BBC Three to be axed and move online only.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

r3nu4l wrote: »

I do agree however that shows like Being Human were absolutely brilliant and probably wouldn't have made it to BBC1 but overall there's not a lot else from BBC3 I'd consider worthwhile.

I listed a few of the great shows BBC 3 made over the years in a previous post. Probably if you were to list all the shows ever made by BBC 3 the ration of great to drivel would be pretty uneven. Which brings me back to my point that perhaps a better policy regarding what they commission would have made sense rather than axing the channel entirely. Perhaps though it's too late for that.

I was talking about this earlier with someone and they made they said they don't really see the point of BBC 2 when channels like BBC 3 and 4 exist. A lot of the better shows from BBC 3, Him and Her, Being Human etc. should/could have been BBC 2 productions but they don't seem to want to take any kind of risk with their main channels.

phasers

I've always felt that BBC 2 was just a dumbed down BBC 4

Mr.Nice Guy

I won't grieve for the loss of BBC 3. Its intentions for providing content geared towards young people were admirable; unfortunately, the execution was usually terrible.

It did have some worthwile shows every once in a while. They had a documentary a few months back on life in a mental health facility for young people which was very informative. Some of the Stacy Dooley programmes I thought were good too.

Far too much dross though. Snog, Marry, Avoid; Freaky Eaters etc. I'll remember it more for that than anything. I won't even get into the so-called comedy output which I found to be abysmal personally.

As long as BBC 4 survives I'll be happy.

spank_inferno

It could be argued that in a changing media environment where younger people access content from increasingly diverse locations, the BBC are ignoring those they expect to pay their licence fee in the future.

Personally I found BBC4's offering of endless old top of the pops & scandi-noir no more merit worthy than BBC3's offering.

But then what TV network is run by the U25's

catallus

There's a terrible amount of dross on BBC4. Sometimes it seems they are taking the mickey.

Dozen Wicked Words

catallus wrote: »

There's a terrible amount of dross on BBC4. Sometimes it seems they are taking the mickey.

Very fast in repeating what's on now, was only on a couple of days ago. Liz Bonin and sleeping meerkats are almost worth watching again, but not quite.

mike65

BBC4 has its ups and down, depends on which themes are running at a given time.

r3nu4l

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I listed a few of the great shows BBC 3 made over the years in a previous post. Probably if you were to list all the shows ever made by BBC 3 the ration of great to drivel would be pretty uneven.

Don't get me wrong, I believe that BBC3 has its place (in some limited respects) but not in favour of BBC4. The greatness of some shows, particularly comedy, is very subjective. I've seen Gavin & Stacey championed as being examples of greatness on BBC3 and that was a show that left me completely cold. Can't stand it. The Mighty Boosch had a very trendy cult, hipster-style following and I thought it was the greatest pile of unfunny poo to have hit our screens in years. I accept I'm in the minority there though

So as I said, while Being Human and perhaps a couple of others would never have been approved without BBC3, it just doesn't justify saving it over BBC4 for me.

As I said earlier, there's no doubt about it too though that saving BBC4 was far easier for BBC in terms of been seen to remaining faithful to their remit.

r3nu4l

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

It did have some worthwile shows every once in a while. They had a documentary a few months back on life in a mental health facility for young people which was very informative.

That was worthy of BBC1 in my opinion. Informative, raw and offering real insight into mental health issues in young people. Again, the programme schedulers got it wrong, just because it featured young people it was thrown to BBC3 when it should have had a wider audience.

Hotblack Desiato

that's the problem with a 'minority' channel though - produce something with genuine wider appeal and the mainstream channel will steal it.

I think the only thing I ever watched on BBC3 was Family Guy, but still it's a shame to lose it, and there is a hell of a lot of expensive dross on BBC1 that could be trimmed back. There is no point in using licence payers' money to produce another ITV when they already get ITV for free. And Channel 4 has gone from great to pure muck in 20 years.

BBC2 once upon a time was far more 'intellectual' and 'minority' than BBC4 is now. BBC2 has no real identity left any more, it needs a shake-up.

BBC4 has a lot of repeats and old stuff but in between that it has some great output that wouldn't air anywhere else. Well, very very late on BBC2 perhaps

BBC TV has gone downhill since you used to be able to tune in after closedown and watch a random Open University programme, those were the days, the idea that people could learn something from watching TV seems laughable today.

Hotblack Desiato

I hope this isn't the beginning of the end of the BBC as we know it, and it'll be all contraction from here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1w85qMqIjs

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

r3nu4l wrote: »

Don't get me wrong, I believe that BBC3 has its place (in some limited respects) but not in favour of BBC4. The greatness of some shows, particularly comedy, is very subjective. I've seen Gavin & Stacey championed as being examples of greatness on BBC3 and that was a show that left me completely cold. Can't stand it. The Mighty Boosch had a very trendy cult, hipster-style following and I thought it was the greatest pile of unfunny poo to have hit our screens in years. I accept I'm in the minority there though

So as I said, while Being Human and perhaps a couple of others would never have been approved without BBC3, it just doesn't justify saving it over BBC4 for me.

As I said earlier, there's no doubt about it too though that saving BBC4 was far easier for BBC in terms of been seen to remaining faithful to their remit.

I wasn't trying to argue for BBC 3 over BBC 4, I feel there's a place for both, but what BBC 3 needed was a serious overhaul with what they're commissioning.

I've seen some of their "comedy" output listed as reason why it should be saved, some citing Russel Howard's Good News as the best show it's ever produced. Nonsense. It's cack. As were a lot of their attempts at comedy but every now and then there was a great one. Gavin & Stacey may not be everyone's cup of tea but you can't deny it was successful for them. Him and Her, I thought, was fantastic TV, smart and funny.

It seems to me that BBC 3 was used as an experimental testing ground. Commission some new and interesting stuff, stick it on BBC 3, see how it goes. The successful stuff would then be moved to BBC 1 or 2 if it lasted long enough. If you look at stuff like Waterloo Road, Doctors, Mrs. Brown's Boys, Casualty, Holby City etc. etc. they're pretty shoddy productions. I wouldn't rate the quality of about 90% of what the BBC produces for it's main channels and most of it's success on BBC 4 has come in recent years from shows bought from other countries, which I assume is cheaper than making your own.

Anyway, I'm rambling..... I think my point was that there is a lot of dross peddled out across the BBC these days and the whole lot of them could do with rethinking their output. Sky, surprisingly enough, are actually making some quality TV at the moment and they're not afraid to take a bit of a risk with their shows, some work and some fail but they give it a go. The BBC seems stuck in the past with it's main channels and completely lost as to how to run anything aimed at a younger audience.

If you think about "Event Television" over the past few years... how much of it has been on BBC? Other than the Nordic Noir stuff on BBC 4? Not a lot, I don't think.

eireannBEAR

Guys BBC4 does not come into this argument,BBC3 is without a shadow of a doubt the superior channel its viewing figures alone proves that,But even if the BBC cancelled BBC4 it wouldnt make a difference, BBC4 costs less than half of what BBC3 costs per year. BBC3 is doomed regardless of BBC4's survival.

Mr Pseudonym

eireannBEAR wrote: »

Guys BBC4 does not come into this argument,BBC3 is without a shadow of a doubt the superior channel its viewing figures alone proves that,But even if the BBC cancelled BBC4 it wouldnt make a difference, BBC4 costs less than half of what BBC3 costs per year. BBC3 is doomed regardless of BBC4's survival.

"Its viewing figures alone prove that" - by "superior", do you mean in terms of quality of the output? Because, as well as wholeheartedly disagreeing with you (as would most on this thread), surely you don't think that the popularity of something is representative of its quality?

BBC Three and BBC Four have similarly small audience shares relative to BBC One (about 1.5% and 1.0% respectively, compared with BBC One's 22%).

BARB Viewing Summary - three months to Jan '14


In 2013, BBC Three cost £120m, and BBC Four cost £70m.

BBC Expenditure, 2013

OldRio

eireannBEAR wrote: »

Guys BBC4 does not come into this argument,BBC3 is without a shadow of a doubt the superior channel its viewing figures alone proves that,But even if the BBC cancelled BBC4 it wouldnt make a difference, BBC4 costs less than half of what BBC3 costs per year. BBC3 is doomed regardless of BBC4's survival.

In your opinion only.

As for 'its viewing figures prove this' ?
Popularity does not make anything superior.

eireannBEAR

OldRio wrote: »

In your opinion only.

As for 'its viewing figures prove this' ?
Popularity does not make anything superior.

As a service designed for public consumption and aimed at viewing figures of course bbc3 is a superior product yes,In terms of television it is without a doubt superior. I see a lot of tv hipsters here in regard to bbc4 it repeats itself far too much and airs a lot of crap,i enjoy the channel but as i said before it only airs one show a week that i feel is worth watching.

eireannBEAR

Mr Pseudonym wrote: »

"Its viewing figures alone prove that" - by "superior", do you mean in terms of quality of the output? Because, as well as wholeheartedly disagreeing with you (as would most on this thread)

:rolleyes:

Most of the this thread would disagree with me meaning?...Nothing,As the general public wouldnt agree with you.

Skid X

eireannBEAR wrote: »

Guys BBC4 does not come into this argument,BBC3 is without a shadow of a doubt the superior channel its viewing figures alone proves that,But even if the BBC cancelled BBC4 it wouldnt make a difference, BBC4 costs less than half of what BBC3 costs per year. BBC3 is doomed regardless of BBC4's survival.

BBC Three's viewing figures do nothing to help their case. Their most popular programmes by far are Family Guy and American Dad, which could easily find a home on a commercial channel.

By your viewing figures metric Coronation Street and Eastenders would be "without a shadow of a doubt" the superior programmes on British Television. That's not how it works.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Regardless of which channel is "superior" you'd have to assume 3 is getting the chop because it costs more to run. A lot of what's on BBC 4 is bought in from other sources or was originally made for one of the other BBC channels. Is there anything made specifically for BBC 4? Genuine question because I'm not at all sure.

Dozen Wicked Words

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Regardless of which channel is "superior" you'd have to assume 3 is getting the chop because it costs more to run. A lot of what's on BBC 4 is bought in from other sources or was originally made for one of the other BBC channels. Is there anything made specifically for BBC 4? Genuine question because I'm not at all sure.

Not sure if this is type of thing you are looking for but:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/briefs/tv/browse-by-channel/bbc-four/

OldRio

eireannBEAR wrote: »

As a service designed for public consumption and aimed at viewing figures of course bbc3 is a superior product yes,In terms of television it is without a doubt superior. I see a lot of tv hipsters here in regard to bbc4 it repeats itself far too much and airs a lot of crap,i enjoy the channel but as i said before it only airs one show a week that i feel is worth watching.

Sigh.... What part of the sentence 'That is only your opinion' do you not understand.