The Lemon Fool

Friday 9th of April 2021, 9pm-10pm

BBC One - A Tribute to HRH Duke of Edinburgh
BBC Two - A Tribute to HRH Duke of Edinburgh
BBC Four - Programmes on BBC 4 have been suspended. Please switch to BBC One for a major news report
BBC News - A Tribute to HRH Duke of Edinburgh
BBC Parliament - BBC News Special. Continued coverage from BBC News following the death of the Duke of Edinburgh

Sheeeeesh!

To be honest that is an improvement on the normal BBC schedule for a Friday evening.

AF62 wrote:To be honest that is an improvement on the normal BBC schedule for a Friday evening.

I wanted to thank AF62 for this post but I get a message 'Invalid thank'. Thanks anyway to AF62 and I would be interested if anyone can explain my message.

And I am sure that mc2fool will have found something more fulfilling to do a a Friday evening, although I share his sentiments.

Dod

Could always watch the Crown on Netflix

Snorvey wrote:

AF62 wrote:To be honest that is an improvement on the normal BBC schedule for a Friday evening.

Masterchef....have I got news for you....still game over on BBC Scotland.....Norton.

I don't think that's too shabby?

Masterchef - watching people cook - I would sooner watch paint dry.
HIGNFY - used to be amusing, but these days not so much. Paul Merton looks bored to tears.
Still Game - never heard of it.
Graham Norton - chat shows - see watching paint dry above.

Think I will stick with Netflix, NowTV, Apple, and the ‘Walter Presents’ section of All4.

Dod101 wrote:And I am sure that mc2fool will have found something more fulfilling to do a a Friday evening, although I share his sentiments.

Indeed, thankfully there were plenty of other services which didn't have DoE saturation -- although I was surprised to see that Sky Arts (freeview 11) also had a life of the DoE programme at the same time.

But I just don't see the logic of what the Beeb did ... they had their entire TV broadcast bandwidth, all channels, taken up with the same thing for pretty much the whole of the day and evening ... except for BBC Four which was suspended! Sure, it's a big event, news wise, so, yes, rolling coverage on BBC News and tribute/life of on BBC One, but all channels broadcasting the same thing (or suspended)?!? It's not like there's a coverage problem, they're all on the same mux so anyone that gets one of them gets all.

I bet there'll be quite a few complaints about it on Newswatch next Friday ... that is, if they don't spend most of it catching up from being bumped off by the DoE coverage this week!

mc2fool wrote:... except for BBC Four which was suspended!

Last night BBC4 seemed to be showing a ladies football match between England and France.

Alaric wrote:

mc2fool wrote:... except for BBC Four which was suspended!

Last night BBC4 seemed to be showing a ladies football match between England and France.

???
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/guide/bbcfour/20210409

Snorvey wrote:I can kinda see where the Beeb were coming from. He was King in all but title. The fact there was so much else to choose from makes me wonder why folk are bitching about it so much.

It was the dictatorial approach.

Sure remove the schedule of things (some) people want to watch to present a stream of people saying nothing for hours on end, but to then remove everything else from every other BBC channel - pathetic.

I bet there was a boom In new Netflix subscribers yesterday.

What's it going to be like when (if) the Queen dies?

mc2fool wrote:https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/guide/bbcfour/20210409

Ladies Football was what came up when channel switching live on Freesat. Otherwise all the "low numbers" were showing the same thing, even BBC Alba.

Friday nght reminded me of one of those deaths in the Soviet era, with Russian radio playing sober music for hours. Even Radio three shared Radio 4 for a while, then went over to sombre or religious music. This morning, our Radio 3 ritual of "Croissant Corner" was replaced by other music which didn's seem particularly relevant, but at the least it was quite and contemplative. I felt a bit of a heel enjoying my usual Croissants.

The Duke of E was a great guy, and we haven't seen such a public figure die for a long time, so I believe marking this is an epic way is not something I resent. Some of the items were really interesting - particularly news footage of his earlier years - but it was unfortunate that so much comment was endlessly repeated for audiences that may not have heard it first time round. I don't want to miss any genuinely new information about him, but I'd rather not embark on a series of groundhog day repeats of talking heads.

He was a one off, more woke than this woke generation but at the same time very un-woke in the way he put his foot in it and didn't care. Not a man for the snowflake generation and I admire him for that.

As regards TV last night, I watch the wimmin's football. Excellent game but after our team getting much of the play, the French team showed they were definitely superior, and beat us 3-1. They have some great players (and this wasn't their strongest squad!) but I do not approve of the sly cheating they bring to it. The whole attraction of women's football is how clean it is - if they start playing like men, cheating, complaining and gurning - then I'm off. One of their players, Almeida, I think the name was, constantly gave people shoves in the back and knocking them flat (quite unecessary as she is a great player and does not need to cheat) - and it seemed quite an unfair stroke of luck that she was at the centre of a penalty awarded against us just after we had scored and things looked more hopeful.

Before that, I struggled to get interested in a recording I made of the Third Man. I abandoned it after 40 minutes to watch the football. Prior to that - well another recording of an episode of Buffy, my nightly diet these days.

Arb.

They seem totally unable to get their act together. The schedule changed between 4pm and 5pm for BBC1 this evening. That is from the one which they had changed it to earlier in the day. We have realised that the printed versions of their schedules are useless, which is perhaps understandable, but when the electronic ones also get changed at very short notice for no apparent reason, except to accommodate 60 minutes of "news", which are regurgitations of what they have already said, it gets frustrating. I watched two rugby matches on BT Sport, but couldn't face two more.

There was a time when the military Junta would commandeer all broadcasting stations and put out martial music, with odd announcements like how to observe the curfew. Come to thimnk of it, not unlike the "message from the Government" that keeps appearing.

In a situation like this, one is tempted to ask "Where is the Army when they are needed?" Running vaccination centres, I suppose.

TJH

mc2fool wrote:The BBC has confirmed it received 109,741 complaints from the public over its coverage of the Duke of Edinburgh's death.

OK, so 99.8% of the UK population has not complained?

Lootman wrote:

mc2fool wrote:The BBC has confirmed it received 109,741 complaints from the public over its coverage of the Duke of Edinburgh's death.

OK, so 99.8% of the UK population has not complained?

I find this all rather sad. What a complaing bunch these people are and I can't frankly understand why people are so impatient or set in their routines that they jump about in this way. How pathetic. But it does also show the latent desire in many of us to complain and that we would do so in many circumstances if was easier to do so. There were even complaints that the BBC had made it too easy to complain -I would probably agree with them. The BBC in trying to pander to this desire has only created a rod for it's own back.

To me the downside of the evening of programs about the Duke was the inevitable repeating of comments and interviews shown earlier, but that's was a feature I could forgive them. It was fitting that we had a national moment when his life was reviewed and celebrated.

Arb.

Lootman wrote:

mc2fool wrote:The BBC has confirmed it received 109,741 complaints from the public over its coverage of the Duke of Edinburgh's death.

OK, so 99.8% of the UK population has not complained?

Indeed.

But even that bald statistic doesnt include the nuance of what % doesn't actually care either way?

If 99.5% are ambivalent that then brings the complainers into a 60% majority over those that defnd the coverage to the hilt.

Arborbridge wrote:To me the downside of the evening of programs about the Duke was the inevitable repeating of comments and interviews shown earlier, but that's was a feature I could forgive them. It was fitting that we had a national moment when his life was reviewed and celebrated.

I definitely agree with that, and I suspect that most of the 109,741 formal complainants (of which I wasn't one) probably do too with, rather than the coverage itself, most complaining about it having taken over the entire BBC broadcast output; 4 channels all showing exactly the same programme isn't exactly a efficient use of bandwidth.

What does surprise me more though is that none of the usual anti-Beeb lot have commented ... I'd have thought this'd be prime fodder for the BBC unfit for purpose, privatise it and scrap the licence fee usual suspects. Maybe they're all Royalists ...

didds wrote:

Lootman wrote:

mc2fool wrote:The BBC has confirmed it received 109,741 complaints from the public over its coverage of the Duke of Edinburgh's death.

OK, so 99.8% of the UK population has not complained?

Indeed.

But even that bald statistic doesnt include the nuance of what % doesn't actually care either way?

If 99.5% are ambivalent that then brings the complainers into a 60% majority over those that defnd the coverage to the hilt.

"96% of unhappy customers don’t complain" https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20130604 ... ut-haven-t

Further arithmetic left as an exercise for the reader.

mc2fool wrote:

didds wrote:

Lootman wrote:OK, so 99.8% of the UK population has not complained?

Indeed.

But even that bald statistic doesnt include the nuance of what % doesn't actually care either way?

If 99.5% are ambivalent that then brings the complainers into a 60% majority over those that defnd the coverage to the hilt.

"96% of unhappy customers don’t complain" https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20130604 ... ut-haven-t

Further arithmetic left as an exercise for the reader.

Are we straying into the validity of referenda territory?