Space Odyssey BBC1 tonight

"Martin Frey" wrote in message
...
"Martin" wrote:

Can you tell me what they DO well then?

Natural history* (especially David Attenborough), politics* , drama*
(classic and things like the dirty bomb in London a few weeks ago),
current affairs, arts, comedy, sport.

The ones with * are dominated by the BBC, the others are also well
done on other channels.

What they do both well and badly is certain sciences, inc astronomy,
virtually untouched on ITV or 4 and what gets up my nose most is the
amount of BBC advertising - seems like 10 minutes or more per hour.
Doesn't interupt the programmes and is for their own programmes but is
bloody tedious for all that.

-----------------------------
Martin Frey
http://www.hadastro.org.uk
N 51 01 52.2 E 0 47 21.1
-----------------------------

Can't agree about the dirty bomb thing. A total load of crap much of it
inaccurate (like why female firefighters would not be allowed into
contaminated zones - female military personnel are!!) and politically
correct. No doubt Tony Bliar got em to run it (and no doubt run it again
just before the election next year)

They do natural history OK but there is a much greater range of programmes
on other channels (like National Geographic) that don't pander to the Chav
mentality as for current affairs you've got to be taking the **** Martin!!
Dumping Panorama to a Sunday night at some god forsaken time is hardly
taking the thing seriously is it? There's no serious current affairs
programme on at peak viewing time that I can think of.

Most of the above mess is the fault of that prat Greg Dyke who went off
chasing ratings. I do agree with the annoying BBC adverts mind if they want
to advertise then fine!! scrap the frigging licence fee and let them get on
with it.

Martin

"Fleetie" wrote in message
...
"Pete Lawrence" wrote
Is it me - why do they need to advertise? They get our bloody money
whether we watch the programs or not!

I've wondered this for ages, too!


Martin
--
M.A.Poyser Tel.: 07967
110890
Manchester, U.K.
http://www.fleetie.demon.co.uk



The fault of Greg Dyke the man was obsessed with ratings.

Martin

"Sunimage" wrote in message
...
Jo wrote:

In ,
Martin typed:


The BBC are hopeless at most things these days.




Especially news. At least two BBC news gaffs today:

A presenter was talking about the "dark side of the Moon" this morning
and
also making a complete Horlicks of describing what SMART-1 was about. She
obviously hadn't a clue what an orbit was.

Then a presentation of the NASA Scramjet launch this evening. To give
them
credit, they showed it live. Well actually, they showed the launch from
the B52 live and then cut the item off. Again, the presenter was
clueless.
She was talking about the successful "speed record attempt" and the item
was
cut off for the next news item....while the rocket was still burning and
before the scramjet had even started up.

Jo









They didn't even show the landing of the two Mars Exploration Rovers
live, that was at about 4am in the morning, it would hardly have
interrupted anything, they were repeating some half hour long technology
show at the time - science coverage in the news is appalling.

If you want decent coverage Sky News normally has it on their Active
service. Also they allow full screen viewing unlike the BBC that keep each
screen the size of a postage stamp for some reason. Sky also covered the
X-Prize flights fully as well. Did anyone else see the excellent 3 hour
programmes that went out a while back on that on Discovery? Excellent, BBC
take note!!

Martin

"Sunimage" wrote in message
...

BBC Radio 5 are the WORST by miles for this.

Martin




I haven't listened to Radio 5 since their "coverage" of the 1999 total
eclipse.

Good old Al Jazeera!! If ever there was a need to show why the BBC employ
idiots Radio 5 is the one!! It's like a collecting place for moronic failed
DJ's and screachy female presenters. When Venus did its party piece across
the Sun good old Radio 5 had that snearing "..Why would anyone find it
interesting..." approach I just love from Al Jazeera broadcasting. Jane
Garvery!! she knows about as much about science as my left testicle does.

Martin

"Martin Frey" wrote in message
...
Martin Brown wrote:

Even the BBC can't fix up US NTSC video

Never Twice the Same Colour. Sorry that should be color.

-----------------------------
Martin Frey
http://www.hadastro.org.uk
N 51 01 52.2 E 0 47 21.1
-----------------------------

And THEY say PAL stands for "Picture Always Lousy"

Martin

"Jim Easterbrook" wrote in message
news
In article , Martin wrote:

Its something the BBC don't do well on News coverage. To be fair the
vast
majority of BBC journalists are arts graduates and have no interest in
Science or Engineering. We should of course ask why our main Public
broadcaster employs people from such a narrow section of society, but
then
again look at our political elite and they are all lawyers or arty types
as
well.

Perhaps they employ people who apply for the jobs? Who's more likely to
go into journalism - a science graduate who enjoys discovering things or
an arts graduate who enjoys telling people stories?

We all cringe when we see science stories being mangled in the media
(the BBC is in no way the only guilty party) but that's because we know
something of the subject. Go and talk to musicians, lawyers, doctors or
any other group and you'll find similar complaints. Even Digby the
dinosaur of the CBI was having a go at the beeb the other day for its
poor business coverage.

Every time the BBC have some discussion programme on about Space
exploration
they always wheel out a couple of sandal wearers who tell us that the
pittance that is spent on Space could solve the third world depbt and
food
problem and of course the BBC presenter always (without fail) goes along
with it. BBC Radio 5 are the WORST by miles for this.

How can you tell they're wearing sandals if they're on the radio? I try
not to judge people by their footwear, but that could be because I'm a
scientist.
--
Jim Easterbrook http://astro.jim-easterbrook.me.uk/
N51.36 W0.25

Everyone at the BBC wears sandals!!!!!

Martin

"Martin" wrote:

I think the real truth is the BBC hates science for the sake of science and
evrything has to be dressed up, rather like giving a child the old Polio
drops on a sugar cube.

The problem is that schools taught science without the sugar cube for
generations and turned kids away from science in droves - including
me. I did 3 science A level, got good grades but mostly learned to
hate the bloody subject and turned clear away from it for 20 years.
Big mistake - I know eat it and breathe it but too late to achieve
anything like earning a living with it.

As a nation we fetched up with the current situation - we are now much
much better at teaching science but have next to no science teachers -
those that might teach it well are mainly employed outside the
education system. Public broadcasting is the last hope. If they serve
it dry as in the sky at night they get stick. If they sugar coat it
they get stick. For all its faults I suspect that programmes like this
one are the best hope for turning on a new generation of kids.

-----------------------------
Martin Frey
http://www.hadastro.org.uk
N 51 01 52.2 E 0 47 21.1
-----------------------------

"Martin" wrote:

Can't agree about the dirty bomb thing. A total load of crap much of it
inaccurate (like why female firefighters would not be allowed into
contaminated zones - female military personnel are!!) and politically
correct. No doubt Tony Bliar got em to run it (and no doubt run it again
just before the election next year)

OK then - how about the brilliant 3 parter on how the climate of fear
was created? Or the goat staring 2 parter? (Except I'm no longer sure
if they were on the Beeb and could be shooting myself in the foot
here)

They do natural history OK but there is a much greater range of programmes
on other channels (like National Geographic) that don't pander to the Chav
mentality

I've no idea about these. I get the freeview stuff and a little is
very good but given the choice of one between the freeview channels
and the standard terrestrial channels, it's got to be the standard
stuff.

as for current affairs you've got to be taking the **** Martin!!
Dumping Panorama to a Sunday night at some god forsaken time is hardly
taking the thing seriously is it? There's no serious current affairs
programme on at peak viewing time that I can think of.

Parliament channel, the daily politics, newsnight, question time, the
news itself (though I prefer snowy's news) - it adds up to quite a
lot, much of it very good.

Most of the above mess is the fault of that prat Greg Dyke who went off
chasing ratings. I do agree with the annoying BBC adverts mind if they want
to advertise then fine!! scrap the frigging licence fee and let them get on
with it.

Once the licence fee goes the only game in town will be the ratings
chase. So let us keep it, please.

-----------------------------
Martin Frey
http://www.hadastro.org.uk
N 51 01 52.2 E 0 47 21.1
-----------------------------

Tim Auton wrote in
:

theoretical fact

?

--
Colin J Denman
N 51º 54' 38" W 00º 29' 45" Elev: 125m
email: -- use my first name
home: http://www.cjdenman.freeserve.co.uk

In message ,
writes
On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 11:43:23 +0000, Pete Lawrence
wrote:

Is it me - why do they need to advertise? They get our bloody money
whether we watch the programs or not!

My cousin works on the production of the "adverts" so I asked her.
It's all about "audience retention by continuity". I've no idea what
that means but here's what she tells me.

It means reaching for the remote control. They are deluding themselves
if they think their tedious repetitive trailers do not trigger channel
hopping.

most viewers stay with whatever channel they are watching at 20:00
despite being disturbed by rubbish. Commercial TV adverts produce
discontinuous viewing and result in a lot of channel searching. BBC
adverts do not result in much searching because they do not disrupt
viewing and are informative about what is coming next.

And the incredibly annoying BBC TV adverts on Radio 4 serve what
purpose?

Regards,
--
Martin Brown