BBC 2 - Looking for Backyard Engineers

It saddens me to climb on the bandwagon, but read what the BBC did to my former employers and our Heritage Group!

They were researching for the Programme "The Engine that Powers the World"

The Company (with a LONG history of providing diesel power units for a wide variety of application) provided information, and permission for the use of Heritage film clips, (Stored in a film archive) was given.

Our Heritage Group provided additional information and were ready to support the on site research/filming.

At the last minute they cancelled, to go to an oil rig, so all our preparations were for nothing.

When the programme was aired, the film clips were used, but NO mention of the Company or even the Film Archive! Instead, a lot of time was devoted to just one of our customers!

No apology or explanation was forthcoming in response to the complaints made by the Chairman of our Heritage Group.

So, sadly, I have to agree with those who say "Don't touch it".

The truth will probably be distorted to suit some agenda that in no way reflects Model Engineers and their activities, and skills; to provide what is imagined to be "Good Television" for the uninitiated and ignorant.

Howard

Possible inverse of Howard's experience above. Someone must have come past and recorded the sound of our church bells and decided to use them at the end of a (BBC) documentary unrelated to the village. Nobody would have known but they contacted us and offered £30 or a credit. We took the credit as we figured we'd never get a mention any other time and there is probably no other record of the bells in action even in private hands.

Meanwhile make the most of linear TV. 'Twill soon be gone. Make you own Youtube video and be sure to follow the rules: the presenter must be a fat old bloke who may know little of the subject and drones on and on when 10 seconds of picturing the item would tell the whole storey.

David Clark 1 - you will increasingly have to do this to take the adverts out of BBC broadcasts. Granted they aren't commercials, and granted they don't come during the programmes (except during news broadcasts and on Radio 3) but they are increasingly present. Progress, I suppose.

George

If you really wanted to have a doco made of model engineering, I don't think you could do better than someone like Peter Jackson(Lord of the Rings etc), and Weta Workshops, they know model engineering. A TV channel only knows(?) news.

Ian S C

Indeed, didn't he use duck tape to keep his brain in, in Bad Taste?

Neil

I think we may be getting a bit off track here. I am reminded of the late Lord Reith, the boss at the BBC in the 1920s. He might have been a bit eccentric in that made radio announcers wear evening dress at the appropriate time of day because they would be "heard in the homes of people who had dressed for dinner", but he was an absolute stickler for fairness - to the point he got in a row with the government of the day for making sure his news staff fairly reported the opinions of both sides in the general strike. He also believed that the duty of the broadcast media was to educate, inform and entertain. When he sees some of the ill-informed drivel on the BBC nowadays he must turn in his grave!

Reading the comments posted on this thread there's clearly a lot wrong with the BBC. And I wouldn't argue with any of it, but to just tweak the balance back a little... They do some good stuff, probably in equal measure to the garbage. You've just got to be selective.

I don't watch TV much unless it involves Rugby or Cricket, but many thanks BBC for last night without any sport. The BBC-4 offering of Tankies (admittedly a repeat) followed by The Ecstacy of Wilko Johnson. Just brilliant.

So if you work for the BBC and you're reading this and you're involved in this project, please do it well. It can be done. And without a twenty-something vacuous presenter (a la Countryfile or One Show or any travel show). Just get a presenter who is both interested and interesting.

And I for one am looking forward to see what they come up with!

Steve

Drifting off-topic, but I turned off the Wilko Johnson prog. because it was all 'arty' flashing images and talking heads. As an admirer of Dr Feelgood, understanding why Paul Weller's 'Jam' sounds like them, as do the Arctic Monkeys (From just up the road) it was a travesty of a programme which hardly touched the music, and wittered on about his miraculous recovery from a normally fatal cancer, although cancers do sometimes regress unaccountably, whilst offering nothing to replace it.

Geoff

All I'm Gunna say is How well the manager Jimmy Saville