The BBC And Analogue TV

trisontana

Yesterday I understand that there was some sort of tennis match being broadcast by the BBC. Come 6pm the Corporation decided that instead of transferring the coverage from BBC1 to BBC2 (as they have been doing for the last two weeks) then the match would stay on BBC1. This meant that the 6 o'clock news was shown on BBC2.

All well and good until it came to 6.30, and time for the regional news programmes. For technical reasons regional programming is not possible on BBC2 digital services such as Freeview and Satellite. So up comes the announcement "if you want to watch your local regional news please switch to BBC2 analogue". The trouble with this plan is that certain parts of England have lost their analogue service over the last few weeks because of Digital Switch Over. This meant that people in parts of Devon. the Isle of Man and the Border region were unable to watch their local news.

All this was caused because the BBC decided that the average tennis fan is incapable of switching from BBC1 to BBC2 when asked. I imagine there were a lot of angry viewers deprived of their local news programmes. Good one BBC!

littlearfer

I was watching that tennis match (a couple of fellas called Andy were in it...) and I was struck by the same thought. Living in a valley, even though our analogue hasn't been switched off yet, our reception is poor at best, so I would have struggled too had I wanted to watch local news.

Fully in agreement - why not just move the tennis? They'd done it for all the other games (even the ones with that Andy bloke in).

MothballsWallet

Aren't you assuming too much IQ on the part of the BBC?

Remember that we're one of the first countries to go to digital TV and radio, so there's no other experiences we can draw on to see where things can go wrong and what to do about it.

jamespir

trisontana wrote: »

Yesterday I understand that there was some sort of tennis match being broadcast by the BBC. Come 6pm the Corporation decided that instead of transferring the coverage from BBC1 to BBC2 (as they have been doing for the last two weeks) then the match would stay on BBC1. This meant that the 6 o'clock news was shown on BBC2.

All well and good until it came to 6.30, and time for the regional news programmes. For technical reasons regional programming is not possible on BBC2 digital services such as Freeview and Satellite. So up comes the announcement "if you want to watch your local regional news please switch to BBC2 analogue". The trouble with this plan is that certain parts of England have lost their analogue service over the last few weeks because of Digital Switch Over. This meant that people in parts of Devon. the Isle of Man and the Border region were unable to watch their local news.

All this was caused because the BBC decided that the average tennis fan is incapable of switching from BBC1 to BBC2 when asked. I imagine there were a lot of angry viewers deprived of their local news programmes. Good one BBC!

wow so your kicking up a fuss caused you missed te news thta you could have watched on itv or news 24

trisontana

jamespir wrote: »

wow so your kicking up a fuss caused you missed te news thta you could have watched on itv or news 24

No, I was talking about the LOCAL news which is not available at all on News 24, while the ITV version is a very poor substitute.

robpw2

could you imagine watching a football match and half way trought they transferred to a differnt channel and you missed an important goal ..?

i can see why your upset at the lack of regional news but if it happens again you can choose to watch it on iplayer

robpw2

http://www.bbc.co.uk/midlandstoday/

just one of the many news pages that you can view

trisontana

robpw2 wrote: »

could you imagine watching a football match and half way trought they transferred to a differnt channel and you missed an important goal ..?

i can see why your upset at the lack of regional news but if it happens again you can choose to watch it on iplayer

Up till Friday the BBC were swopping from BBC1 to BBC2 at 6pm with a 5 minute overlap to allow the channel change. That seemed to work OK then. And how many milliseconds does it take to change channels? In a tennis match there are several "natural breaks" giving enough time in that 5 minute overlap to change channels.

As for viewing the news on the net. What about those people without access to those sources. All this because the BBC must reckon that the average tennis fan is too stupid to change channels.

robpw2

i got annoyed last saturday when the same tennis match was on 3 bbc channels albeit for about half hour but that was bbc 1 2 and bbc hd

i dont particular enjoy watching sport on tv but alot of people do and as bbc1 is the flagship most watched channel the bbc chooses to play important games quarters semi and final on that channel especilly if it includes a british hopeful

jamespir

trisontana wrote: »

Up till Friday the BBC were swopping from BBC1 to BBC2 at 6pm with a 5 minute overlap to allow the channel change. That seemed to work OK then. And how many milliseconds does it take to change channels? In a tennis match there are several "natural breaks" giving enough time in that 5 minute overlap to change channels.

As for viewing the news on the net. What about those people without access to those sources. All this because the BBC must reckon that the average tennis fan is too stupid to change channels.

i m sure they dont think that its all to do with the money they recieve they are paid to show it on tele and when its a big game ie a brithish player involved ( or semi final or final )theyre payed to keep it on 1 channel

savemoney

Yes I live in Yorkshire and regional news was london