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

Stenwold

Manxman_in_exile said:

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.]

Haha fair enough, maybe I missed your point in the earlier post - I clearly didn't need to explain how live events work!

I still stand by my second point though - if a program has been pushed back half an hour because a match is overrunning, and subsequently the game finishes earlier than anticipated, I'd rather the program start early rather than 20 minutes of filler. 

KatrinaWaves

Stenwold said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

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.]

Haha fair enough, maybe I missed your point in the earlier post - I clearly didn't need to explain how live events work!

I still stand by my second point though - if a program has been pushed back half an hour because a match is overrunning, and subsequently the game finishes earlier than anticipated, I'd rather the program start early rather than 20 minutes of filler. 

Only if you’ve decided to sit and wait for it in front of the tele. If you decided to go off and do something else and come back in 20 mins it would be pretty annoying to miss 20 minutes of your show with no way of knowing. 

Manxman_in_exile

Stenwold said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

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.]

Haha fair enough, maybe I missed your point in the earlier post - I clearly didn't need to explain how live events work!

I still stand by my second point though - if a program has been pushed back half an hour because a match is overrunning, and subsequently the game finishes earlier than anticipated, I'd rather the program start early rather than 20 minutes of filler. 

So when you're told by the broadcaster that a programme has been delayed by an hour, you'd just stay sat in front of your screen like a vegetable watching the "filler" (that you say you don't want to watch) on the off chance that the broadcaster has deliberately misled you?

You must waste a lot of time in your life.  You might as well just sit in front of the TV with no idea what's meant to be on and see what appears.

I prefer to be a bit more discerning and plan my viewing around a schedule - which once pushed back and broadcast isn't then pulled forward without warning.

Manxman_in_exile

tempus_fugit said:

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.

No - it's not because of that* and I think you've misunderstood my complaint as well.

I've got no problem with broadcasting schedules being pushed back because of the unpredictable unfolding of earlier live events - and these don't necessarily have to be sports events either.  The thing I have an issue with is the bringing forward of broadcast timings without any warning when you've previously told viewers that those timings had been pushed back.

So on Sunday, my complaint is that having told viewers via the EPG that the programme scheduled to start at 9pm would now be starting at 9:30pm, the BBC were wrong to start it earlier than that at 9:10pm.   So it's not the delay I'm concerned about, it's the advancement (or whatever the opposite of a delay is) without warning.  It's simply inexcusable whether you're a news channel, an entertainment channel, a sports channel, or some combination of those.

*Well it's not because of that except insofar as the BBC's sports coverage is pretty much uniformly ****ing awful.  (Possible exceptions being Wimbledon - not tennis generally - and athletics, although that suffers from too much studio "filler" and missing action out in the stadium.  A classic example of that was the men's pole vault at last year's world championships where they had to hurriedly interrupt an interminable and uninformative studio discussion about the 100m or 200m to go live to the vault which had become incredibly exciting.  It was obvious from the way Gabi Logan handled it that the beeb must have received loads of complaints as to why they weren't showing it live.  With the BBC, athletics events basically don't exist unless they involve running in a straight line or running part-way or all the way round an oval track).

Stenwold

Manxman_in_exile said:

Stenwold said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

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.]

Haha fair enough, maybe I missed your point in the earlier post - I clearly didn't need to explain how live events work!

I still stand by my second point though - if a program has been pushed back half an hour because a match is overrunning, and subsequently the game finishes earlier than anticipated, I'd rather the program start early rather than 20 minutes of filler. 

So when you're told by the broadcaster that a programme has been delayed by an hour, you'd just stay sat in front of your screen like a vegetable watching the "filler" (that you say you don't want to watch) on the off chance that the broadcaster has deliberately misled you?

You must waste a lot of time in your life.  You might as well just sit in front of the TV with no idea what's meant to be on and see what appears.

I prefer to be a bit more discerning and plan my viewing around a schedule - which once pushed back and broadcast isn't then pulled forward without warning.

So now you're saying the broadcaster is deliberately misleading people, instead of just reacting to a live event? My general rule of thumb is that if I know a programme has been delayed because of a sporting event, I don't need to check the EPG as that doesn't know when the game will finish - I'll just wait until the match is over.

Thank you for your concern, but rest assured my time is never wasted while waiting for a tv show; I have an in-house recording studio so I'm always keeping myself busy writing/recording/producing music, I've got plenty of books I can pick up while I'm waiting for shows to start, too. The studio has a monitor feed which shows what ever is on the telly in the living room, so I can keep a eye on it.

Of course, all of this is a moot point as you can stream everything on demand now anyway. 

peter_the_piper

Our simple solution with this is to go to bbc catchup to watch later and turn to another program in the meantime.

Manxman_in_exile

Stenwold said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

Stenwold said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

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.]

Haha fair enough, maybe I missed your point in the earlier post - I clearly didn't need to explain how live events work!

I still stand by my second point though - if a program has been pushed back half an hour because a match is overrunning, and subsequently the game finishes earlier than anticipated, I'd rather the program start early rather than 20 minutes of filler. 

So when you're told by the broadcaster that a programme has been delayed by an hour, you'd just stay sat in front of your screen like a vegetable watching the "filler" (that you say you don't want to watch) on the off chance that the broadcaster has deliberately misled you?

You must waste a lot of time in your life.  You might as well just sit in front of the TV with no idea what's meant to be on and see what appears.

I prefer to be a bit more discerning and plan my viewing around a schedule - which once pushed back and broadcast isn't then pulled forward without warning.

So now you're saying the broadcaster is deliberately misleading people, instead of just reacting to a live event? My general rule of thumb is that if I know a programme has been delayed because of a sporting event, I don't need to check the EPG as that doesn't know when the game will finish - I'll just wait until the match is over.

Thank you for your concern, but rest assured my time is never wasted while waiting for a tv show; I have an in-house recording studio so I'm always keeping myself busy writing/recording/producing music, I've got plenty of books I can pick up while I'm waiting for shows to start, too. The studio has a monitor feed which shows what ever is on the telly in the living room, so I can keep a eye on it.

Of course, all of this is a moot point as you can stream everything on demand now anyway. 

Well if you've got better things to do why say you'd rather it started earlier than watch 20 minutes of filler?  Saying that simply implies that you are sitting there brain-dead waiting for whatever it is you want to watch, and you just want it to start as quickly as possible - not when you've been told it will start. 

I'm afraid not all of us  have either the time, ability or the inclination to constantly monitor what is being broadcast while doing something else.  How can you if you are reading a book or working in your recording studio?  Do you have one eye on the book or whatever and the other on what the BBC are broadcasting?  Would you really rather do it that way or would you not prefer to be able to use a reliable EPG that gives you accurate timings?  You don't need to rely on the EPG - apparently - so your attitude seems to be "Why should anybody else?  I'm alright."

And yes - if the BBC amend their schedule by pushing a programme back and then amend it again by pulling it forward - without telling anybody - they are deliberately misleading viewers at the point when they decide to pull it forward.  Otherwise they would say: "Having amended the schedules to push the programme back, we can't now pull it forward again because that's not the right thing to do for people who have relied on the guide".   But obviouly that doesn't affect you (with your "in-house recording studio")*, so you are incapable of understanding that others might have a legitimate complaint about this.

Stenwold said:

Of course, all of this is a moot point as you can stream everything on demand now anyway. 

Er... no.  The fact that there are alternative ways of watching the programme on catch-up does not excuse what the BBC are doing here.  If viewers choose to watch it live, for whatever reason, why do they suddenly become second-class licence payers and are no longer entitled to rely on what the BBC tells them?  What a strange unreliable world you are willing to accept.

*And what on earth is the relevance of your in-house recording studio to this?  Are we unworthy if we don't have one?

Manxman_in_exile

peter_the_piper said:

Our simple solution with this is to go to bbc catchup to watch later and turn to another program in the meantime.

Answered above.

oldagetraveller1

Doesn't bother me in the least. Stopped watching their nonsense ages ago!

bap98189

peter_the_piper said:

Our simple solution with this is to go to bbc catchup to watch later and turn to another program in the meantime.

You don't even need to do that. With iPlayer you can restart any programme that is currently being broadcast.