So Fed Up With Bbc Prime!

[robsamui]

I've had it with BBC Prime.

The intercontinental outreach of the BBC.

And yet series run at random, East Enders went for 2 weeks and was dropped, some series run backwards even, and you never know what you'll see next month.

I signed up because I wanted to watch the new stuff. Spooks - Silent Witness - things I'd never seen before.

So, Spooks starts at series 4, leaps to series 8, then suddenly goes back to series 1 again. Sometimes there’s never a part 2 following the part 1. Things even run BACKWARDS. This week Judge John Deed is getting married and next week he’s getting engaged.

So I wrote to the BBC.

Their reply went something like – (I am paraphrasing here – see the whole reply below) “We have done local and global research and the conclusion is that most of out viewers channel-hop.”

Basically, the BBC reckon that nobody is bothered about what they do and how their programs run. I pointed out that their target is English and their research looks at the Thai (or Botswanan) audience.

The very nice lady who answered my mail invited a further response.

SO PLEASE LET HER HAVE IT. If you are niggled by the BBC Prime programs, then contact her here.

[email protected] -

SUBJECT: complaints - ATTENTION JOYCE BURNS

My mail to her and her reply is appended below in its entirety. Please comment to her (not me!!) as you see fir.

Rob.

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Dear Joyce, thanks for the reply - please see my comments in-between your text.

At 08:04 PM 8/13/2007, you wrote:

Dear Robert Masters,

Hello and thank you for your email.

Firstly, I would like to say we very much appreciate you taking the time

to write to us about the channel. We value viewers' comments and

feedback, and strive to make BBC Prime a bigger and better channel, and

the home of great British programming.

As you may not be aware BBC Prime is a commercial channel and as such,

we bid for international transmission rights to BBC and other British

programmes in the same way as any other channel or broadcaster does and

at the competitive market rates. As such, we are unable to cherry pick

programmes and series from the vast BBC archive to broadcast on BBC

Prime. When selling programmes, programme distributors can often

generate more revenue by selling exclusive programme deals to individual

national broadcasters or by making multiple sales to numerous channels

rather than to one pan-regional channel (such as BBC Prime). When this

is the case, BBC Prime must wait until those licences have ended before

we are able to buy a licence to show the programme. Therefore we are

sometimes restricted from showing certain programmes on our channel.

This is VERY confusing. You - the BBC - have the rights to these programs.

Is it not so simple as a buyer wanting to buy this from you?

You have to BID for the right to broadcast your programs? So you

contact Botswana and say - we'll give you this really cheap. Here's

our lowest price for you to show our stuff?

Please do put me straight!

We have recently conducted extensive global and local research, and

concluded that the majority of viewers "channel hop" rather than watch

one particular channel for a prolonged period of time , and prefer to

"dip in and out" of the channel.

Maybe in Botswana. But who - check your demographics - will dip OUT

of a serial half way through? I can only suggest that a large percentage

of your viewing statistics are made up of the indigenous population. For

example - in Thailand, the population is 96% Thai. They have little understanding

of the English language and culture and will most certainly channel hop.

But out of that 96% of the Thai people, maybe 99% of these have no interest

in BBC Prime. It just came with the satellite package. They will not even

notice if a serial is running backwards. They don't even understand it.

If you have researched this "globally" and "locally" have you factored-in

that sector that has ACTUALLY OPTED TO PURCHASE YOUR PACKAGE?

It's not the Botswanians or the Thais. Guess what? It's all the English people

living in these countries. These are the people that WANT to watch your broadcasts

and these are the people that CHOOSE to watch them. No matter what the other

90% of the "global channel-hoppers" are doing, WE want to watch a coherent

presentation.

POINT 1. I personally know of 9 people in my small area who subscribed because

of your new broadcasts of Eastenders. So, so you think that these people

were in agreement with your "channel-hopping" philosophy when you suddenly

cut the entire series after 9 episodes?

The Botswanans, Nigerians, Sufi, Malawians, Jamaicans, Vietnamese, Bangladorians,

Malawians etc will have no interest and will channel-hop. I don't think it takes "global research"

to tell you this. Maybe you should try to canvas your ENGLISH percentage and compile

their responses.

POINT 2. If you EXPECT your overseas subscribers to channel-hop - then why bother

with series/serials at all? Just run any old stuff in any old order.

Oh. Right. That's just what you are doing. Sorry!

As such, we include repeated series in

our schedule, allowing viewers to remain loyal to whichever time slot

suits them best. For example, a programme which runs once a week might

suit some people, but another might prefer to see the series running

stripped across the week instead. The BBC Prime schedule also provides

an opportunity for most viewers to catch up with episodes they might

have missed the first time around, when the series/programme is

schedules in a later slot. This is a model that most cable and satellite

channels now operate.

So is this some kind of programming experiment? You run the episodes

BACKWARDS to see if anyone cares? How many Nigerians are going

to cancel their subscription?

Essentially - I can only consider what you have said so far as an utter

bag of poo. Either you have a commitment to your audience or you do not.

If you answer that you DO - then please try to explain to me again the

justification regarding random presentation of series/episodes.

Either - a) as you say, your audience is fragmented and channel-skips,

so it doesn't matter anyway - or

there are a great many people out there that might want to SEE WHAT

HAPPENS NEXT - in which case your programming loses absolutely

nothing by pressing sequential buttons. ie - 1, 2, 3, 4. It's just as easy

to do this as to say "the audience doesn't care".

In any test of logic - including all the possibilities of what your audience

might or might not want - which makes more sense

(and is just as easy to do?)

Regarding your enquiry about not showing completed series, please can

you give me more details such as dates of when this has happened so that

I can look into this further?

I will check and get back to you on this one. It happens often enough, but it's

not exactly the thing that one keeps a diary about! I have a feeling that there

might be several dozen other people that would want to add to this one!

I will broadcast your request onto the local intranet.

THOSE READING THIS please add your response - to -

[email protected] -

SUBJECT: complaints - ATTENTION JOYCE BURNS

We're sorry the channel isn't everything you'd want it to be but we

appreciate your feedback, without which it would make improving the

channel far more difficult. We trust that with your help we can make

some of the improvements you would like to see.

Once again thank you for taking the time to contact us.

Regards,

Joyce Burns

BBC Prime

And I want to thank you, too. It is rare to see any genuine responses in the

conglomerate world in which we live today.

BUT - I rather feel that your workload might now have been increased! I will

forward your response and my reply to all the English people in Thailand

(many thousands) that I know - in the form of a chain letter - asking them

all to voice their complaints to you personally at the address you have supplied.

Perhaps it might cause your company to consider exactly WHO its audience is,

and exactly quite WHAT they might expect from the top broadcasting

company in the world.

With kind regards,

Robert.

[Solosiam]

Someone has WAY too much time on their hands... I thought only old ladies wrote to the BBC.

[sbk]

Not Samui or Thailand related in any way, shape or form

moved to farang pub as this seems more entertainment related than anything, I guess.

[palm]

Someone has WAY too much time on their hands... I thought only old ladies wrote to the BBC.

If you manage to get through reading the whole letter, do you get a cream cake or some other prize?

[lazeeboy]

Someone has WAY too much time on their hands... I thought only old ladies wrote to the BBC.

If you manage to get through reading the whole letter, do you get a cream cake or some other prize?

there is nothing on this channel ,been in thailand 13 years so all the programmes are new to me but after 18 months of watching i've seen my family ,my hero at least 5 times ,its repeated over and over ,the only good progrmme was eastenders (sad i know ) but they cancelled it why? im sure a lot of people watched it as i did ,bring it back and i'll start watching bbc prime again

[Prakanong]

Someone has WAY too much time on their hands... I thought only old ladies wrote to the BBC.

If you manage to get through reading the whole letter, do you get a cream cake or some other prize?

there is nothing on this channel ,been in thailand 13 years so all the programmes are new to me but after 18 months of watching i've seen my family ,my hero at least 5 times ,its repeated over and over ,the only good progrmme was eastenders (sad i know ) but they cancelled it why? im sure a lot of people watched it as i did ,bring it back and i'll start watching bbc prime again

Did they not change it from BBC Prime to BBC Entertainment around September last year?

They did in Singapore I am sure as I noticed Easternders is not on "Entertainment".

Its usually background noise for me in my condo! I have all the movie channels and watched my first one this year last night while reading Marketing articles!

I do get a laugh out of Fox News though and Sky News keeps me in touch with back home.

After that the most watched is the Asian Food Channel

[lazeeboy]

Someone has WAY too much time on their hands... I thought only old ladies wrote to the BBC.

If you manage to get through reading the whole letter, do you get a cream cake or some other prize?

there is nothing on this channel ,been in thailand 13 years so all the programmes are new to me but after 18 months of watching i've seen my family ,my hero at least 5 times ,its repeated over and over ,the only good progrmme was eastenders (sad i know ) but they cancelled it why? im sure a lot of people watched it as i did ,bring it back and i'll start watching bbc prime again

Did they not change it from BBC Prime to BBC Entertainment around September last year?

They did in Singapore I am sure as I noticed Easternders is not on "Entertainment".

Its usually background noise for me in my condo! I have all the movie channels and watched my first one this year last night while reading Marketing articles!

I do get a laugh out of Fox News though and Sky News keeps me in touch with back home.

After that the most watched is the Asian Food Channel

they did change it from prime to entertainment in thailand too, they got rid of all the good programmes and kept the crap

[Suszzy]

bbc suck!!

i hardly watch them anymore.

it's so boring and everything are repeats.

if i want to watch the news i'd go to sky news.

much better than bbc and the news is updated all the time.

[JetsetBkk]

Not Samui or Thailand related in any way, shape or form

How can you possibly say that!! This is THE main BBC entertainment channel in Thailand! If you're going to move it, then move it but not for the reason that you have stated.

And I'm also fed up with the BBC series being shown out of order so I will be emailing the person the OP suggests.

[sbk]

Thread continued here

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