“modern, digital-led and streamlined organisation”
BBC4 is already digital, you scalping twerp – all the TV channels have been for years.
RIP CBBC & BBC4
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
Don’t blame Davie or the Beeb’s absurd policy of paying presenters shitloads of money to chase ratings.
Blame Dorries and the buffoon she works with/for (Perhaps under might be a more apt word in this instance)
“Look! Look! I’m annoying the liberals!! Please like me!”
Digital, but no longer available through an aerial (antenna)
I watch all Beeb content via iplayer these days anyway so makes no odds to me.
Me too as I would need a big antenna to get reception in Canada 😉
But but but. What about your local news programmes? They just disappear into the ether for 5 minutes.
Don’t care. They’re always hopeless – London is 25 miles away so they just repeat what they just said in the main news. I prefer local radio and local news Twitter feeds.
They’re closing the Cambridge TV studio, which they only opened a few years ago, so my ‘local’ news is going to come from Norwich.
Mine too and I live in Northampton.
Mixed feelings on this. I feel BBC4 had deteriorated significantly in recent months – the music programmes became poor, reruns of top of the pops and bland artists of little interest to me.
The documentaries were often obscure appealing only to a narrow audience in many instances and if there is a need to balance the books because of the freeze in licence fees than I can understand by BBC4 would be a target.
Mandating them to take on 1000 apprentices each year including from a lower socio-economic group can only be a good thing even if it is a policy set by the Boris Bitch.
Sky Arts does BBC4 better than BBC4 these days, but that’s because it’s been starved of funding for original programming for a long time.
This.
Hardly a shock when original content and quality drops, if funding for same has being choked off…
Buttock-clenchingly piss-poor decisions, IMHO, both for BBC4 and CBBC.
Apologies: that’s either “has been” or possibly “is being”…
You have to wonder how they meet that mandate with Doris choking off cash. I presume it’s all designed to ensure they have weaker and weaker screen output.
Meanwhile, Netflix prepares to introduce ads.
BBC4 had its nadgers cut off a year ago when they removed its commissioning budget and said it would be an ‘archive’ channel. A bloody disgrace as, in addition to all the music documentaries, it had a lot of good, intelligent programmes on various aspects of art, cultural and social issues.
Sky Arts is OK on some of these, but I feel it’s always pitched to be more glossy and less incisive in its approach. A second best IMO.
What a dumb move. A while ago it was announced that BBC4 will not be commissioning new programmes and will become an archive channel. Hence some music docs popping up on Saturday night BBC2. But to become online only?
And CBBC – my grand daughter loves it, but then probably doesn’t care if its broadcast or online.
BBC3 went online only a while back. Its back on the normal schedules now. Maybe the same return will happen for BBC4
(Probably not)
Stuffed full of great docus and archive music. Not a big earner, not a big vote loser if you stiff it. The philistine plunderers move in again and our cultural heritage takes another step backwards towards the stinking Pit of Murdoch. Good luck watching BBC4 online when all your gormless neighbours are streaming Castaway F*ck-Fest On A Desert Island to their 4K mega-screens while they guzzle prosecco and shriek at each other.
Breathe in … count to 10 … and …….. relax on the exhale.
Kindly advice, but the wankers that VV describes will still be there at the end of the exhale – cuddling their suffocating Pugs, considering their next ignorant one-upmanship purchase, scratching their balls, farting aggressively – I could go on but not on a family oriented webby site.
What’s wrong with farting? With BBC4 gone we’re going to need all the enertainment we can get.
Where’s Le Petomane when you need him?
Gone with the wind.
@hubert-rawlinson
Sky Farts
Where else?
…..used to be on BBC Pwoarrr!
Big vote loser ? I doubt it.
Nadine Dorries… born in Liverpool in 1957… oh good timing!!!!!!
Edith.
Strange duplicated post. Redacted.
You obviously know me, but I don’t know you from a box of frogs… do you wear a lot of grey – or is it just your generation?
One never knows, and such introductions can be so awkward.
Anyhoo.
Deram is back everyone!
Indeed he is.
Thank goodness for his keenly balanced and insightful perspectives on this fetid world in which we find ourselves
Good luck with “keenly balanced,” your PM is Boris Johnson.
Please… be angry… be very angry.
If you’re not angry in this country in 2022, you don’t exist…. and I live in a lovely part of the country – in a lovely house – right by the sea.
I rarely watch BBC4 shows when they’re broadcast so downloading them on catchup is fine by me.
What seems most destructive as far as the BBC is concerned is not even attempting to get children into the habit of watching TV. Perhaps it’s already a done deal and they’ve already been lost.
I’d also be happy never to see Nadine Dorries again but that seems unlikely.
I’m with Steve in the OP, it really annoys me when someone describes something as digital to differentiate it from what came before. It’s a bit like someone saying they’re digitising their CD collection. I recently heard an advert saying that a film was only available on DVD and digital streaming! In the case of BBC Four, it’s even worse as it’s never been available as an analog service.
I am not specifically bothered about BBC4, or whether in 3 or more years programmes are broadcast ‘live’ or available on demand on iplayer. What I am bothered about is the extent to which the BBC commissions and creates good quality programmes around pop and classical music, theatre, film, culture etc – programmes which for the most part no-one else does, or does well. And there’s the problem. If you read Davie’s speech it is extremely light on any kind of commitment that the upside of the changes they are making will be material growth in resources for that kind of programming. Literally the only such reference I can see is ‘In Sounds, we will continue to improve our on-demand music offer’, whatever that means. The only other reference to music or the arts of any kind I can see is this: ‘And while we will continue to play a vital role in classical music in this country, we must be realistic about the resources we use’ which is basically a polite way of saying there will be more cuts (which he goes on to say will be the case for the BBC orchestras). The whole speech is that of a technocrat, and an accountant – there is absolutely no vision about what the BBC will do, what it will programme, what it is for. And in these times that feels very dangerous for the BBC indeed.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/speeches/2022/digital-first-bbc-director-general-tim-davie
I can’t receive any broadcast TV where I live, so it doesn’t matter if channels are moved online. That’s how I currently watch TV anyway.
The quality of the programming is the important thing. Online crap is no worse than broadcast crap.
When he says “In Sounds, we will continue to improve our on-demand music offer”, he’s referring to the separated-out radio version of iPlayer, i.e. BBC Sounds.
BBC local radio will always be there.
I can happily live without my BBC Oxford TV output.
Spend the money on more BBC4 old git music documentaries!
Oh!
“BBC local radio will always be there.” – who says? If it’s deemed too “woke” – which could mean just about anything these days – it’ll go on the bonfire with everything else.