the gambling channels.

It’s noted that this sort of programming tends to be on late at night, especially at the weekend. In other words, they are aimed squarely at the post-pub market.

The morals are pretty dubious. The clear idea is to target people whose judgement has been impaired by their alcoholic consumption, goading people into phoning premium rate phone lines when they perhaps shouldn’t. In the case of the gambling channels, it could be said that they intend to capture a particular section of the population that may have problems with addiction.

This is not quite the vision of digital television that was sold to the public. It is funny how most of the extra “choice” that has been brought into our living rooms revolves around extracting large amounts of cash from our wallets.

7 comments

BBC F1 coverage: Red Button stuff and the pitlane

22 July 2009 14:38

Categories: Opinion

The interactive forum

The BBC have a lot of great points to their coverage, but this is possibly the greatest innovation they have come up with. For an hour or so after the BBC One programme has finished, they continue analysing the race on the Red Button. This is something that simply would never have happened on ITV, so this is another great reason why the BBC is the right home for F1.

ITV’s post-race programme always felt like a rush job. The BBC’s probably would too if I stopped watching when BBC One stopped broadcasting it. But that extra hour feels just right. An extra hour to immerse myself in F1 news, interviews, analysis, footage, insight and knowledge. And there are a few viewer questions thrown in for good measure. Great stuff.

Red Button extras

Here is something else that you couldn’t have got on ITV — extra material on the red button. There are the rolling highlights, which I have personally never used and don’t really see the point of. It seems like a waste of a stream to me, but then again the BBC probably don’t have anything else to put on this stream (I understand that they are not allowed to broadcast the official timing screens).

But the on-board channel is a great addition to the coverage. I always have my laptop open with the on-board stream running. For one thing, it often catches incidents that are missed by the World Feed. It is notable that a lot of the BBC’s post-race analysis consists of footage from this channel — it is valuable stuff. During the German GP, they even interrupted the World Feed on BBC One to show a replay from the on-board channel! It is also interesting to watch the on-board channel during lulls in the race. I’m sure it will come in handy for Valencia.

The BBC also provide a handful of alternative audio options, though I never make use of them. I like Jonathan Legard and Martin Brundle is still interesting to listen to even if he grates more these days. But for those who haven’t taken to Legard, it is no surprise that the Radio 5 Live commentary option with David Croft and Anthony Davidson seems to have gone down a storm.

CBBC commentary seems less popular. I wonder if it is used very often. I can’t imagine I would have used it as a child. It’s like Newsround. No-one ever watches it because if you’re too young to be interested in the news, you simply don’t watch it. But if you’re old enough to be interested in the news, you watch the proper news, not the kiddy patronising version. CBBC commentary seems like a waste of an audio stream to me.

Pit lane reports

There are some very noticeable changes in the way the BBC deal with reports from the pitlane as opposed to ITV. On ITV, whenever there was a pitstop they would throw to Ted Kravitz who would then commentate on it. It wasn’t good. Usually he would just say, "yes, the fuel hose is in. And they have put new tyres on. And he’s away, good stop!" It felt pointless, although I guess it punctuated the commentary in a way. But I prefer it when Legard and Brundle commentate on pitstops, and for Ted Kravitz to be used when something genuinely interesting happens in the pitlane.

Meanwhile, Lee McKenzie is doing a fine job for her first season in F1 full time. She has plenty of experience in motorsport, so there are no real issues with her there. There have been one or two hairy interviews, particularly when she clearly got at Lewis Hamilton who responded tersely after being asked how it felt to be lapped by Button. But in a way that revealed a lot about Lewis Hamilton’s mindset.

In fact, Lee McKenzie seems quite good at that. Rubens Barrichello completely opened up in an unprecedented way after the German Grand Prix, all as a result of a simple but carefully-worded question: "It was going so well, what went wrong?" You could argue that it was never really going well for Barrichello, but the question obviously confirmed in Barrichello’s mind that he was on for a good result, hence his amazing rant.

On ITV, Louise Goodman often got some very interesting quotes out of drivers, but normally of the post-watershed variety. Not good when Webber is talking about kids fucking it up on breakfast television.

Louise Goodman was certainly good at finding drivers very quickly after they had retired. At the start of the season, it was noted by some that Lee McKenzie appeared to be much slower at tracking down the drivers. It transpires that the BBC are choosing to pre-record these interviews, probably to save money.

I also wonder if there is a different approach among F1 journalists in general this year. For the first time, drivers are mandated to conduct interviews after they have retired. Perhaps the BBC are going for the safe option, remaining in the designated area for a 100% chance of getting an interview, albeit one that is slightly late, rather than taking a gamble by going on a hunt to get a quicker interview at the risk of missing the driver completely.

It is noticeable that Lee McKenzie isn’t getting much airtime during the races though. This is probably because there are very few retirements in F1 these days. Given now that Ted Kravitz doesn’t have to do the whole "they’re putting fuel in his car!!!" schtick, I wonder if there is really a need for there to be two pitlane reporters. I wouldn’t know, but it seems as though they are doing less work than they did on ITV.

Something I would like to see from the pitlane reporters is more input in terms of analysing strategy. ITV were always good at this, because James Allen is a genius at working out strategies. Even if he wasn’t a great main commentator, he was always excellent as a pitlane reporter, and always had the edge when it came to reading the strategic elements of the race.

But reading strategy now appears to be the biggest weakness of the BBC’s coverage. I would like to see Ted Kravitz try and think about strategy more. Or, if Ted is not up to the task, bring James Allen on board as a strategy analyst.

2 comments

F1 on the BBC: A new era of F1 coverage

31 March 2009 16:44

Categories: Opinion

Even in this most interesting of races, at the most interesting of times, with all sorts of interesting rule changes and an interesting off-season, one of the most fascinating things about the weekend was the television coverage. After a gap of 12 years, F1 returned to BBC television.

Although ITV undoubtedly raised the bar, F1 fans were always frustrated by the need to interrupt the race to show adverts. So in this sense alone, the BBC’s coverage is superior. But apart from that given, how did the BBC do in their first race back? Very well in my view. They are not quite as slick as ITV were. But you would expect that in their first broadcast.

First things first. The title sequence. There was much rejoicing when it was confirmed that ‘The Chain’ would indeed be the theme tune. But on first viewing I thought the title sequence was a bit naff. However, it has grown on me a lot after repeat viewings. And as neiltc13 pointed out to me on Twitter, it’s not half as naff as ITV’s title sequence from the past few years.

It is no accident that the two people who seemed most at ease during the broadcast were Martin Brundle and Ted Kravitz. Both now have several years of broadcasting F1 on ITV under their belt, and it is very much business as usual. The only difference for them is the logo on their shirts.

I have seen a lot of complaints about the new main commentator, Jonathan Legard, which I think are completely unwarranted. The most ridiculous criticism comes from Planet Hamilton, which spat: “what do you expect from the BBC’s 2008 Football Correspondent.” Amusing of them to talk about someone being ill-informed, while spelling their name incorrectly throughout.

Jonathan Legard may have been the “BBC’s 2008 Football Correspondent” (actually, he was Radio 5 Live’s football correspondent from 2004 until getting the F1 gig). But before that he was Radio 5 Live’s motorsport correspondent and main Formula 1 commentator, a role he held for eight seasons. He has also written about F1 for newspapers. So those people assuming Legard does not know enough about F1 are saying more about their own ignorance.

The real problem with Legard’s commentary at the moment is that he is used to commentating on the radio, which requires quite a different style. Some rustiness was also to be expected since he hasn’t commentated on a Formula 1 race since 2004. But the fact is that he is one of Britain’s most experienced Formula 1 broadcasters. He was always going to be near the top of the list of candidates.

Legard was clearly nervous during qualifying, but this is perfectly understandable. This is a big gig, and the spotlight was on him. After the shaky qualifying performance though, Legard seemed much more at ease during the race.

It is true that there is a lack of chemistry between Legard and Martin Brundle, but this is something that will develop over time. The pairing will need a few races to get used to each other’s rhythm, then they will begin to gel much better.

At points Legard seemed strangely lost for words. Two such moments stood out for me. One was when it became clear that Heikki Kovalainen’s car was damaged, at which point Legard simply started repeating the driver’s name a number of times. The other was when Fisichella missed his pit box, when Legard just said, “Oh dear. Dear, dear.” That didn’t add much to our understanding of the situation.

But I felt that Legard read the race very well, especially when you consider he has not had to do it since 2004. He was very quick to spot that the soft tyres were simply not working. When Brundle said he thought that Kubica was managing the soft tyres well, Legard was instantly able to point out that Kubica’s lap times had actually become very slow, at which point the Pole peeled into the pits. Legard read this unfolding situation much better than Brundle did, which is no mean feat.

Lee McKenzie also seemed very good for her first live F1 television broadcast. She has plenty of experience in other categories of motorsport though. Jake Humphrey is a seriously good television presenter, and despite worries about his knowledge of the sport he actually seems pretty clued up. As an anchor, I find it difficult to see how he could be bettered.

David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan do not yet have the chemistry to cope with each other, though they both have plenty of opinions. Unfortunately, Eddie Jordan simply does not know when to stop gassing on. He was constantly interrupting his colleagues and, frankly, he hogged the airtime.

David Coulthard seemed almost intimidated by it, and seemed to give up even chiming in towards the end of the broadcast. Sometimes I thought Jordan made good points, but he does shoot from the hip a bit too much. Overall, he was an obnoxious presence, and I hope the BBC manage to rein him in.

DC needs to be encouraged to speak more. He is a good speaker, with interesting opinions and an ability to relay that to the viewers. But he’s not as natural as Martin Brundle and does seem slightly wooden for the time being. As the only person on the BBC television team with recent driving experience, he needs to be used more.

Whatever, it is good to have a couple of pundits with forthright opinions. This is a world away from ITV, where the post-race analysis was utterly bland in comparison. Steve Rider is a competent enough presenter, but he now seems staid in comparison to Jake Humphrey. Meanwhile, Mark Blundell’s punditry was seldom insightful, and he was often little more than Steve Rider’s yes-man. What a change, then, to see some energetic debate on the BBC!

As for the production of the programme, I think this is also promising. While ITV’s programme was nauseatingly biased in favour of Lewis Hamilton, the BBC seem to have struck a much better balance. In fairness, given McLaren’s woes, the BBC doesn’t have much space to hype up Hamilton, but the coverage of Button’s win didn’t seem overly patriotic either.

Some of the features were a lot more interesting than what ITV came up with. The piece about Mark Webber’s recovery certainly towers above “Cooking with Heikki”. I think fans will be much more comfortable with the BBC programme.

I was initially disappointed that the BBC decided to send Jake Humphrey, DC and EJ to the race, where they were left trying to scream above the loud cars and, at the worst moments, aeroplanes. This does not make for good viewing, and was one of the worst aspects of ITV’s coverage. I was surprised that the BBC did not try to avert this, particularly in light of ITV’s experiences. Rumour has it that the BBC has farmed off GP2 coverage in order to fund this, so I was not happy.

However, the programme absolutely came into its own during the ‘Interactive Forum’ on the red button. This gives enthusiasts the chance to indulge in an hour-long post-race discussion. I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed this element of the coverage. It is a very welcome innovation. It makes sending the pundits to the races worth it, as they were able to conduct interviews, and Martin Brundle was able to join in the conversation.

Unfortunately, the analysis appears to have been totally ghettoised to the red button. Lee McKenzie was hardly used at all during the race, and I felt we should have heard a lot more from her. Meanwhile, neither the race re-run nor the BBC Three highlights programme had anything in the way of post-race analysis whatsoever, and very very little in terms of interviews. This is one thing that ITV was much better at, and I hope the BBC will reconsider this approach for future races.

Another thing that was better about ITV’s coverage was the fact that their online stream switched away from the ITV1 feed to show the FOM World Feed. This option was nowhere to be seen on the BBC’s website, which meant that viewers didn’t see the full press conference or the FOM-produced highlights package.

The other interactive elements of the F1 coverage are what really brings the BBC into its own. All practice sessions are being shown on television (via the red button) for the first time, which is excellent.

During the race there is, for the first time in the UK (with the exception of F1 Digital+), the option to watch a dedicated on-board channel. This is the sort of coverage that a couple of countries in Europe get on pay per view. We are very lucky to get this stuff for free in the UK.

Unfortunately, the option seemed to be suffering from some technical problems. The caption telling you which driver we were on board with failed very early on, and never returned. The rolling leaderboard and news updates also did not display for a while. Meanwhile, the insert that shows the world feed was almost too small to be of any real use. Personally, I would prefer the on board channel to be full screen, but that is because I had two screens. It is true that I didn’t often watch the on board channel, but I may make more use of it in more processional races (so it’ll come in useful for Valencia).

The other interactive channel is taken up with rolling highlights. This seems to be a staple of BBC Sport coverage, but I personally don’t see the point of it. I won’t stop watching the race to watch highlights, knowing that I might miss something happening live. Presumably people use it though, since the BBC often offer it for many sports.

Another novel feature is the option to choose your audio. Those worried about the lack of chemistry between Jonathan Legard and Martin Brundle can opt to listen instead to Radio 5 Live’s David Croft and Anthony Davidson, who get on like a house on fire.

There is also a CBBC commentary, but I don’t see this lasting. There was one slightly amusing moment when the CBBC commentators pretended they had a microphone inside the Safety Car and decided to listen into the conversation:

Safety Car Mic
Uploaded by Stefmeister2008

(Via the people on the Digital Spy F1 coverage thread.)

It’s obviously designed to be used during a boring moment while the Safety Car is out, so it’s just a shame Fisichella’s pit lane mess-up happened while it was being played! A nice humorous touch though. I can’t help but think the CBBC commentary is a waste of money and bandwidth though.

All-in-all, the BBC’s coverage had a few teething problems, but this was absolutely to be expected. Most of the problems so far are quite minor and I envisage that they will be sorted soon enough. We really are very lucky to be getting such great coverage in the UK now.

21 comments

Who is Blue Peter aimed at?

26 May 2007 01:47

Categories: Current affairs, Entertainment, General, Nostalgia, Personal, Television

Blue Peter is in the news at the moment because it is losing a show per week. So it will be going back to two programmes per week, just like it was up until the mid-1990s. And this is not long after it went down from five shows per week.

Of course, like most decent people, I am outraged. But if I was in the programme’s target audience, would I give a monkey’s? Probably not.

When I was actually in Blue Peter’s target audience, I thought Blue Peter was one of the most boring programmes in the world. I just couldn’t understand the appeal.

There were only two different things that ever happened on Blue Peter. The first type involved a twatty presenter abseiling — and the presenters of my era were twatty. Take your pick from Tim Vincent, Stuart Miles or — worst of all — Katy Hill. No bloody wonder I didn’t watch it.

The other type involved making some rubbish makeshift doll’s house out of a bunch of ropey catchphrases. Here’s one I made earlier, sticky back plastic, yes, yes I get it. Ha ha ha.

Apart from that, I have no real memories of the programme from my childhood. In fact, all of my strongest memories of the programme are from when I was in my mid-teens.

Now I am more mature, and I think that Blue Peter is an important institution which is what puts the Great in Great Britain, or something like that. But here is the problem with Blue Peter: it is not aimed at children at all. It is aimed at adults or, more specifically, parents.

Most children’s programmes are, actually. You only had to look at the reaction to Dick and Dom In Da Bungalow, which split people into two camps: children and parents. The parents were shocked that Dick and Dom did not educate, and raised their arms in horror at the ‘Bogies’ game.

But these elements of no-holds-barred immaturity — and the fact that it didn’t provide advertising slots for the shit boy bands that are usually the staple of Saturday morning television — were precisely what kids found entertaining. As for me, the first time I saw it I was actually crying with laughter. I think it would be a sad state of affairs if po-faced parents banned children from being children.

That is why I am suspicious about the Blue Peter institution. I don’t find it offensive, but I think the reason it exists is to keep adults happy. Blue Peter is mostly about mythology and nostalgia more than anything else. It’s about watching the new presenter fail to flip a pancake. It’s about sticky back plastic and “here’s one I made earlier”. It’s about “what a lovely pair of knockers”. It’s about that elephant that did a massive shit on the floor.

But children don’t care about any of that stuff. If children like it as much as adults do, then that’s fair enough. But I suspect that they don’t. Part of me hopes that Blue Peter exists for as long as television exists. Part of me suspects that it really ought to be consigned to nostalgic clip shows.

3 comments

The premium rate scandal has caught the wrong culprits

14 March 2007 16:49

Categories: Current affairs, Entertainment, Television

Long term readers of this blog will know that I am not a big fan of phone-in quizzes. So when the recent controversy surrounding premium rate phone lines I was quite pleased. But now I think it has turned into media bandwagon.

More and more instances of dodgy goings-on are being sniffed out by the media. The problem is, each subsequent new problem is less important than the last one. Now the premium rate phone lines look a bit amateurish — but not evil, which is what they actually are.

Not that I have any sympathy for the viewers who phone in time after time and somehow expect not to be charged. Take the fuss surrounding Channel Five’s Brainteaser. There were a few instances where the producers were unable to find anybody who had a correct answer among the ten random names and numbers supplied by the people in charge of the phone lines.

If you have ever watched Brainteaser, you will know just how cretinous you have to be to get the answer wrong. The most common puzzles on Brainteaser are are a bit like anagrams, but instead of all the letters being jumbled up, groups of letters are jumbled up. A typical example (stolen from here) is “LL WA PER PA”.

Not too difficult is it? To be honest, I don’t blame the producers for not having a contingency plan in case they can’t find somebody out of a list of ten people who can’t get the correct answer. It might have been misguided for them to make up fake names of non-winners, but this smacks more of panicking producers on a live TV show who don’t know what to do rather than the pure evil that can be found on other quiz channels.

Then there is the hoo-ha over The X Factor, where viewers were charged a bank-breaking 15 pence. I mean, most people probably drop that amount of money every day without realising it. And if you can’t spare that extra 15 pence, what on earth are you doing using premium rate phone-in lines where your chances of affecting the result are approximately zero?

Channel 4′s The Morning Line got in trouble for charging callers who were stupid enough to phone up after it was announced that the lines were closed. If the phrase “phone lines are now closed” isn’t enough to stop you phoning in, then you really have nothing to complain about.

And now we have got to the point where children are being dragged into the whole thing. A Blue Peter phone-in competition where proceeds went to charity fell victim to a technical glitch. Much like the Brainteaser instance, a panicking member of the production put a child who happened to be visiting the studio on the air to pose as a competition entrant.

Note the final couple of paragraphs in the story:

But Ms Zahoor, whose information led to the discovery, says she thinks the BBC’s reaction is “silly”.

“I didn’t realise that it would be blown out of all proportion,” she said, adding that she had refused to lodge a formal complaint about the show.

Again, it was probably misguided, but it is hardly the deception and near fraud that you find on some channels. I can’t actually imagine how lame the next “premium rate phone call revelation” is going to be. 999 lines open instead of the 1,000 promised? Comic Relief is going to be fun this year!

What really gets me the most about this storm is the fact that the very worst examples of the genre are getting away with it. The media is after the big names like Britain’s finest comedy duo Richard and Judy, Saturday Kitchen, The X Factor and Blue Peter.

But the quiz channels themselves — entire channels that are devoted to these controversial competitions — are carrying on pretty much as normal. There was a slightly eerie evening recently when there was only one of these on Freeview — Big Game TV on Ftn (how different would it be if this channel were called ‘Virgin’, its true colours?). But TMF’s Pop the Q was only gone for one evening due to a technical problem.

Channel Five dropped Quiz Call in the wake of the Brainteaser problems, but Quiz Call itself carries on as normal on Sky. The ITV Play channel has been axed by ITV, but only because it wasn’t making enough money!

These might be signs that the phone-in quiz television genre has hit the rocks. But the genre’s coat has been on a shoogly nail for ages. You can tell that with all the chopping and changing that has been going on, such as when Channel 4 sold Quiz Call (I bet they’re mighty glad they sold it now!) and the musical chairs involving Ftn’s, Channel Five’s and even ITV’s quiz slots.

ITV Play only makes money on its late-night ITV1 slot and apparently often made a loss during the day. The channel probably would have closed anyway — it’s just that now was a convenient time to close it.

With this controversy, programmes like the relatively innocuous Richard & Judy are being castigated, while the actually evil Make Your Play has technically been given the all-clear.

I mean, at least the competitions on Richard & Judy and the like have well-defined rules and everybody gets pretty much what is expected. On the quiz channels, on the other hand, callers are taken arbitrarily (even during ‘speed rounds’, even when the presenters are promising that they are taking “as many calls as they can”).

The questions are vaguely-defined such as the tower guessing games (where is the skill in that?, as a couple of Resonance FM presenters might say) or the downright deceitful ‘add the numbers / pennies / circles / whatever’ games. And they never tell you how they get to the answers. These are the real premium rate scams, but somehow everybody is now focussing on charity-funding competitions for children.

Finally, a big thumbs down goes to Icstis, the so-called regulatory body for premium rate phone lines. That is has taken this media bandwagon to finally get Icstis to levitate their big arse over problems that are in some cases several months old is shocking. The shouldn’t have to wait for the media to do their job for them.

Notably, The Hits has ditched its frankly diabolical Cash Call slot. Apparently this programme was actually beamed from Hungary (and the programme was often fronted by presenters whose grip of English wasn’t too great). Quite fishy.

Anyway, enjoy this clip of it on YouTube. As you can see, it is deceptively boring — a good cure for insomnia at that time of night perhaps? On the other hand, it is classic car-crash television, and it is fascinating just for how boring it is.