BBC 4 daytime - why not?
JamesArniston
Posts: 279 Forum Member
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I love BBC 4 and the days I manage to get off work would love to watch it.
My question is, with the advanced compression methods used these days why doesn't BBC 4 broadcast in the daytime?
The widespread part-time channels on Freeview is annoying. Surely there must be a way for the BBC to broadcast BBC3 and 4 throughout the day.
To me, it seems silly showing quality documentaries in the early hours of the morning when the audience is relatively low.
My question is, with the advanced compression methods used these days why doesn't BBC 4 broadcast in the daytime?
The widespread part-time channels on Freeview is annoying. Surely there must be a way for the BBC to broadcast BBC3 and 4 throughout the day.
To me, it seems silly showing quality documentaries in the early hours of the morning when the audience is relatively low.
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And of course, budgets have been squeezed of late.
Im sure if I'm wrong somebody will soon tell me
Totally agree with you. Would love to see a film channel on Freeview showing these kinds of films - both Movie Mix & True Entertainment films regularly get 50-150k + viewers - not huge, but if the advertising fees were pitched at a certain level then it could work.
I guess though it's cost and investment and commitment.
Said on here before I now access a lot of the old films via Lovefilm - they have a great library of old films - British, foreign/USA etc.. especially access to hard to find/B movies! Well worth the fees they charge.
In a perfect world, I agree, 24 hour BBC4 (and BBC3) would be great. In the real world, record the early hours output?
(does CBeebies) really need hd?)
And why would restricting/reducing the breadth & range of children's programming be a good idea (apart from you not watching it)?
We've had this argument before on another thread just before Christmas - the simple fact is that the broadcasters treat them as separate channels, the EPGs treat them as separate channels, listing magazines list them as separate channels, the public see them as separate channels, the channels each have separate budgets, the channels have radically different and distinct programming, they serve very different audiences, they have different channel numbers, the BBC trust treat them as different channels.
To all intents and purposes, despite how they are broadcast from a technical perspective, they are separate channels, and this has little to do with this thread.
On BBC4 you don't usually need to do this as the early hours output is a repeat of some of the 7pm-midnight programmes.
Or, put another way, BBC4 doesn't have the budget to broadcast more than about 5 hours of (new-ish) programming per day. Even some of that is a repeat from a few days/weeks/months ago. Even if the bandwidth was available and carriage charges were nothing - the BBC4 budget can't sustain 24 hour broadcasting.
With BBC 4 some are some arent most are though. Some Dr Who episodes back in November (the first 4 episodes from 1963 that is), wernt on iplayer!
In saying that, I know how the OP feels. I used to enjoy watching BBC Knowledge during the day when I had a day off.
In an ideal world, we'd have this but the BBC are subject to a six year licence fee freeze and there just isn't the money to show BBC4 16+ hours a day, unfortunately.
Documentaries of various types can also be found on Docubox http://tvcatchup.com/watch.html?c=141 or Youtube.
They could probably do the same for BBC1 + BBC3. After all, now that everything is digital there's no need to put things on BBC3/4 first, to persuade people to buy a digital receiver.
BBC 3 and BBC 4 share the same playout as CBBC and Cbeebies, so there would be several hours of playout that the BBC would have to pay for without using!
Also they mainly use their own MUXs and transponders for broadcasting them, so they might as well put something out there!
And it would also seriously restrict viewer choice during those times when BBC Two would be normally showing things like snooker, or when BBC four would normally be showing Proms concerts (or similar).
Thats a good point they do have a very good use during events, they are just underused a bit at other times!
The fact they are underused a bit sometimes does not mean they should be ditched though!
And as you keep on being told:
The broadcasters treat them as separate channels, the EPGs treat them as separate channels, listing magazines list them as separate channels, the public see them as separate channels, the channels each have separate budgets, the channels have radically different and distinct programming, they serve very different audiences, they have different channel numbers, the BBC trust treat them as different channels.
To all intents and purposes, despite how they are broadcast from a technical perspective, they are separate channels, and this has little to do with this thread.
There have been a few quirky British films from the seventies on the Horror Channel lately including Doomwatch and And soon the Darkness, the latter was very interesting in painting a picture of the past although nothing much happened.