Endless Repeats

I never managed to attend a work meeting held in the garden with my wife and dog in attendance and free wine

Endless TV repeats at Christmas, what do you expect. What I miss are the Marx Brothers films.

As for the news, any news, it is always biased.

JA

Edit: Question mark removed.

Edited By JA on 26/12/2021 14:55:05

Well the post is titled "Endless Repeats" and posted in the Tea Room. That's the way conversation flows and no harm in that.

The BBC has had a bit of a knocking on this thread, justifiably so IMO. I recently filed a complaint with the BBC regarding a presenter who, instead of chairing a debate on the Royals, gave out his own very strong opinion!. I had a delayed response from the BBC saying they would respond fully to my complaint in good time as they are currently inundated with complaints!!

Repeats are also great for the royalties....say no more!

I thought MG's title for the thread and original content was rather clever. Can't comment on the BBC repeats as I have no TV in the house. Just watch youtube if I feel the need for moving pictures and it has the great advantage that when it becomes apparent that they are going to drone on for half an hour to show the drilling of 6 holes in excruciating detail you can just move on. How is it that these incredibly boring videos actually get comments like 'Great video Fred'. Do the commenters have such boring lives that this is actually entertaining,

I like YouTube but ads are getting a PITA.

Tony

Living above your workplace will do that, and you obviously missed out on the team building jollies.

.

Thank you, Bazyle

MichaelG.

On the subject of repeats, programme content, and impartiality, we find ourselves, increasingly watching other channels, 5 and 11 in particular.

Maybe the BBC transmissions are powered by a generator connected to Lord Reith, as he spins in his grave?

Howard

Since we seem to be Beeb bashing; did anyone see the Repair Shop where the "experts" were searching for a suitable replacement thread on a "suck it and see" basis rather than measuring what looked to be a 1/4 BSW?

Edited By Howard Lewis on 26/12/2021 17:42:23

Michael;

Tried finding the programs in the "over here" Netflix, and nothing. I googled for "netflix mandelbrot" which returned some great-sounding programmes, which were not available to me here in good ole' Canada.

Making a generalization, but I think in general the Brits are more into reality than North Americans; we here in Canada get lumped in with the USA because we have 10% of their population, maybe 1% of their total wealth.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

And, my current reading is "A History of Canada in 10 maps" by Adam Shoalts; fascinating book; in school history was always about "1066 and all that". Recommended to read about what was happening "over there". Better anyway than yet another Hollywood shootem-up on Netflix!

JohnS.

Sorry, John … I hadn’t realised that Netflix was regional

These are the two programmes that I was enthusing about:

.

MichaelG.

We used to have television licences when I was a kid but they were abolished in the 60s or early 70s.
the ABC here has become ever bolder in its Left wing activism/ social engineering. The news is censored and the “diversity” casting and promotion have become a joke. I can imagine meetings at the ABC where executives try to out politically correct each other with their suggestions. The BBC is as bad or worse.

The BBC is moaned at from both Left and Right for being biased towards the other lot, so that's a pretty good way of showing it must be pretty well neutral; and I think its recently-appointed Director General is determined so it shall be.

What does skew things is when the opposite side of some contentious matter or subject of accusation, refuses to accept the invitation to state their case. They hide behind lazy things like "No was available for comment", bland "issued statements" as useless as a 1980s company "mission statement", and similar cowardice. So you hear the grievance but not the explanation, apology or whatever we expect. That's not the BBC's (or ITV's) fault, but the fault of the absent potential interviewee.

We used to have a Wireless "Licence" too, or eventually as part of, the TV "Licence"; but the power-that-be let its value slip so low it was no longer economical.

Really they'd do well to re-name it as what it really is, the "Subscription".

I won't write a long winded political reply, because I don't feel this is the forum to do so, but the comments above mine suggesting people on a fixed income remove a few of life little luxuries to pay for something they don't want is absurd.

All they need do is put their content behind a paywall like every other service producing television, and let the market decide if their product is worth paying for.

+1

Hi, the arguments about a TV license have been aired for as long as I can remember, but nothing is really free which ever way you cut it, as there is always some kind of cost. With independent TV this cost is normally by being bombarded by advertising (which I personally dislike) which might be trivial to some, but if you add up the time of advertising, it can be nearly the same amount or maybe even more of time you are watching the things that interest you. There is very little in this world that is perfect for everyone, but costs have to be covered by some means, but there are legitimate ways of watching TV programs for free, but they still have a cost, albeit not paying for a license. This TV Licensing gives you information in the various sub titles.

Regards Nick.

If you spend much time watching some of the 'Freeview' channels (all us poor folk can afford) youu soon revert to appreciating the BBC as some channels are virtually unwatchable. We recently watched some repeats of 'Dr Foster' (the wifes choice, not mine I would add) on the Drama channel. It was scheduled to run from 9.00 to 10.20 pm. Originally we thought they were combining episodes to fill the slot but soon became apparent they weren't. As an exercise we put a stopwatch on the actual drama sections and discounted the adverts + coming attractions trailers.

49 Minutes! Over 1/2 hr of ****. Now I'm not naive, and realise programming has to be paid for one way or the other but this sort of percentage is a joke - and pointless, as you just mentally switch off (usually switching the sound off at the same time). Anything we specifically want to watch is recorded and adverts skipped during viewing - so what are the advertisers achieving?

OK the BBC licence tax is irritating as it is imposed on us, rather than a matter of choice - which if it was, I think I wold still pay it. The quality of their output is normally high (for example have just started watching 'Around the world in 80 days' which is IMHO is excellent so far) plus radio (listen a lot to R4 & R4extra in the workshop)

Have a happy New Year. Fingers crossed for a better one!

Newspapers have Reporters, BBC has "News Correspondents."

Humph!

I think that they are biased, but that's MY opinion!

Remember a schoolteacher in a current affairs lesson saying that if you really want an idea of what actually happened, buy and read a minimum of 3 papers on the same subject.

I went on plenty of jollies, that's what they were, jollies, not work meetings. They never invited my wife and dog. I bet very few in private industry had jollies during lockdown, but rules for mere mortals don't seem to apply to politicians

It isn't just the terrestrial channels that have endless repeats - despite my best efforts, I gott signed up for an Amazon Prime "trail" while buying a book. The auto-renew bit was cancelled immediately, but the 1 month "!trial" once activated seemingly cannot be terminated, so we are trying out the Prime TV offerings at the moment while they are available.

So far I have not seen much to tempt me to pay Amazon £8 a month on the basis of what is available to stream when the "trial" expires - a couple of films that will doubtless be coming to terrestrial TV at some point, a "box" set sci-fi series that was OK & passed a couple of evenings and the big budget post-BBC Top Gear remake (The Grand Tour ) - not to everyone's taste but I found it amusing. At least the Prime streaming service is not infested with adverts - programs / films stream without interuptions

We rarely watch anything on commercial terrestrial TV live due to the intrusive adverts - either put the channel on the Virgin box, wait 20 minutes or so after the program has started then rewind the live program back to the start to be able to fast-forward the ads, or record the program & do likewise later. Half hour programs padded out to an hour with adverts & "recaps" seem to be the norm on Channels 4 & 5 & make thir stuff largely unwatchable live.

Nigel B.