From: ijp@oak8.doc.ic.ac.uk (Ian Palmer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv.uk
Subject: Re: More dosh wasted.... (re: Eldorado)
Date: 28 Jul 92 09:26:32 GMT
Distribution: uk
Organization: Department of Computing, Imperial College, University of London, UK.
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3

imc@prg.ox.ac.uk (Ian Collier) writes:
: In article <1992Jul21.110543.26748@doc.ic.ac.uk>, ijp@oak9.doc.ic.ac.uk (Ian Palmer) wrote:
: >imc@prg.ox.ac.uk (Ian Collier) writes:
: 
: >         But I think that you'll have to take the very first episodes
: >viewing figures with a pinch of salt. Remember it was (on this one
: >occasion) up against 'The Street'.
: 
: Well, if another episode during the week got higher figures (due to not
: being up against the Street) then the higher one will show in the ratings -
: so that's no defence, actually. :-)

For a start I was responding to a comment (conveniently editied out of
your reply) stating :

----
>Is there room for *another* soap? According to Radio 1, the first episode
>only had 6 million viewers - not so good for prime time BBC1...
----

which refered to the VERY first episode. I was simply stating that
this value (if true) needed to be taken with the fact that it was the
one up against The Street.

As it turns out this value was wrong, and the street seemed to make no
difference, as the first weeks ratings were (as I remember them) :

   Mon    10.9 million
   Wed    10.1 million
   Fri     7.something million (can't remember the number exactly)

So it looks as if the poularity has died a death already :-) :-) :-)

: 
: >>[Why are there so many !@#$ trailers on the BBC?]
: 
: >Ah! But in the past the BBC made most of their own programmes, and
: >they made them for a British audience ... Now most of the BBC's output is
: >either imported stuff, or it has been made with the idea of selling it
: >to other countries so they try to make them in 25 min. slices so other
: >companies can fit adverts in
: 
: The BBC doesn't care that much about starting programmes on a half-hour
: boundary (unlike many US stations, apparently).  For example, I just turned
: to a random page in the Radio Times (Sun 26th, evening) and the programmes
: start at the following times:
: 
: BBC1 5:00 7:00 7:15 8:50 9:05 10:20 10:55 12:00 12:30
: BBC2 5:00 6:40 7:15 8:10 9:20 10:05 10:35 12:20
: 

Oh very average day, yes indeed. Let's take a week day shall we :

BBC1 6:00 6:30 7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30.....

: Besides, as I said. the BBC often show 1-2 mins worth of trailers, even when
: programming is 3 minutes behins schedule.
: 

O.K. so I approximated. Let me spell it out. On most T.V. networks
(ie. all but the BBC) programmes tend to be either 23 minutes
ling(ish) or 46 minutes long(ish) or a further multiple. 

Now when the BBC tries to show a programme which was made to this
format (either because it was bought in, or that the BBC made it
primarily to sell) they have a problem. What they tend to do is make
the 23 min. programmes fit into a either a 25 or 30 min. slot
(depending on the time of showing). When it's in a 25 min. slot they
have to pad with 2 mins. of ribbish. When in a 30 min. slot they have
to make the program before OVERRUN, and use a bit of extra padding to
make up the extra 7 minutes. This usually (if all goes well) makes the
shedules match up at the end of that program. When you have a 46 min.
program they will either fit it into a 50 min. slot (and pad) or fit
it into a 45 min. slot and use the overrun to correct a another
program later on.

Now when things go wrong (ie. a sports programme doesn't finish quite on
time, because the producer took the "you've got about 5 mins. extra
due to the 23 min. program that follows" as meaning "after you've over
run by this 5 minutes, start to think about winding the programme up)
you do get a problem, but they've already scheduled these extra
padding bits, and the people who "place tape B on drive 2 and press
button marked '>'" can't make the rescheduling descisions needed to
take those padding bits out, and the person who has the authority to
do this (meanial) task has long gone home, and only gets called up
when things are going very wrong (ie. they are getting more than about
20 mins. out).

Thus, as I was trying to say before, the increase in trailers is due
to the BBC trying to fit ever more "made for abroard" material into
(but not always managing it) 30 min. slots (on week days at least,
weekends have always been a bit odd, but they are even more odd now
than they used to be). 

: 
: Ian Collier
: Ian.Collier@prg.ox.ac.uk | imc@ecs.ox.ac.uk

Ian

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