You Haven’t Been Watching

Nestled in this piece on the Jimmy Savile fallout at the BBC is an eye-opening quote: “BBC4 had been targeted for cuts because it delivered the smallest amount of ‘unique reach’, viewers or listeners that did not use any other BBC service.”

What a bizarre way of judging its importance. Are they seriously suggesting that TV channels only matter if they’re the only one that some people watch? That BBC4 viewers shouldn’t occasionally stray as far as BBC2, or that they shouldn’t listen to Radio 4? What about iPlayer, which jumbles up shows from all BBC channels by design?

Are they judging on the basis of viewers who’ve lost their remotes?

23 November 2012

EX-HALE

Every “Exterminate” From Doctor Who. Nearly as many as you’d hear in a typical lunchtime in my primary school playground.

Peter Serafinowicz’s Dalek Relaxation Tape—one of the finest moments of his recent 6Music run. Hearing this on the podcast almost had me doubling up in the sauces aisle of Tesco. Almost as good as the T-WOG$.

9 April 2012 · x1

Being out of it for two nights in a row isn’t good for much, but it is good for catching up on an entire series on 4oD, which is what I did with Fresh Meat.

All I’d heard was that it was studenty and that Peep Show writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong were involved, which was good enough for me. By the end of the first episode I was hooked, and by the end of the last I didn’t want to leave the company of the characters they and their team of writers had developed so well. The show was less of a sitcom than I’d expected, instead targeting the more difficult zone of comedy-drama; but it’s one of the better examples of those.

Read More · 24 March 2012

Television in 2007