Good news, fans of Nigerian crochet and Swedish Renaissance painting: BBC4 wants to broadcast for longer each day!
I jest. BBC4 has been getting much better of late. But although the ratio between the absolute crackers and the mind-numbers may be at an all-time high, it's still got some way to go before it achieves the same quality ratio as More4, which is still the holder of the crown for “ best channel for thinking people who don't have a degree in Pretension, minoring in tribal art”.
More4 does have a slight advantage though. It just imports all its good stuff, while BBC4 rolls its own. More4's home-produced output, such as The Last Word, would very much rate as “cruel and unusual punishments” if shown to US prison inmates, so it shouldn't sit on its laurels.
So let's give a possible BBC4 expansion into longer hours a cautious welcome and hope we don't have to face too many programmes hosted by Tyler Brûlé or (and I kid you not) documentaries about Django Reinhardt, the Belgian-born, two-fingered Gypsy jazz guitar legend.
Jazz. Ugh.
January 26, 2006 | Reply
Wrong. Django equals genius.
January 26, 2006 | Reply
You ever seen Mars Attacks when they start playing the records to the Martians? That's what happens to me when I hear jazz. It's sonic dissonance given recording contracts.
Even if it were genius, dedicating an hour-long, prime-time documentary to it should be as unthinkable as filming a tree for 30 minutes and sticking it on instead of EastEnders. Or, given jazz's supposed counterculture status, like sticking a great big Nike logo on Che Guevara and getting him to talk about SUVs.
Let jazz be underground; let even BBC4 be to mainstream for it; let it be unseen.
February 5, 2006 | Reply
Goodness me, you do hate BBC Four.
Count yourself lucky, old chap. Over here we have RT? funded by both licence fee and advertising and it's more-or-less OK (at the very least, it's a few months ahead of British TV when it comes to US imports), T?l?fis na Gailge Cathar dedicated, ostensibly, to Irish language programming but also (bizarrely) featuring the likes of the OC and Invasion.
And, of course, a commercial channel called TV3. Home to all of the world's shit. A bit like ITV, really.
Is it any wonder we are happy to also watch BBC, particularly BBC 4 which at least offers programmes that we can't find somewhere else 쬆unlike More4.
In my not terribly humble opinion, the anglophone media is severely lacking is decent cultural programming, especially as a central tenet of output.
Back when I had satellite television, I often found myself watching La Cinqui?me, Arte and TV5. One look at the listings in Le Monde for France 2, France 3 and, occasionally, Canal Plus is enough to bring tears to my eyes.
J...
And yes, I do like Jazz.
February 5, 2006 | Reply
But yes, I concede, Mr. Br?l? is an amad?in.
The very idea of him as a war reporter terrifies me. Wobbles head. Smart-arse comment. "Would you just look at my sweater?" Glib and empty remark. Look at my furniture. Roll credits.
J...
February 5, 2006 | Reply
I don't hate BBC4, as I'm sure the post made clear. Why, we've just watched an hour watching modern day geisha culture on the very channel (missed, I, Samurai, though. Again. Bugger.). I just think there's a little too much of the Islington dinner party, about it.
Those who remember jazz are doomed to repeat it.
February 6, 2006 | Reply
Well, I couldn't possibly comment on the Islington dinner party circuit being a dyed-in-the-sackcloth bogtrotter, but I've enjoyed a great many things on BBC Four, not least foreign movies.
Now, it pales in comparison to its radio counterpart, I'll grant you, but then again even Radio Four has no shortage of unmitigated turds hiding in the schedule.
For my money, BBC Four could be vastly improved simply by giving Fi Glover a show. I don't even care what it would be about she could just sit there and make pithy remarks and assorted sarcastic put-downs and I'd watch it.
As for: "I don't hate BBC4, as I'm sure the post made clear." I do apologise. Me go bak to skool and lurn to reed. Or do you only like it when it fails to actually make really challenging programming (at least half of which is always going to be crap but is worth it in the end)?
Toodle pip,
Bishop Walsh...
February 6, 2006 | Reply
I like it when it makes interesting programming. I hate it when it makes worthy programming. 'Worthy' means
It's perfectly possible to produce programming that's both smart and accessible. Equating smart with 'inaccessible' and 'unwatchable' means that smart eventually gets shunted onto low audience digital channels (whoops, already happened) or stops being made at all.
"Do you only like it when it fails to actually make really challenging programming (at least half of which is always going to be crap but is worth it in the end)?"
Do you only like it when BBC4 makes programmes that you know only you and five others are watching, giving you a sense of superiority over the plebs for failing to be as smart as you by watching incredibly dull but 'really challenging' TV?
February 6, 2006 | Reply
God, here I am again and I have real work to do...
Right: Some things are just plain difficult and it's snobbery to say that the 'plebs' can't understand them. I direct you to the Morning Star which has fine coverage of opera, theatre and sharp intake of breath 쬆jazz.
My contention is that difficult programming shouldn't have been stuck on some digital ghetto. However, I am not one for fighting lost causes and am therefore willing to accept BBC Four, knowing full well that BBC 2 will continue sliding on downmarket. In this context I am willing to ignore programmes that are of no interest to me, so long as they show some that are something that BBC Four does a better job of than More4.
In fact, More4, is simply a cut-price version of what Channel 4 used to be, back when it was good. BBC Four, meanwhile, shares the same relationship with BBC 2.
I agree that it is possible to make TV that is both intelligent and accessible, but that is a different issue.
Dull is an personal taste. I think Big Brother is dull, for example.
I like the West Wing. Is it clever? Not really. It was, once-upon-a-rainbow, but isn't now. Ch4 dumped it to More4 on ratings grounds alone and have attempted to dress it up as "terribly clever drama". It's not. It's just good, well-scripted middle-brow drama that draws in low audience figures because so few people care about politics.