BBC on the hoof re-scheduling. Aaarrrghh!!!!!!!!!

Manxman_in_exile

Why does the BBC keep doing this?

I was planning on watching part 3 of the Oscar Pistorius trial in the "Storyville" strand on beeb 2 at 9pm last night.  It was immediately preceded by the ATP tennis final so I knew I'd need to keep an eye on whether there'd be an overrun or not.  I put BBC2 on just before 9pm, saw the tennis was still on, and checked the EPG which said the Pistorius documentary had now been postponed to 9:30, so I decided to watch something else for half an hour.  I turned back to BBC2 during an advert break at about 9:12 and saw that the Pistorius programme had already started(!) and had now been brought forward to start at 9:10

They do this sort of thing all the time - but why?  Once a decision has been made to postpone a programme by 30 minutes, what on earth is the point in then dragging it forward again so that it starts only 10 minutes after the scheduled time rather than 30 minutes afterwards, as they had amended the EPG?  I can understand that the start of programmes can be delayed for good reason, but I can't see any good reason for advancing the start once you've advertised it will be delayed.  It's ****** annoying.

I know it doesn't matter so much these days because you've got iPlayer etc (in fact I watched the first two episodes on iPlayer) but I'd encouraged my wife to watch it with me and we both nearly ended up missing the first 20 minutes of it.

I'm actually a defender of the BBC licence fee generally, but this sort* of behaviour really does demonstrate the contempt they hold for licence fee payers and sometimes I can understand why so many people resent having to pay it.

*It's not an isolated incident either.  I've had loads of posts on here over the years about their incompetent scheduling, usually around major sporting events.  Examples are where they end up showing the same thing on more than one channel (usually at the Olympics where I've actually seen them show the same event simultaneously on three different channels) or that thing they keep doing at Wimbledon where they seem to endlessly juggle moving one match between beeb 1 and 2.   Aaaarrghhhhhhhhhhhh!

Spank

Because people will moan that they had to endure another filler until 9:30, tbh they can't win, it's a shame that you can't get alerts when a programme actually starts.

I had a VCR about 20 years ago with had something called PDC (I believe) that started recording when the broadcaster sent a signal & finished when the next programme started (It's how I found out about 9/11 as it didn't stop recording after neighbours finished)

Manxman_in_exile

But it's like going to catch a train timed to leave at 9pm, getting there 10 minutes early, seeing its departure is delayed until 9:30, going to get a drink, and then coming back at 9:15 to find it had already departed 5 minutes earlier.  It's crazy.

Of course the BBC can win.  Anybody with only one brain cell can understand and appreciate that sometimes things (events, schedules, timetables etc) have to be delayed unavoidably, but what kind of brainless idiot (well a BBC one presumably) would say that the start of something would be delayed by 30 minutes and then delay it by only 10 minutes?

sheramber

If you switched over at 9.12 and it had started at 9.10 how did you miss 20 minutes of it?

Spank

sheramber said:

If you switched over at 9.12 and it had started at 9.10 how did you miss 20 minutes of it?

They didn't, but if they came back at 9:30 they would have. That's how I read It, but I gir less than 3 hours sleep last night.

Stenwold

Manxman_in_exile said:

But it's like going to catch a train timed to leave at 9pm, getting there 10 minutes early, seeing its departure is delayed until 9:30, going to get a drink, and then coming back at 9:15 to find it had already departed 5 minutes earlier.  It's crazy.

Of course the BBC can win.  Anybody with only one brain cell can understand and appreciate that sometimes things (events, schedules, timetables etc) have to be delayed unavoidably, but what kind of brainless idiot (well a BBC one presumably) would say that the start of something would be delayed by 30 minutes and then delay it by only 10 minutes?

Not really, because train times aren't dependent on a live sporting event finishing first. Sport is hard to predict, especially a sport like tennis where there isn't a defined time-frame where a final whistle is blown. Match point could take 10 minutes, or 3 hours - BBC can do little more than keep an eye on it, make an educated guess for when the program will start and react if the match finishes a little earlier than anticipated. 

 

Manxman_in_exile

sheramber said:

If you switched over at 9.12 and it had started at 9.10 how did you miss 20 minutes of it?

I didn't say we missed 20 minutes of it.  We "nearly" missed 20 minutes of it in that we would have done if I'd only switched over to beeb 2 at the BBC's rescheduled time on the EPG.  (See Spank's post after yours).

tempus_fugit

It’s because the BBC constantly try to be a sports channel as well as entertainment when the two do not mix. Either have a dedicated sports channel or leave it to those broadcasters that do.

Manxman_in_exile

Stenwold said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

But it's like going to catch a train timed to leave at 9pm, getting there 10 minutes early, seeing its departure is delayed until 9:30, going to get a drink, and then coming back at 9:15 to find it had already departed 5 minutes earlier.  It's crazy.

Of course the BBC can win.  Anybody with only one brain cell can understand and appreciate that sometimes things (events, schedules, timetables etc) have to be delayed unavoidably, but what kind of brainless idiot (well a BBC one presumably) would say that the start of something would be delayed by 30 minutes and then delay it by only 10 minutes?

Not really, because train times aren't dependent on a live sporting event finishing first. Sport is hard to predict, especially a sport like tennis where there isn't a defined time-frame where a final whistle is blown. Match point could take 10 minutes, or 3 hours - BBC can do little more than keep an eye on it, make an educated guess for when the program will start and react if the match finishes a little earlier than anticipated. 

 

Did you not read my second post on this thread?  Nobody could fail to understand that TV schedules can run late and overrun because of live events that last longer than expected.  Normally this is because of sports events overrunning, but it can also apply to emerging political and news events which have no predictable timescale.  As an avid sportsfan myself, I understand and appreciate this perfectly.

So, just to be clear, I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH SCHEDULED PROGRAMMES RUNNING LATE BECAUSE PRECEDING LIVE EVENTS OVERRUN.

Where I have is a problem is wanting to watch a TV programme scheduled to start at 9pm, seeing at 9pm that its start has been delayed by 30 minutes because the BBC underestimated the duration of the ATP final (which didn't surprise me as I thought they hadn't allowed enough time when I looked at the Radio Times), and then eventually finding that they haven't delayed it by 30 minutes as they said they would, but only by 10 minutes.  Am I the only person to believe that they are wrong to do that?

AND JUST TO BE CLEAR AGAIN - I'm not complaining that it was delayed in the first place.  I'm complaining that they initially said it would be delayed by 30 minutes, but then only delayed it by 10 minutes, thus starting 20 minutes earlier than they said it would.

As for "BBC can do little more than keep an eye on it, make an educated guess for when the program will start and react if the match finishes a little earlier than anticipated".  No - having already reacted by advertising a delay of 30 minutes they should bl00dy well stick to it!

Aaaaaarrrggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

[EDIT:  Normally I would have watched the tennis, but didn't yesterday.  I put BBC2 on at 9pm and saw that the tennis programme was nearing its end but obviously wasn't going to finish for at least 5 minutes.  I checked the EPG and saw Storyville had been pushed back to 9:30pm so I thought "Fine - I'll switch back in 30 minutes".  Having amended the EPG to show 9:30 the BBC are wrong to then change it to an earlier time.]

jimbo6977

The BBC is atrocious inconsistent where sport scheduling in concerned, has been for decades. 

If they were a shoestring operation I could understand (hence I've had a lot more forgiveness for Eurosport over the years), but thanks to the unique way the BBC is funded they have a vast guaranteed budget to spaff on whatever they fancy, and yet can't seem to get basic scheduling right. 

Manxman_in_exile

The problem with the BBC is they never acknowledge that this is a problem.  I had a different experience with ITV a few years ago.

I complained to them when their coverage of the French tennis open overran and pushed back their two hour highlights programme of the TT (which, being Manx, I was particularly keen to watch that evening - there'd been a good day's racing - even though I'm also a tennis fan).

I got a really helpful reply from ITV acknowledging that they may have cut the timings a bit tight and that my comments had been noted.  I was quite happy with that.  I was even happier the following year when I noticed that their schedules had been amended* so that the tennis coverage was scheduled for an extra hour.  Yes, this pushed their TT highlights coverage back an hour too, but at least it was scheduled and you knew when the programme was going to start.

This does mean that the tennis has to be "padded out" a bit with talk and analysis towards the end of the programme, but as a tennis fan I quite enjoy that - so long as John Inverdale stays quiet 

*I don't claim any credit for that, but at least ITV acknowledged I had a point.  BBC never do.