Thursday, December 07, 2023

Easy to Blame the BBC

 

One of the cardinal sins of broadcasting that's been committed for years has been normalized, well become tolerated as normal I suppose. It's DJs or TV announcers talking over the tail of things or worse still fading them out too soon. I really don't listen to music radio much as a result (Radio 6 just bugs me but for numerous other reasons). These people (?) may have no respect for the listener or the music maker or, more likely, are just doing what the producer tells them to do because time is always tight. The common practice prevails and it's all a bit shit. The thing is streaming TV and music is a far better experience than real time broadcasts (unless it's sport or maybe competition) because you don't suffer these deliberate interruptions. 

So I'd be raging this morning if I was the creator of the Shetland TV series currently on BBC. The final episode was put out last night and whatever you may think of the show with all it's emotional ups and downs, plot devices and pratfalls, it had a story rhythm that was working quite well right up and into the end credits. Teenage Fanclub's "Star Sign" was playing out over the final scenes and just when the vocal punch came in a continuity announcer interrupted along with a half screen cut image to promote some other program and so shattering the dynamic power of the moment. 

It robbed the viewers of the space to close off and process what had just happened on screen. Does the BBC care about this? I don't know but the program makers must feel that their final bit of punctuation and expression was well and truly rubbed out by this unprofessional and clunky  intrusion. I hate to beat on about the BBC but this kind of insensitivity, solely driven by pushing product at the expense of a running program's own air space just cheapens the brand and dare I say it, the art. Anyway, we're all moving on now.

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