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

jimbo6977

Manxman_in_exile said:

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.

I could quite happily watch an hour of John Inverclown saying nothing. 

Money_Grabber13579

bap98189 said:

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. 

This. And a very useful feature it is too. No need to miss the first 20 minutes. Just watch it 20 minutes behind everyone else.

Stenwold

Manxman_in_exile said:

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?

The reason for mentioning my hobbies was because of your presumption that I 'waste a lot of time in my life' and that I'm 'brain dead'. Not really sure why you're getting so salty just because we have a difference of opinion - forums are all about sharing views and healthy debates, right?