All About The Monet a sort of X Factor meets arts programme is for some reason liberally covered in music.
The artist walks to the judging location - music, tells their back story - music, the judges discuss the painting - music, then the judges decision has drama building music which builds to cresendo or anti-climax depending on the judges decision.
If your own views were "trivia" then you wouldn't defend them so much.
You dig in and argue with insolence but dismiss other's views as trivia - when, by definition, yours are too.
It's an odd stance, seeing as you were wrong in the first place so have, in effect, started the argument yourself.
Who's "others?" you mean you.
It's not an odd stance. I said I didn't remember any discussion.
Why was it so important to you, that I should that you had to search for an eighteen month old thread?
Can't see that anyone else would be that bothered.
Seems a strange obsession, with trivia. But then if that's how you are..... I'll admit to some trivia, but I do make many contributions to threads, like this one and start topics on programmes which prove of interest to others. Pity you can't say the same.
Who's "others?" you mean you.
It's not an odd stance. I said I didn't remember any discussion.
Why was it so important to you, that I should that you had to search for an eighteen month old thread?
Can't see that anyone else would be that bothered.
Seems a strange obsession, with trivia. But then if that's how you are..... I'll admit to some trivia, but I do make many contributions to threads, like this one and start topics on programmes which prove of interest to others. Pity you can't say the same.
Hey, at the end of it all, i was right, so i should be entitled to argue my case strongly.
This has been a bugbear of mine for a while. Too often good documentaries are ruined by too much unecessary background. I thought I would post the complaints I have made to the BBC here, and their replies.
This appears to be the BBC "copy and paste" stock reply when someone complains about background music. I have had this exact same reply a few times.
Thanks for contacting us regarding 'Horizon: The Truth About Exercise', BBC Two, 28 February 2012.
I understand you're unhappy as you feel the programme was overpowered by the background music.
While I appreciate you feel strongly about this, it's difficult to strike the right balance between differing opinions on acceptable levels of noise and music. Music in particular is partly a subjective matter in which personal taste plays a large part. It's added to programmes for many reasons and can be vital to underpinning moods and feelings, adding dimensions to a programme or conveying emotion. It has many applications in programme making.
Programmes can often sound different in the editing suite compared with being viewed on an ordinary television set. Although producers can control many of the effects within the broadcasts they make themselves, other programmes are bought in and there is no straightforward way to vary background sound levels before they are shown.
Many televisions now have options whereby audio settings can be changed to a personal preference setting, or amended to suit the type of programme being viewed. There is usually a default setting for "music" or "speech" which enables viewers to adjust their televisions to make speech clearer. Similarly, viewers with surround sound systems may be able to clarify speech by increasing the volume on the centre (dialogue) speaker whilst decreasing the volume on the surrounding channels (music and effects).
In 2009 BBC Vision launched an extensive study into why some people were experiencing difficulties. This was a huge project involving a panel of 20,000 TV viewers from all ages and backgrounds and conducted in collaboration with the Voice of the Viewer and Listener, the Royal National Institute for Deaf People and Channel 4. As a result of this research we now have a ‘best practice guide' which is available on the BBC Academy’s College of Production website. This will provide programme makers with an overview of the things they can do to make a difference to the audience’s ability to hear and therefore enjoy our programmes to the fullest possible extent.
I would like to assure you that I've registered your comments on our audience log.This is a daily report of audience feedback that’s made available to many BBC staff, including members of the BBC Executive Board, channel controllers and other senior managers.The audience logs are important documents that can help shape decisions about future programming and content.
Thanks again for taking the time to contact us.
Kind Regards
I have then complained again and asked not to receive this stock reply, and I asked for a reply from the series producer/programme maker
This is what they said to that.
Thanks for contacting us regarding ‘Bullets, Boots and Bandages: How to Really Win at War’ broadcast on the 11 February.
We understand you were unhappy with the amount of background music used on the programme and we note you felt it was difficult to hear the dialogue.
We note you want a reply directly from the series or executive producer however we have a set complaints procedure and a department for answering complaints. More information about our complaints procedure can be found here:
Background sound is an issue common to the broadcasting industry as a whole, but nevertheless one which we take very seriously.
Different people can find background sound intrusive in different circumstances – there is no single experience therefore no single rule can be applied as a host of circumstances and experiences need to be considered.
The important point is that the BBC acknowledges that this is an issue for some sections of our audiences.
We’re continuing existing work in this area to raise programme makers’ awareness of the different needs of our audiences.
We regularly remind producers about of the above and emphasise the need for them to consider this perspective, especially when they are adding music to their programmes. Whilst there will always be a variety of views on the best use of background sound, we are hopeful that, over time, these initiatives will help programme makers find the best balance for their audiences.
We take the issue very seriously as naturally we want all of our audience to fully enjoy our programmes. To this end your feedback on the subject is very much appreciated, as is the suggestion to watch ‘Life on Earth’.
Please be assured we've registered your complaint on our audience log. This is an internal report of audience feedback which we compile daily and is available for viewing by all our staff. This includes all programme makers and presenters, along with our senior management. It ensures that your points, along with all other comments we receive, are considered across the BBC.
Thanks again for taking the time to contact us.
Kind Regards
----
So... what can we learn from this? I don't think the BBC care about this issue, they just fob off people that complain with their standard stock reply and they are not prepared to ask programme makers to reduce the amount of background music. They obviously think viewers need to be constantly stimulated with background mood music and are incapable of watching someone just talking to the camera.
They broadcast an episode of one of the Brian Cox shows with the soundtrack muted and they got complaints that the show "felt flat".
I don't believe that the BBC would have been inundated with complaints from people who all felt that the show "felt flat" (your quotation marks). This suggests that there was actually a single complaint and even then, I feel that there has to be a good chance that they were taking the piss.
The Brian Cox show was guilty of having one of the most incompetent sound mixes, so that when the intrusive music started up, the dialogue was not only simultaneously muted, but the its higher frequencies were also turned down in the mix, further muffling the commentary.
I find it almost impossible to believe that anybody would write to the BBC to complain that the music wasn't loud enough unless they were being highly sarcastic. Every eccentric comment such as that must be outnumbered by hundreds taking the opposite viewpoint.
Background sound is an issue common to the broadcasting industry as a whole, but nevertheless one which we take very seriously.
As Ricky Tomlinson would say "My arse they do."
Many years ago in a discussion on the BBC board about this, (it came up year after year), we were told by a host that six months previously, the BBC had made a video giving examples of unnecessary loud music in programmes, with "helpful suggestions for its avoidance" and sent a copy to all the programme makers. (This is a fact).
I suggested, due to the current complaints, that maybe the background music they'd added to these videos had drowned out the suggestions?
Programme makers, for the most part, are not really bothered too much about what the BBC suits or some of the viewers think. If sufficient people will watch their programme, then they don't see it as a problem, nor I suspect do the BBC. So nothing much is ever going to change. So you'll always get the "stock" reply to the complaint, just think yourself fortunate, someone pressed the "right button" as it has been said in other discussions, that one or two got the "wrong" reply to their complaint, which made no sense at all.
With so many e-mails and letters, stock replies are the only way they can handle the volume.
As I've always said, loud, intrusive, inappropriate or unnecessary music in parts of some programmes, is just a form of obfuscation used to mask deficiencies in what is at that moment is happening on the screen. This will always be the case.
Watching an atrocious 'documentary' about Mars on BBC and it's stuffed with the most irritating background music. Combined with the inane narration and it's almost unwatchable.
Watching an atrocious 'documentary' about Mars on BBC and it's stuffed with the most irritating background music. Combined with the inane narration and it's almost unwatchable.
:mad:
As I've mentioned so many times before, they just don't care.
Not enough people complain about "anything" for them to take any real notice, unless it drastically affects the ratings.
The complaints can't ever be much more than 1% of the ratings total.
If you write in and complain you'll get a stock answer.
But to "pretend they are doing something about it" they'll pick one programme a year with complaints about background music, to air on the "Points of View" programme and apologise, then you won't here of it again for another twelve months regardless of how many other programmes receive similar complaints.
There you go "job done, we've listened to the viewers."
Sometimes, just sometimes, I have heard some lovely music in the background of a programme which I don't recognise but with the help of my trust app. 'Shazam' I can find out the title and artist immediately which is a great help if I'd like to buy it sometime.:D
As I've mentioned so many times before, they just don't care.
Not enough people complain about "anything" for them to take any real notice, unless it drastically affects the ratings.
The complaints can't ever be much more than 1% of the ratings total.
If you write in and complain you'll get a stock answer.
But to "pretend they are doing something about it" they'll pick one programme a year with complaints about background music, to air on the "Points of View" programme and apologise, then you won't here of it again for another twelve months regardless of how many other programmes receive similar complaints.
There you go "job done, we've listened to the viewers."
It's being going on like that for years.
Why do they have background music though? It's not really an issue, for me, of whether it's too loud but why it's there AT ALL!!!
This Horizon documentary had non-stop music all the way through. Every single scene and interview had this bloody irritating music: stupid, ridiculous 'circus' music as we saw shots of people walking down corridors and going into a lift, or sweeping orchestral fanfares with the now ubiquitous choir in the background when we saw rockets taking off.
(Plus it was just so dumb. The narration consisted of single clause sentences broken up by lengthy pauses as if they were talking to a backward child.)
I heard a quote once from one of the great film directors about 30 years ago along the lines of " if you notice the background music, then its failed in its purpose".
I heard a quote once from one of the great film directors about 30 years ago along the lines of " if you notice the background music, then its failed in its purpose".
I've been saying that for some time as I have this.
In "the old days" in movies, it wasn't called "Background music" it was called, "Incidental music," because that was what it was. It was there to add a bit of drama when necessary, but then was reduced in volume or even faded away completely, so you could hear every word spoken by the actors. In many programmes now it's just like "loud wallpaper."
I've been saying that for some time as I have this.
In "the old days" in movies, it wasn't called "Background music" it was called, "Incidental music," because that was what it was. It was there to add a bit of drama when necessary, but then was reduced in volume or even faded away completely, so you could hear every word spoken by the actors. In many programmes now it's just like "loud wallpaper."
'Doctor Who' strikes me as a good example of a programme that can't go for two seconds without some overwhelming comic/mawkish/melodramatic musical accompaniment.
In contrast, I noticed that the background music on 'The Bridge' was much, much quieter and less intrusive.
I really cannot stand the way ever single moment in many programmes has to be glaringly signposted and underlined by the musical score in the most emphatic fashion, just in case we didn't quite get what was going on or how we. should. be feeeeeeling.
'Doctor Who' strikes me as a good example of a programme that can't go for two seconds without some overwhelming comic/mawkish/melodramatic musical accompaniment.
BBC1 is so bad for this -- the Musketeers, Atlantis, Doctor Who, Merlin... It's like they have stock, generic "background" music to signpost the action sequences. It all sounds the same, and it all sounds ten times louder than the action itself. I end up having to mute it.
I've said many times, over-loud music is often used as a form of "obfuscation," in an attempt to kid the viewer that whatever is on the screen at that moment is more "dramatic" than it really is. It never works with me.
Some wildlife documentaries and that Brian Cox series were obviously sound mixed by an absolute buffoon, but to give credit where it's due, The Great British Year series had plenty of background music, but it was the only example, where in my opinion anyway, they got it absolutely right. It was well chosen, it never intruded on the narration and just for once, actually added to the experience.
Whoever did that should be the only person let anywhere near the mixing desk in future.
Just resurrecting an old thread here because I too find the overuse of background music to be very intrusive indeed. I don't mind little sprinklings of what was once properly known as 'incidental' music here and there but these days the music has become like full-blown movie soundtracks with big orchestral scores heard from the opening credits to the end credits.
So many documentaries such as history and wildlife are spoilt by what I consider to be overbearing and overly loud music. It's irritating and certainly distracts you.
Can anybody give an idea when this annoyance of background music started to become an annoyance for people? The late 90s or 2000's perhaps. Maybe it came about when we had surround sound with modern TVs and sound systems.
By the way, what was the Brian Cox series that had this problem? Was it the Universe ones he made or all of them? I just about remember that it made the press due to the amount of complaints.
I remember having the thought while Wolf Hall was on how brilliant it was with no background music. The silences while the camera stayed on Cromwell's face were tension filled and the silence (and Mark Rylance's acting / face) made it so.
I refuse to watch all those US TV comedy sitcoms (Big Bang etc) as they all include either canned laughter or live audience laughter after EVERY joke. It's as if the script writers have marked each punch line so that the producers can ensure the laughter is placed in the right place.
In my DW gym, what should be background music in the cafe is often so loud that you can't have a conversation with someone sitting at the same table. In one area of the gym itself, which I've re-named as the Night Club, you get deafened by the music if you do your stretches on mats which are a tad too close to them.
While I ask the young staff where the strategy is written down for this, they just reply with 'let us know and we'll turn it down'. I can't even begin to start explaining how that response is back to front; that if they got the environment correct in relation to the profile and needs of their customer base (who are, in the main, like me, not 18 year-olds back from all night raves in Ibiza), then no-one would have to ask them.
In sports events these days, there is an obsession with filling space in the action with music which drives me nuts as it dumbs down the event actually preventing audiences from either enjoying the atmosphere or actually creating it in the first place..
They did it in the Olympics, they now do it in indoor tennis events (like the year end mens' tournment in the O2 which resembles a WWF event now)
The organisers have been doing it for nearly a decade in one-day cricket matches.
If I hear the song, 'had a bad day' in a T20 or one-day match again after a batsman has got out for a duck, I will definitely go mad.
In test matches, other than a nauseatingly jingositic rendition of Jerusalem by X Factor singer Rydian to start every day of test matches in England / Wales, there is no music, thankfully.
The argument used in cricket is usually that music is part of a range of activities put on designed to appeal to the young but is, I think nonsense, tapping into a stereotypical view of kids that they have to be prodded at every opportunity with some form of stimulus.
Oh, what a surprise at the recent test v. New Zealand at Lord's, where on a 5th day when they let the under 16's in free, somehow they all enjoyed themselves and a fantastic day's cricket without being fed a non-stop input of popular, modern R&B tunes every time a boundary was scored or a wicket taken.
The music dumbs down the atmosphere which the actual event and those watching it create and has definitely rolled across the pond from the US where this type of thing has been standard practice in College and Pro sports for years / decades.
I find the very repetitive, tinny background 'music' on many programmes from the USA just too irritating to bear. >:(
I try turning the sound right down, but I find that the 'music' is louder than the commentary, and end up having to turn off.
I don't mind some atmospheric music in films and dramas, but I really don't need it on factual programmes, documentaries.
I don't understand why background (sometimes foreground) has to be ever-present on just about every programme.
I remember once seeing an hour long documentary on lions in the wild. It was brilliant. No music whatsoever, just the natural sounds of Africa.
I wish TV would give us more of that - natural background sounds. No music.
Many years ago, because of constant complaints about background music on documentaries, masking the natural sounds of the countryside, many posted on the BBC's own Points of View message board, a host posted that on a forthcoming nature documentary they would give you the option of, background music, or no background music, through choices on the red button.
They didn't put a lot of effort in advertising this option.
In the event, to remove the background music, you had to opt for the red button. A week later they came back on the board and triumphantly announced few people opted for "no background music."
Several of us responded that if they'd reversed the options and you had to opt for the red button, "if you couldn't live without intrusive naffin' background music" (or words to that effect), the results would have been entirely different.
Comments
The artist walks to the judging location - music, tells their back story - music, the judges discuss the painting - music, then the judges decision has drama building music which builds to cresendo or anti-climax depending on the judges decision.
Who's "others?" you mean you.
It's not an odd stance. I said I didn't remember any discussion.
Why was it so important to you, that I should that you had to search for an eighteen month old thread?
Can't see that anyone else would be that bothered.
Seems a strange obsession, with trivia. But then if that's how you are..... I'll admit to some trivia, but I do make many contributions to threads, like this one and start topics on programmes which prove of interest to others. Pity you can't say the same.
Hey, at the end of it all, i was right, so i should be entitled to argue my case strongly.
You do it whenever anyone calls you on something.
Agreed, then after approx 2 mins at start then repeated halfway through.
After this annoyance the speech is barely audible
Anyone? Is that your new board name?
You were just wrong anyway, "scroll down" or "move on"....;)
This appears to be the BBC "copy and paste" stock reply when someone complains about background music. I have had this exact same reply a few times.
I have then complained again and asked not to receive this stock reply, and I asked for a reply from the series producer/programme maker
This is what they said to that.
----
So... what can we learn from this? I don't think the BBC care about this issue, they just fob off people that complain with their standard stock reply and they are not prepared to ask programme makers to reduce the amount of background music. They obviously think viewers need to be constantly stimulated with background mood music and are incapable of watching someone just talking to the camera.
The Brian Cox show was guilty of having one of the most incompetent sound mixes, so that when the intrusive music started up, the dialogue was not only simultaneously muted, but the its higher frequencies were also turned down in the mix, further muffling the commentary.
I find it almost impossible to believe that anybody would write to the BBC to complain that the music wasn't loud enough unless they were being highly sarcastic. Every eccentric comment such as that must be outnumbered by hundreds taking the opposite viewpoint.
As Ricky Tomlinson would say "My arse they do."
Many years ago in a discussion on the BBC board about this, (it came up year after year), we were told by a host that six months previously, the BBC had made a video giving examples of unnecessary loud music in programmes, with "helpful suggestions for its avoidance" and sent a copy to all the programme makers. (This is a fact).
I suggested, due to the current complaints, that maybe the background music they'd added to these videos had drowned out the suggestions?
Programme makers, for the most part, are not really bothered too much about what the BBC suits or some of the viewers think. If sufficient people will watch their programme, then they don't see it as a problem, nor I suspect do the BBC. So nothing much is ever going to change. So you'll always get the "stock" reply to the complaint, just think yourself fortunate, someone pressed the "right button" as it has been said in other discussions, that one or two got the "wrong" reply to their complaint, which made no sense at all.
With so many e-mails and letters, stock replies are the only way they can handle the volume.
As I've always said, loud, intrusive, inappropriate or unnecessary music in parts of some programmes, is just a form of obfuscation used to mask deficiencies in what is at that moment is happening on the screen. This will always be the case.
:mad:
As I've mentioned so many times before, they just don't care.
Not enough people complain about "anything" for them to take any real notice, unless it drastically affects the ratings.
The complaints can't ever be much more than 1% of the ratings total.
If you write in and complain you'll get a stock answer.
But to "pretend they are doing something about it" they'll pick one programme a year with complaints about background music, to air on the "Points of View" programme and apologise, then you won't here of it again for another twelve months regardless of how many other programmes receive similar complaints.
There you go "job done, we've listened to the viewers."
It's being going on like that for years.
Why do they have background music though? It's not really an issue, for me, of whether it's too loud but why it's there AT ALL!!!
This Horizon documentary had non-stop music all the way through. Every single scene and interview had this bloody irritating music: stupid, ridiculous 'circus' music as we saw shots of people walking down corridors and going into a lift, or sweeping orchestral fanfares with the now ubiquitous choir in the background when we saw rockets taking off.
(Plus it was just so dumb. The narration consisted of single clause sentences broken up by lengthy pauses as if they were talking to a backward child.)
I've been saying that for some time as I have this.
In "the old days" in movies, it wasn't called "Background music" it was called, "Incidental music," because that was what it was. It was there to add a bit of drama when necessary, but then was reduced in volume or even faded away completely, so you could hear every word spoken by the actors. In many programmes now it's just like "loud wallpaper."
'Doctor Who' strikes me as a good example of a programme that can't go for two seconds without some overwhelming comic/mawkish/melodramatic musical accompaniment.
In contrast, I noticed that the background music on 'The Bridge' was much, much quieter and less intrusive.
I really cannot stand the way ever single moment in many programmes has to be glaringly signposted and underlined by the musical score in the most emphatic fashion, just in case we didn't quite get what was going on or how we. should. be feeeeeeling.
It's just all so over-the-top and ridiculous. >:(
BBC1 is so bad for this -- the Musketeers, Atlantis, Doctor Who, Merlin... It's like they have stock, generic "background" music to signpost the action sequences. It all sounds the same, and it all sounds ten times louder than the action itself. I end up having to mute it.
Whoever did that should be the only person let anywhere near the mixing desk in future.
So many documentaries such as history and wildlife are spoilt by what I consider to be overbearing and overly loud music. It's irritating and certainly distracts you.
Can anybody give an idea when this annoyance of background music started to become an annoyance for people? The late 90s or 2000's perhaps. Maybe it came about when we had surround sound with modern TVs and sound systems.
By the way, what was the Brian Cox series that had this problem? Was it the Universe ones he made or all of them? I just about remember that it made the press due to the amount of complaints.
I refuse to watch all those US TV comedy sitcoms (Big Bang etc) as they all include either canned laughter or live audience laughter after EVERY joke. It's as if the script writers have marked each punch line so that the producers can ensure the laughter is placed in the right place.
In my DW gym, what should be background music in the cafe is often so loud that you can't have a conversation with someone sitting at the same table. In one area of the gym itself, which I've re-named as the Night Club, you get deafened by the music if you do your stretches on mats which are a tad too close to them.
While I ask the young staff where the strategy is written down for this, they just reply with 'let us know and we'll turn it down'. I can't even begin to start explaining how that response is back to front; that if they got the environment correct in relation to the profile and needs of their customer base (who are, in the main, like me, not 18 year-olds back from all night raves in Ibiza), then no-one would have to ask them.
In sports events these days, there is an obsession with filling space in the action with music which drives me nuts as it dumbs down the event actually preventing audiences from either enjoying the atmosphere or actually creating it in the first place..
They did it in the Olympics, they now do it in indoor tennis events (like the year end mens' tournment in the O2 which resembles a WWF event now)
The organisers have been doing it for nearly a decade in one-day cricket matches.
If I hear the song, 'had a bad day' in a T20 or one-day match again after a batsman has got out for a duck, I will definitely go mad.
In test matches, other than a nauseatingly jingositic rendition of Jerusalem by X Factor singer Rydian to start every day of test matches in England / Wales, there is no music, thankfully.
The argument used in cricket is usually that music is part of a range of activities put on designed to appeal to the young but is, I think nonsense, tapping into a stereotypical view of kids that they have to be prodded at every opportunity with some form of stimulus.
Oh, what a surprise at the recent test v. New Zealand at Lord's, where on a 5th day when they let the under 16's in free, somehow they all enjoyed themselves and a fantastic day's cricket without being fed a non-stop input of popular, modern R&B tunes every time a boundary was scored or a wicket taken.
The music dumbs down the atmosphere which the actual event and those watching it create and has definitely rolled across the pond from the US where this type of thing has been standard practice in College and Pro sports for years / decades.
A piece I wrote on my blog about the subject;
http://www.goalsandwickets.co.uk/cricket/cricket-editorial/ding-dong-has-t20-cricket-2012-style-become-just-a-bit-of-a-laugh/
I try turning the sound right down, but I find that the 'music' is louder than the commentary, and end up having to turn off.
I don't mind some atmospheric music in films and dramas, but I really don't need it on factual programmes, documentaries.
I don't understand why background (sometimes foreground) has to be ever-present on just about every programme.
I remember once seeing an hour long documentary on lions in the wild. It was brilliant. No music whatsoever, just the natural sounds of Africa.
I wish TV would give us more of that - natural background sounds. No music.
They didn't put a lot of effort in advertising this option.
In the event, to remove the background music, you had to opt for the red button. A week later they came back on the board and triumphantly announced few people opted for "no background music."
Several of us responded that if they'd reversed the options and you had to opt for the red button, "if you couldn't live without intrusive naffin' background music" (or words to that effect), the results would have been entirely different.
The BBC do what they like.