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End of an Era As Pioneering BBC3 Becomes an Online-Only Station (betanews.com)
Mark Wilson writes: 13 years ago, BBC3 launched in the UK. Last night, the TV station broadcast over the airwaves for the last time. In a bid to slash expenditure, the youth-oriented channel that launched countless comedy careers is now only available online. The likes of Being Human, The Mighty Boosh, Gavin and Stacey, and the like will live on, but only on the web — which the BBC is spinning as an opportunity to be freed from the constraints of regular scheduling. The change has been known about for some time now, and there have been a number of campaigns and petitions to try to get the BBC to change its mind.
It is so sad that they have moved down to a medium which nobody knows or cares about.
I mean, this makes the television antennas in all of our phones practically useless now....
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
And nothing of value was lost.....
BBC 3 was a "throw enough licence fee money at the wall and see what sticks" which lead to such TV abominations as "coming of age" and whoever the fuck Russel Howard is. Anything with any merit immediately got kicked upstairs onto BBC 2, everything else was chucked in the bin and left for the accountants to bury somewhere in the back of the books.
"If you like your BBC3, you can keep you ur BBC3.,
Now, as they've a live channel on teh interwebs, they'll be wanting a TV license from all those refuseniks who just stream the stuff, rather than watch it over the air...
(Up till now, they've gotten away with not paying for a TV license, naughty, naughty little refuseniks...Auntie Beeb doesn't like that...)
I really hope Netflix doesn't copy this model - it could be fatal for their business!
>> 13 years ago, BBC3 launched...that launched countless comedy careers...
In the words of John Oliver, settle down people. It's only been around 13 years. Surely, the number of people who are still working in comedy after working on that channel is finite. Here's a list of the most famous, I guess: http://www.theguardian.com/med...
Do large number of people still watch broadcast tele in Britain? In America the number of people watching over the air broadcast is low, and the number watching cable is shrinking quickly. Online is the place to be, especially for a channel for young people.
... and even I hardly watch any "over the air" television anymore. Most of the shows I watch are available on Hulu or Netflix (including at least a few of these particular BBC3 shows, which aren't otherwise available to me as a non-Brit). Surely a "youth-oriented" channel can somehow manage to survive the move to an Internet-only presence.
I'm sure the BBC's primary motivation here is indeed to save money - but I don't see how this move has to be construed as a negative one.
#DeleteChrome
Really, while there is (well, I guess now "was") some good stuff on BBC3, I still miss their seminal work "Titty Titty Bang Bang" the most. Not. (I tried to like it, because the critics said I should. Couldn't do it ... the show absolutely sucked balls).
Despite a few good shows, there was a lot of crap on BBC3, and I'm not at all surprised they got the axe first, what with all the Tory cuts to funding and the resulting budget crunch. Not ideal for fans of Being Human/I like myself, but better than losing BBC1 or BBC2. And as others have noted, the streaming model works pretty well for other content providers (Amazon Prime, Netflix, Vudu, etc.).
Everything is ultimately headed over IP. BBC3 is a good brand with which to pioneer this with it's relatively young and tech-savy demographic. Once "smart" TVs start living up to their name you'll be able to watch it just as you do now over DVB.
Transponders and multiplex slots don't cost a fortune to rent. You only have to look at all the garbage channels to know that it's cheap. In any case, it shares a transponder with a kids channel, so should only pay half. The programme costs will be the same whatever the distribution method. Furthermore there is a cost to streaming to the internet, which I wouldn't mind betting is similar to the transponder costs.
I personally have no interest in the channel, but since it it being paid for by licence fee (tax), I want to know that my money is being spent wisely, and accounted for properly.
The channel was meant to cover "young people" as the BBC, in its wisdom had decided that they weren't watching enough TV (as if that was a bad thing). However, the BBC's idea of "young people" was a rather arbitrary age range of 16 - 34 year olds. That is a group defined by the advertising industry, but since the BBC is advert free, it's not really relevant to them and can hardly be said to be a "demographic".
Given that most 16 year olds are spotty children, living with their parents who still snigger when someone says "fart" and 34 year-olds are generally on their second baby, with a partner, mortgage, job and a car or two - it's a pretty wide range to please, So it's no surprise that the target audience (who weren't watching enough TV) stayed away. Sure, in the eyes of those people who made a living from BBC3, it was "pioneering" or "innovative". However those people were generally, themselves, not exactly target-audience material, either.
When the TV "digital revolution" (i.e. replacing the small number of wide-band analog stations with a large number of digital ones) started, there was a plethora of new stations. Most of them had very little content that was either new or worth watching. Most of these, especially the new ones that the BBC started, can be considered failures. BBC3 is just the most high-profile failure and probably won't be missed, except by those middle-aged 34 year-olds who still wish they were spotty children - or who are still living with their parents.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Given the number of repeats shown on BBC1 and BBC2 there was always plenty of space in the schedule for new, innovative and interesting material.
There still is.
Forget putting BBC3 online, shut it down entirely. Anything that's good enough can be shown on BBC2 - it's got to be better than endless repeats of Coast, daily doses of Flog It and whatever the fuck they call that atrocity that's on at 7pm.
While some good stuff did start off there at one time, they haven't had a homegrown hit on that channel for several years. The only thing I've watched on BBC 3 in the last few years was Family Guy and American Dad re-runs.
it shows how much the younger crowd cant sit still long enough..
it also shows bad upbringing, no patience.
It also spotlights how the demographic in this article just cant sit still, and how we as a culture cater to it.
Patience used to be a virtue, what happened?
The BBC stopped being relevant when they fired Jeremy Clarkson. Good riddance!
...still waiting for BBC12
Since I didn't know it even existed, nothing of value was lost. :)
In American political discussion (is slashdot still considered an American website?) Fox News is regularly criticized, especially when compared to other news channels, CNN, BBC, al Jazeera . Many people consider BBC to be a high quality source of news.
I guess the big television networks don't have the stature they used to have.
The BBC licence fee has been frozen (Govt interference!) for a number of years now due to intense lobbying by the likes of Sky and the newspapers. Its not just the Conservatives, Labour under Tony Blair were happy to be in the Murdochs pocket too.
In real terms this means that the amount of money they get is not enough to cover running the channels they had 13 years ago, is not enough to make/commission more than a few new programme ideas and is not enough to compete with Sky for high profile sports programming. Added to this, the BBC has been saddled with funding a government benefit, the provision of "free" tv licences for the over 75s, and with the number of 75 year olds growing, that means a continuous drop in licence fee income.
The BBC used to produce ALL their own programmes. Under successive licence fee settlements, they have been required to commission from outside production companies. The number of BBC production studios has shrunk dramatically. Ther BBC only has the right to rebroadcast shows or obtain extra income from overseas sales when they make the programmes themselves. Otherwise future income goes into the pockets of the production companies or other rightsholders.
Other income streams like BBC Publishing have also been stolen and sold off in the name of the great god "competition" and the BBC is in danger of losing much of their web content because of johnny-come-lately newspapers who have seen their own print readership evaporate and want to appropriate the online digital content pioneered by the BBC.
BBC 3 wasn't a failure. Over its lifetime it aired ground-breaking comedies and dramas. Having it shunted into the on-line abyss is yet another nail in the coffin of strong, independent programming from the BBC.
Erm, what happened to BBC 4???
Who watch TV anyway ?
It's just gone 8 o'clock and time for the penguin on top of your television set to explode.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
So when will I be able to stream "My Word" and "My Music", auntie Beeb?
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
It's a state-owned commercial broadcaster with a public service obligation. It has to meet certain public service criteria in it's charter but is mostly self-funding (some license fee revenue is sent its way to cover part of the cost of meeting its public service obligations).