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BBC Four to become archive channel (p15)

Arts content moves to BBC2, BBC3 budget doubled (May 2020)

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MA
Markymark
If BBC Four does close, then I think it will be completely unacceptable to have both 9pm-7am and 7pm-6am as dead air time showing nothing but holding slides for the 2 kids channels.

Total waste of dead air time! I'd rather repeats of all BBC shows shown in these dead air slots rather than nothing at all!



They could flog off the unused bandwidth to another broadcaster, to run a timeshare channel. COM4/5/6 are full of such things. Or <shock horror> share the bandwidth out to the other BBC channels, thus improving their technical quality. Now there's a thought Cool
GO
gottago
If BBC Four does close, then I think it will be completely unacceptable to have both 9pm-7am and 7pm-6am as dead air time showing nothing but holding slides for the 2 kids channels.

Total waste of dead air time! I'd rather repeats of all BBC shows shown in these dead air slots rather than nothing at all!



They could flog off the unused bandwidth to another broadcaster, to run a timeshare channel. COM4/5/6 are full of such things. Or <shock horror> share the bandwidth out to the other BBC channels, thus improving their technical quality. Now there's a thought Cool

I don't think they're allowed to sell their allocated SD space on Freeview. Correctly me if I'm wrong but I think they are allowed to sell their HD streams (at least the BBC3/4 ones) though as these weren't gifted to them. I feel like I remember them putting the BBC3 HD slot up for sale but it didn't sell though I might be making that up!
TE
Technologist
The BBC can Only sell space on BBC B ( not in gifted BBCA )
But the cost of space in any PSB muxes so high it is not really commercially attractive ...
And discounting it too much is state aid in EU law ( and the DailyMail effect!)
( whuch is why the temp comm muxes are very attractive in term of £ per bit even taking into account limited coverage )
TJ
TedJrr
The BBC can Only sell space on BBC B ( not in gifted BBCA ) ........


I wonder at what stage it becomes possible to re-align the muxes.

D3&4 have a lot of streams that don't readily resemble what a reasonable person might recognise as rich with PSB content.

Perhaps merge BBc-muxA with the D3&4mux, and cram in all the remaining SD PSB channels.

Then have two HD muxes for PSB's, one aligned for sub-regions and the other aligned for nations or macro-regions?
JA
JAS84
Jon posted:
Jonwo posted:
Jon posted:
If this is to do with the rumours of BBC Three returning to TV....

I think it’s quite simple really. After 10pm BBC One is basically BBC Three anyway, so if BBC Three gets BBC Four’s EPG slot. You can then move Newsnight to BBC One when Question Time isn’t airing and post-10pm BBC Four’s demographic can be catered for by BBC Two.


There's no chance they'd move Newsnight to BBC One, it doesn't even do that well on BBC Two.

But it would be to free up BBC Two whilst keeping a good PSB commitment. BBC One is already obliged to show News for the best part of an hour, so you’d have one channel with flexibility post-10pm rather than none.

If Newsnight moved to BBC One, would Question Time be relegated to BBC Two? They air at the same time.
JO
Jon
JAS84 posted:
Jon posted:
Jonwo posted:

There's no chance they'd move Newsnight to BBC One, it doesn't even do that well on BBC Two.

But it would be to free up BBC Two whilst keeping a good PSB commitment. BBC One is already obliged to show News for the best part of an hour, so you’d have one channel with flexibility post-10pm rather than none.

If Newsnight moved to BBC One, would Question Time be relegated to BBC Two? They air at the same time.

You just wouldn’t have Newsnight on Thursday night, as Question Time would appeal to the similar audience.
NL
Ne1L C
It's the first I've heard of it but to be honest I'm not entirely shocked. When BBC4 started it was one of the best channels on TV especially its documentary output i.e Timeshift. If this is true then I hope the documentary output will be picked up by BBC 2.
RR
RR
If BBC One showed Newsnight after The News at Ten and then the regional news, it would have two and a half hours of continuous news. That is not suitable for what should be a generalist multi-genre channel appealing to the widest range of viewers.
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
Timeshift never really went away, it just sort of gradually drifted towards an "as and when" sort of project and still gets repeated on a semi-regular basis (especially now BBC Four is doing its "educating" thing) - next week is a repeat of an Timeshift episode about bread. "The aptly-named Tom Baker narrates a tale of aspiration, industrialisation and plain old-fashioned snobbery in a documentary which unwraps the story of the rise of the popular loaf and how it has shaped the way we eat. "

While BBC Two would cover bread on Inside The Factory, which is basically code for "looking at really big production lines while lots of people stand around waiting to interject if something breaks down", that would only skim the surface of the history of bread itself. And that's where the BBC Two audience would stop. For further details, well here's BBC Four.

To be honest BBC Four does a lot of stuff that its closest commercial equivalent (Sky Arts) doesn't and wouldn't. While its true to say Four has taken a lot away from BBC Two, it could probably be argued that a lot of what now airs on BBC Four wouldn't get a look in Two in the first place.
TE
Technologist
The BBC can Only sell space on BBC B ( not in gifted BBCA ) ........


I wonder at what stage it becomes possible to re-align the muxes.

D3&4 have a lot of streams that don't readily resemble what a reasonable person might recognise as rich with PSB content.

Perhaps merge BBc-muxA with the D3&4mux, and cram in all the remaining SD PSB channels.

Then have two HD muxes for PSB's, one aligned for sub-regions and the other aligned for nations or macro-regions?


Yes ... that is the interesting point ,,,, and was much of the planning done years ago and then revised to respond to the Vaizey plan. And then add BBC local radio ( and delete BBC local tv barker loop)
There is enough space in a regional / National mux say about 20 variants. With what would be a uk wide mux but is a lot easier on a National basis .
So technically channel 5 and may be Ch4 can be in the National mux not the regional mux ...
But you may want to put BBC Alba on a regional mux not a national one !,..
But commercially whose mux is “spare” and who puts what on it ...
:-(
A former member
Theoretically speaking, if Freeview went HD-only, how much of a difference would it make to the quantity of channels?
NL
Ne1L C
Timeshift never really went away, it just sort of gradually drifted towards an "as and when" sort of project and still gets repeated on a semi-regular basis (especially now BBC Four is doing its "educating" thing) - next week is a repeat of an Timeshift episode about bread. "The aptly-named Tom Baker narrates a tale of aspiration, industrialisation and plain old-fashioned snobbery in a documentary which unwraps the story of the rise of the popular loaf and how it has shaped the way we eat. "

While BBC Two would cover bread on Inside The Factory, which is basically code for "looking at really big production lines while lots of people stand around waiting to interject if something breaks down", that would only skim the surface of the history of bread itself. And that's where the BBC Two audience would stop. For further details, well here's BBC Four.

To be honest BBC Four does a lot of stuff that its closest commercial equivalent (Sky Arts) doesn't and wouldn't. While its true to say Four has taken a lot away from BBC Two, it could probably be argued that a lot of what now airs on BBC Four wouldn't get a look in Two in the first place.


It's not just Timeshift that makes BBC4 a great channel. Its its "nicheness" of programming (arts, science, history) makes it what it is in my opinion sadly a rare example of PSB.

Sky Arts is equally as good but in a totally different vein. If BBC 4 did disappear then I feel would give Sky Arts free rein in that kind of programming.

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