Slashdot Mirror
BBC Thinking of Canceling Sky At Night
Smivs writes "A year after veteran presenter Sir Patrick Moore died, the BBC are discussing pulling this iconic program. This has unleashed a torrent of criticism from fans of the monthly science-based astronomy show. There is an on-line petition for those who want to have their say."
What a terrible loss that would be. The Sky at Night is a very unique show that is a geared to the amateur astronomer. Seriously BBC, what does it actually cost to have a program like this on late at night, once a month?
Yeah, great idea. Let's clear the schedule for some more fucking reality TV.
Fucking morons.
Why can't he just regenerate?
(It works for Dr Who)
Why not give the show to Prof. Brian Cox? He'd be brilliant and has a huge following and the admiration of young people. It would foster an interest in astronomy in a new audience for many years.
Elements of the BBC has been trying to finish the Sky at Night program for many years. Back in the Year of Astronomy 2009, I was with a film crew interviewing him at his home, where he talked about the fight he has had keeping it going.
Now he's gone, the knives are out. The program does not fit well within the BBC's output - it is a fact based program without stupid gimics or pointless 'celebrities'. Those celebs that do appear are (very) keen astronomers. It is a program format that works well for it's target audience - and it's an audience that is quite big. Every year the BBC (to their credit) organise a public astronomy event. This has proved very popular with families and individuals. My local astronomy society has seen an increase in members and enquiries whenever this event is on.
The problem seems that although the program format works, it is seen to be 'old' - and as we all know, managers want change for change sake. They may talk about viewing numbers, but the program has been aired at different times - often edited to only 20 minutes.
The BBC want it gone, despite Chris Lintott and Lucie Green doing an excellant job with it recently.
But he's still on Youtube.
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
No thank you. If it weren't for the BBC, The Sky At Night, would never have even existed.
If there was no BBC, all we would have to look forward to is wall to wall reality TV.
The BBC is THE best broadcasting agency in the world. It has provided an outlet for so many different arts, science and cultural programs that would never have been made with out the public funding it receives and not tied to being a slave to advertising agencies and the wares they are trying to flog.
What the BBC badly need to do, is revert the show to its old format - one main presenter (e.g. Dr Lintott) expounding on Astronomy, plus *relevant* guest experts, and loose the current crop of b-list cabaret circuit comedians and fading celebs, who have infested the show like roaches over the past few years - if I wanted to see that lot, I'd be watching the One Show, sick bag in hand.
Like a lot of other BBC sourced science programs (e.g. Horizon), Sky at Night has been dumbing down for some time, and, frankly, both the programme and the licence-fee payers deserve better.
The BBC is pretty much wall-to-wall reality TV these days. They're funded by taxes; they shouldn't be competing with commercial channels at all.
What nonsense. BBC4?
The BBC is so cheap for what you get. It has to cater for all tastes, so your not going to like everything.
If you don’t watch or record television programmes as they are being shown on TV, on any device, you don’t need a TV Licence.
http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check/viewtopiccontent.aspx?id=TOP12
The world got along fine without dross TV shows. Go read a book, play music, paint, exercise, play games, fuck, cook. write. Go to a play. Watch live performace it's in 3D!. Make the world a better place.
As for the BBC make programmes for X. Do you really need another polar bear program?
Yes. The BBC may not be as good as people want them to be, but they are certainly better than all the other channels.
All commercial channels first of all broadcast around 30-35% advertisements. Pure garbage.
Secondly, many commercial shows repeat fragments throughout their shows - especially around the commercial breaks. More garbage.
But most importantly, the BBC have a primary task to inform the public, whereas most other channels have a primary task to earn money.
And I really like it that they allow quite some of their shows to be put on Youtube for the whole world to watch.
Doesn't matter. Broadcast TV is dying.
The BBC has David Attenborough, ffs, and yet still we end up with the program dumbed down, repeating previous "information" on animals, and selling itself on 3D and other crap. And last I heard, it was all moved to the Eden channel which I can't get anyway.
The BBC have no interest in keeping this kind of stuff going, so forcing them to keep it is counter-productive. They'll just do their best to cripple it so it "dies" naturally. Already comedians appear on any programs that have the slightest bit of intellect to them to appear "entertaining" to people who wouldn't care less about the program anyway (QI, Science Club, Sky at Night, etc.). Some of them add something (Dara O'Brien or whatever his name is, is actually quite intellectual but still it descends into nob gags, and the people they bring on with him haven't a clue and are just there to be laughed at for not knowing the answer, basically).
Let them kill it off, one of the world's longest running programs on TV, just because they want to. Let them be the idiots. The alternative is a sidelining that will kill it eventually anyway, which is where we've been for the last few years.
The Internet really needs to have a way for people to find content online that has the same ideals as those programs did early on - to educate and inform, not entertain - and let people discover their own niches free of the BBC's over-paid "talent".
Schools and exams are dumbed down already. Now TV is dumbed down. Appeal to the lowest common denominator as always, and suck every outlier back to the "average".
There's little left of merit on the BBC and what there is I cherry-pick out of iPlayer. Let them re-run crap like Doctor-fucking-Who to their heart's content and then wonder why nobody's paying for a TV licence.
I agree that it is probably unwise for the BBC to compete too much with commercial channels. However, compared to what's on most of those commercial channels, the BBC remains a very different broadcaster with a much broader spectrum of programming. Of the major commercial alternatives, only Channel 4 comes anywhere close.
I think it's fair to claim that, among other things, the BBC offers by far the best news and current affairs reporting of any major UK TV network (investigative/undercover journalism programmes, Newsnight, political debate and parliamentary coverage, several niche programmes on the BBC News channel, plus of course their main news bulletins), numerous excellent science and human interest series (Planet Earth, Human Planet, Our World, Wonders of the Solar System; notably, they cover a range from special interest programmes like The Sky at Night through to popular science with the likes of Dara O'Briain's Science Club), numerous original drama miniseries, better-than-average coverage of major sporting events, a broad range of films, and sometimes just good, old-fashioned entertainment (numerous Saturday night BBC One family shows, thoughtful/satirical/informative comedy like QI and Mock the Week). And of course we get all of this without disruptive commercial breaks every few minutes or having graphics advertising the next tacky programme that appear just to spoil the critical moment in what you're watching.
Compared to spending Saturday nights watching Simon Cowell smugly mocking children who were brave enough to have a go at something, news coverage on Sky that really does make Fox seem fair and balanced, and Celebrity Big Brother 174, I'd gladly pay a lot more than the current licence fee if the BBC did go commercial. In fact, I could happily take the BBC channels and the Channel 4 family and dump almost everything else, because I don't watch that much live any more but almost everything I do find worth watching is on a very limited set of the available channels.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
No where in the BBC charter does it say that.
They're not supoosed to chase ratings, but they do.
They're not supposed to promote state views, but they do.
They're supposed to be balanced, but they are far from balanced. Apple good, Android bad. Liverpool, Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea good, every other team bad. Israel good, the rest bad.
Inform the public? That's funny because when you read the news from other websites, you clearly see the BBC choosing not to report certain stories.
Their top story two weekends ago was about former Prime Minister Tony Blair's son getting married. Tabloid bullshit.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
No doubt they'll replace it with some sort of reality show. Utter garbage. The BBC is synonymous with bad decision making these days.
And yet it's programming is still far better than that of any of the commercial channels.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
Actually check the iplayer, and watch new epsisodes.
The Sky at Night is no longer relevant.
It is no longer in tune with modern, forward thinking. It is a relic from an archaic age, hidebound by tradition and conservative values. It does not deal with issues which are important to contemporary life, like celebrity game shows.
The program purports to deal with technical subjects, which are opaque to BBC commissioning and managerial staff. No estimate of its quality can therefore be made. As far as we can tell, it does not conform to ethnic diversity targets, disability awareness directives or political balance requirements. It cannot be fitted into any of the BBC's entertainment categories. We have found no awareness of or support for the program in any of the lifestyle surveys we have commissioned in all the top artistic, cultural and media centres of North London.
Accordingly, we recommend its closure.
No doubt some Imam is screaming for national arson day unless it's pulled off the air.
For the last time, they ate not cancelling it. They are moving it to America on the Stars channel, but since it was a documentary, not fiction, killing off the Brit to replace with an American was problematic. Now that that's solved...
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Agreed.
I've been to many countries around the globe and few have TV as great quality as we have in the UK and the BBC is the reason for that.
If it weren't for the BBC's advertising uninterrupted shows and so forth you'd rapidly see the race to the bottom you get in North American TV where you can't go 5 minutes without an advert interrupting your show.
In North America you have to have over a hundred channels just to have a chance of anything decent popping up amongst all the shit. I like the fact that in the UK you can find something worth watching nearly all the time by checking only a handful of channels because the quality bar is set high enough by the BBC that they all have to provide as good or better stuff to compete raising the bar in general.
The BBC is one thing the UK does absolutely right.
I have just cancelled my tv licence and gone to full catchup TV and i have found that i do not watch anythhing at all on any bbc channels at this current time, but if you look into bbc wordwide you will find that its a provate corporatation thats worth 1.2 billion that sells all our tv programs we have paid for around the world making the people rich off our backs,
Also the bbc has been prooven to be a very corrupt business that paid out 25 million in severence pay to old directors, supported Jimmy saville, gives a very biased view on all news and also gets money from the EU to push forth their agenda`s.
i will miss the sky at night but there are many shows aimed at the amatuer and professional astromoner on youtube and even a daily program from suspicious observer @ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTiL1q9YbrVam5nP2xzFTWQ which keeps you up to date on the stuff we need to know in less than 4 minutes a day
hope you enjoy my rantsworth :)
My comment got modded troll so the debate is moot.
So for you, Fair point; I'd add anything with Professor Jim Al-Khalili; but its so dumbed down I'd rather not bother.
I can't opt out off the BBC and not have people knocking at the door. Search TV licence fee on youtube as see the harassment people get.
I don't have sky, virgin, netflix, or any other cable. NHK and Al Jazeera English do better news coverage. I've not watched ITV or C4 in about 5 years. I want out!
So with no BBC connections try these on youtube: Vsauce, veritasium, Computerphile, Mike's Electric Stuff, Big Think and my fav periodicvideos and many more.
The BBC's funding mechanism is so utterly indefensible that it almost renders any discussion of quality moot. A tax on hardware which goes exclusively to one content provider??? This is just ridiculous. Of course it manages to produce the occasional high quality programme but overall the standard is mediocre and falling. Also senior management are drawn from a very small soi-disant intellectual liberal elite.
"Middle class" means something else in the UK. Whereas your American middle class is everyone too wealthy to live on the street but too poor to own an airplane, in the UK... well, it was coined to refer to those people who were neither "lower class" manual workers or "upper class" landed gentry who hadn't worked a day in their lives. Today it basically means you're a doctor or a lawyer or high level management in a company, or something, you're financially secure and upwardly mobile, and socially implies that you're more likely to go to dinner parties and the theatre than pubs and football games.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Star Gazer is the closest thing to this in the US. http://www.jackstargazer.com/ I grew up watching this show back in the 80's. IIRC, the little 5 minute segment would air between Sesame Street and Dr. Who on PBS in Florida. Don't know if that was true in other markets. And it's still shown today. It's what helped spark my interest in astronomy,
You mean Michael Le Vell? Who was found not guilty on all counts.
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.
It's good value when you look at the diversity the BBC provides. Sure you cant agree with the BBC on everything, but a lot better overall. Look at the Olympics. In the US, they got highlights. The BBC showed just about everything, live, without any breaks, for no extra cost.
Personally, I'd like to see the BBC paid out of taxation, providing it cant be touched by MPs. Link the rate to GDP or something, so there is never any question over how much money they get each year.
Advertising revenue depends on viewing figures. If you want high viewing figures all the time you have to show shite like Honey Poo Poo and Naked Monster Truck Wrestling because that's what the plebs watch.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Personally, I'd like to see the BBC paid out of taxation
Depends how you define taxation. But for me, a mandatory user fee created and enforced by government is taxation.
I'd posit that a lot of BBC programming is already like that and that's why I dislike being forced to pay for it.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Radio 4 is actually excellent, but it's niche. BBC television has a few gems that have been dumbed down over the last 10 years (someone mentioned Horizon and Panorama, which used to be good, not so much now). Other than that it's just the usual rubbish indistinguishable from commercial channels.
The Olympics were an exception. That's precisely the kind of coverage you'd want a broadcaster to provide. But even there they've screwed up. Their deal with the IOC meant they've taken down their online event archive. I can't watch it over again. I paid for it, twice, with my licence fee and my taxes, and now I can't watch it because of IOC licencing? Disgusting.
There's still some excellent stuff on the BBC, but I do at least partially agree with you. The BBC has been chasing ratings too hard for too long.
The worst part is when they very nearly shut 6 Music because it didn't have enough listeners, when it was the only radio station catering for those who were really into their modern music. I.e. really top quality, but not necessarily commercially viable. Exactly the sort of thing the BBC should produce. Thank Deity they failed and their attempt actually turned into a fantastic advertisment for 6 Music ("Listen to us before it's too late") which massively boosted their listener base.
But I disagree that they shouldn't compete with commercial channels at all. Mass market productions are a hugely important way for the BBC to reach people who may otherwise never have seen the good stuff the BBC does. Large parts of their potential audience would never even have heard about their quality productions if it wasn't for mass-market productions.
I also totally oppose the idea that the commercialism of the BBC is an argument against public broadcasting and the licensing fee. If the BBC has become too commercial (it has), then it should be reigned in and told to refocus more on the education aspect. Abolishing the license fee is the only sure way of making everything commercial.
The BBC just need to remember that the mass market productions are not the goal, they are the teasers that allow the BBC to produce their educational stuff.
Can't be him anyway, he got off. On a technicality, of course. People like that don't deserve a trial anyway.
Sorry, got a bit confused. Thought I was doing my column for the Daily Mail.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
BBC4 not Radio 4. But that too.
I just don't agree that the BBC is good value. I don't mind them producing a wide diversity of shows, but the problem I have is with them broadcasting reality tv rubbish that is already shown on other channels.
Also, I don' agree with them paying ridiculous amounts of money to their executives and huge salaries to their stars when they could be encouraging less well known names and nurturing young talent.
I don't think the BBC should get many kudos for their Olympics coverage as it's much cheaper for them to cover sports events than it is for them create new drama.
I don't think that taxes would make too much sense as then you have people paying a different amount according to their salary, rather than how much tv they watch. The other problem with taxation is that the BBC would then be too tightly tied with the political system. Advertising would be my choice of funding for them.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
You're paying to be able to receive a set of channels*, which operate under public oversight. In what way is it ridiculous?
*You don't have to pay if you don't receive the signal, and it's only billed against the household receiving the service rather than per TV sold, so it's hardly a tax on hardware
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Eh? Patrick Moore may have held views that were certainly more UKIP than Labour, however describing him as a "far-right Nazi" (Head of the SS-type far-right Nazi?) is just nuts. I wouldn't have agreed with much of his politics, but just as Labour voters aren't communists, UKIP voters aren't fascists (and personally, I'd like to see Labour be a lot more socialist).
I always thought of Moore as being a complex human-being. His views on 'foreigners' were forged in WWII and he, and any of his generation, should be forgiven. War deeply changes people. I certainly take Voltaire's view on his opinions.
I wonder what you'd say about my neighbour, George, who my son interviewed for a project on D-Day? George was on Gold Beach on June 6th 1944 and his first words were "I've tortured so many people". He then described the living hell of the Falaise Pocket in a way that there's now one ten year-old who'd never join the army. He's lived his life quietly, but he's never forgot the smell, miles down-wind of Belsen. You won't find him driving a VW.
Moore's alleged misogyny was odd, it came not from the women who worked with him (I read many defences and not a single "J'accuse" from his female colleagues), but from his own views that the (his?) world should be a Boys-Own club. Also, and rarely, 'Never Married' apparently meant just that, not that he actually cruised the public toilets of the world.
RIP.
This site is too UK centric. The internet is world-wide, you know!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Nobody cares.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Moore's fiance (a Nurse) was killed in WW2 by a Nazi bomb so he was no fan of them. She's also the reason he never settled down with anyone else. His view was he'd found the one for him and no one else would do.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
I agree ,I saw her presenting some science show over a decade ago. (when I lived in NZ)
"If you think it's such good value, then why not give people the choice about funding it rather than forcing everyone?"
Because some thing provide a societal good. The value makes spreading the cost out worth while.
There are economic tomes written on the subject. Tons of data.
Once you add advertising, YOU are no longer the customer., You are the products and you will only get to see what advertisers approve of. Having a non advertise based media stream is extremely valuable.
I wish the US had a BBC equivalent.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I accept the argument that they should be funded as they are good for society, but I think they are very over priced for what they deliver. I'd prefer they didn't waste millions of pounds trying to shoehorn Windows only services everywhere for a start.
I think the initial idea behind the BBC is good, but the implementation leaves a lot to be desired. Unfortunately, now I am forced to pay for a service that I don't particularly want and have no vote or say in.
Incidentally, I don't care how many economic tomes are written - there's gazillions of books about vampires, but it doesn't mean they're real.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
You know the channels I most often find something worth watching aren't BBC or ITV, they're Dave, Discovery Channel, Sky. The BBC doesn't get a look in, except it's radio output (4 and sometimes 5-live).
Well yes, apart from Israel good. Their news coverage is hilariously biased in favour of the Palestinians and against Israel.
How is that the BBC's fault?
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Sir Humphrey: "Bernard, subsidy is for art...for culture. It is not to be given to what the people want, it is for what the people don't want but ought to have."
--------------------Courtesy - The BBC.
Allowing multiple TVs per household per license does not contradict my statement that it's a tax on hardware. My objection - as you know perfectly well - is the lack of any reasonable mechanism for opting out of watching BBC channels and not having to buy a license.
And yet it's programming is still far better than that of any of the commercial channels.
Any network could make programmes of BBC quality if they were given the budget the beeb has - and no commercial pressures on how to raise advertising revenue. What the BBC has done is give away for free what all the other channels have to get advertisers for. No commercial organisation could compete on an equal footing in that environment. That's why state aid of industry is deemed anti-competitive and is broadly speaking illegal.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I wish the US had a BBC equivalent.
We used to, but then PBS started running ads (clustered at program change times, not during), and begging marathons selling overpriced cups and DVDs and books (infomercials). You might notice they no longer tout the fact that they aren't advertiser supported because they are the advertisers selling the merchandise themselves (or through shell companies).
And, come to think of it, I haven't heard the "if not us, then who?" slogan for a while.
One minor hitch: apart from the BBC, no such network exists.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You realise that Dave made it's fame (and it's fortune) showing BBC repeats, and is 50% owned by BBC Worldwide, right? For all intents and purposes, it IS part of the BBC family.
And as for the Discovery Channel- it's original launch back in the 1980's was part funded by the BBC, and Animal Planet was a joint venture between Discovery Channel and the BBC. It might be pushing it to say that Discovery wouldn't exist if it weren't for the BBC- but the BBC was involved in the birth of that one too.
Spoken like someone who is hilariously pro Israel, and is upset by news which isn't tub-thumpingly supportive of your views your side.
The BBC is excruciatingly, almost absurdly careful about producing unbiased coverage. Every regulator and watchdog in the country agrees. But for some reason whenever they report on anything controversial, there are always choruses of "why don't they agree with me, they're so biased!" from one side or another. See just about any reporting about government policy from the last two decades for further reference...
My personal favourite is whenever the government (this one or last) announces that they've got some fantastic economic news and should be worshipped like democratically elected gods, and the BBC inevitably publishes material knocking the claims full of holes. Cue choruses of "the BBC is so left wing / right wing / out to get us and needs to be reformed!" from government spokespeople...
Two words:
Monty Python
You could always go back to whichever former Warsaw Pact turdbucket you came from, r_m.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'm afraid you're absurdly wrong on that. It bends over backwards to say how impartial it is, but in reality most of its employees are drawn from the pages of the left wing Guardian, as are most of its editorial decisions.
Nice. Bizarre racist abuse as you can't counter my arguments. Fyi, I and my ancestors have been in Britain since time immemorial.
Not the whole thing, no. The BBC could have made a deal with the IOC, which would certainly have had government backing.
Let's take the evolution vs creationist argument as an example. Were the BBC to present a show about this topic, it would present creationist arguments as having equal validity as the science which supports evolution and would scrupulously give the creationist argument the same amount of time as the evolution argument. The BBC presents this as "unbiased reporting", which sadly it isn't. It's one of their flaws, unfortunately. I've used that argument as an example, there are plenty of others which are equally applicable.
A.I. Research. The peculiar science in which we know the question and we know the answer, but can't show the working
I only get BBC1 and BBC2, and I don't see a lot of it; there's more "I've got a celebrity cake auction in my antique attic" than I'd like and much as I love grub there's only so much of Si and Dave & that smug ponce I can watch. I wish they'd repeat documentaries without the sign language rather than those retarded clips overnight on 2.
Without looking I have no idea what's on 3. 4 always seems to have a lot of music stuff that I'd like. Radio 2 (i.e radio 1 from 30 years ago) with pictures.
Still, it could be worse. I'd go mad if I missed Newsnight, and there's enough science/history/wildlife stuff to keep me happy. I know it's a low bar, but you ever watched Raiuno?
I suppose you could class the parliament channel as a tasteless and tacky reality show though...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."