I wrote a blog post two weeks ago about SeeSaw, the new television on demand service – mainly for archive content.
This service, currently in a limited invite only beta, is born out of the ashes of the rejected Project Kangaroo – planned by BBC, ITV & C4 but rejected by the BBC Trust.
When I first got my invite I was very excited by it, but I was instantly confronted by a message telling me it wasn’t available in the Channel Islands (well I think it said my location).
This was down to rights reasons, they didn’t have permission from the various rights holders (even though all the same shows were available through 4OD and Demand five for the islands) to make it available in the Channel Islands and Isle of Man – independent territories that have to be negotiated separately.
Then I got a message this morning to tell me that they’ve now managed to negotiate rights to make their shows available to the islands – which was a nice thing to read after a day flying to and from London.
It said: “We’re pleased to let you know that we’ve recently acquired the rights to show programmes in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.
“You should now be able to join in the fun and watch your favourite programmes on SeeSaw.”
Which more than made my day and – I’ve tried it and it works brilliantly. This puts SeeSaw, even though it is still in invite only beta – well ahead of all the rest as it is the ONLY multi-network service available in the Channel Islands and Isle of Man.
After an article in the Daily Mail this morning (since removed) randomly suggesting a Top Gear movie involving the lads going around the world in 80 cars.
It looks like this was taken from a suggestion originally posted in an ‘ideas for Top Gear’ thread on Digital Spy a while ago – but the idea is interesting.
I’m not saying a Top Gear movie would be the best of ideas of all time but there is more that could be done with the format.
Especially as it might be useful/interesting for Top Gear to do a Doctor Who/Torchwood and cut things back for a year.
The DW team took a year off from a normal series of the show and instead had a number of bigger budget specials.
Top Gear could do a similar thing – take 2011 off (I’m sure a lot of planning/work/money is already invested in 15/16 for this year) and instead of two series which is about 14 episodes – have four specials.
One could go out around Easter, one in the summer, one around October and another at Christmas – I’m sure a Christmas Day Top Gear special would do well.
Then, with car news, information and ideas brimming from a year of having to come up with fewer ideas – the lads could start again properly with series 17 in 2012.
In fact I think they’d do well taking the same approach as other BBC shows and maybe having one 8 episode series a year (maybe running from May) and then a special around Christmas.
I love Top Gear and there has been some great stuff over the years but spreading the money and ideas over fewer episodes I think would help keep it going for longer.
I’m writing this post listening to a Spotify Playlist I created specifically for blogging (it inspires me to actually write instead of thinking about writing) and praising myself for having avoided the X-Factor and I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here this year.
And I don’t mean just avoid watching it – I mean avoid it almost completely (with the exception of the odd photo of the stupid haired jedtwins thing) – I’ve not seen a single episode or video clip, I’ve not heard a song by or seen performance from ANY of the two shows.
But to achieve this I’ve had to pretty much avoid all of the main television networks, all television news, YouTube, shop windows, electronics shops and more – I’ve even had to avoid looking at the plasma on the wall in the BBC Jersey newsroom.
I haven’t watched a single show on ITV, the television at home has not been set to the channel once in the last few months and I only watch shows on the BBC or Channel 4 recorded through Sky+ or through iPlayer/4OD.
This isn’t so much because I’ve got a moral objection to the show – talent shows have been around for decades – more than I know I’ll get sucked into the crap and hate myself for it afterwards.
However, I have now heard the winner singing his version of the Miley Cyrus song, The Climb (heard not watched) – so I could comment with a tiny bit of knowledge and …. It’s rubbish.
He sounds like a poorer version of Gareth Gates, he has no feeling or emotion invested in the song and just dies.
I’m not a massive Miley fan but as I have a 9 year old Hannah Montana obsessed daughter I do know her music well (was dragged to see the film) and at least she has an interesting twang to her voice, a unique element and a bit of passion – the X-Factor one is just rubbish.
I can’t bring myself to come up with anything more creative than that because his voice and interpretation doesn’t deserve anything more creative.
Yes it will probably go to number one this week and so be Christmas number one (hopefully Rage Against the Machine will be at number two) but that doesn’t mean it isn’t rubbish – it’s just another item of merchandising that the fans of the television drama that is X-Factor have brought to support and show alliegence to their favourite show.
I’ve got no problem with that at all, in the same way that I’ve got no problem with the charts being manipulated by Facebook fans – the charts are meaningless and have been for a long time.
What matters is the songs/artists my friends suggest – the songs I discover myself through hours of scouring Spotify (like tonight) and the playlists I find hidden around the blogosphere.
Than and the charts in iTunes around specific genres. But that hasn’t stopped me getting the Rage Against the Machine song or listening to the rubbish X-Factor song.
I promise I won’t write about Christmas and nothing else as we move from December towards the moment of the year where we can all get away with eating to much, trying to look pleased at crap presents and watching television.
I’ve written a little bit about food, in a way that works with the premise of this blog – by talking about a new BBC site dedicated to Christmas food.
Now I’m going to talk about the mass of brilliance (and some of the chaff) that will be shown across the BBC television network in the last two weeks of the year.
If I can find anything worth pointing out I’ll cover the other channels in a post next week – but for now here is Aunties festive delights.
In one line I’ve noticed there’s some seriously brilliant looking new drama, a combination of old favourite and newly charming comedy, cartoons, Shakespeare and a few instanced of David Tenant.
In the last two weeks of 2009 the BBC will be showing a mythical beast played by Robbie Coltrane, the end of all time with David Tennant and Catherine Tate’s Nan taking on Charles Dickens Christmas spectacle.
Nan will be visited by a number of Christmas spirits
But that’s not all, I’m nowhere near done yet – in addition we’ve got Victoria Wood with a mid-life christmas filled sketch show, boys dancing, a bit of costume drama and the usual mass of Christmas specials.
For the Christmas specials there will be Gavin and Stacey, Outnumbered, Eastenders, My Family and more. Add opera, Steve Coogan, dancing and even more costume drama.
Even CBBC and Cbeebies are in on the whole Christmas special series with David Tenant reading a bedtime story, Justin from Gigglebiz as a panto dame introduced by Chris Evans and a story about children finding a glass bottle on CBBC.
There are a couple of Casualty specials, the day of the Triffids, Top of the Pops at Christmas AND New Year, more toys from James May, Three Men in a Boat going to Ireland and yet more costume drama.
In detail
So lets look into what’s coming up in a bit more detail – starting with the kids stuff.
But first here is a video that will tell you a lot more than I can hope to – even though I’m still going to give it a go.
Back to the mass of text.
For those of you without pre-school children, Cbeebies bedtime stories is basically famous people coming into the Cbeebies studio and reading a book at the end of the day in the ‘Bedtime Hour’.
The Christmas one will see David Tennant read a book about a Bear Cub who leaves his parents to go exploring on Christmas eve. In fact the soon to be former Doctor Who star will read a total of five books during the festive season.
Moving back a bit to CBBC and their Christmas highlights include a drama called ‘Ingeniuous’ that baiscally tells the story of 11 year old Sally and friends who find a magical genie in an old bottle.
And the CBBC sketch show, I’m Sorry I’ve Got No HEad, featuring Marcus Brigstocke, David Armand and Mel Giedroyc among others doing stupid things to make kids laugh.
A little bit more Grown Up
BBC Three is going all dance mad on the run up to Christmas with ‘Balletboys’, a new version of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring making the 100th anniversary of the Ballet Russes – dance groups from all styles across the UK coming together..
There’s a film combining documentary and peformance form the Balletboys – Michael Nunn and William Trevitt.
And, something they’ve been trailing heavily – the final of Move Like Michael Jackson where dance acts get the chance to show their skills as they attempt to give some of Michael Jacksons dance moves a go.
Shakespeare and more
Patrick Stewart in the RSC production of Hamlet
BBC Two will be showing The Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Hamlet starring David Tennant.
However, it isn’t a straight filming of the stage show – this is a recreation of the stage production for television but with the same cast and crew as the stage show.
If you’ve watched the preview above you’ll see that this looks set to be something spectacular with both David Tenant AND Patrick Stewart.
High profile stuff
On BBC One there are some pretty big high profile dramas and they’re not all old fashioned costume dramas either.
There’s a couple of Casualty Christmas specials which are always good for a cry or two, there is of course the costume stuff in the form of Cranford but there’s also a new version of Day of the Triffids.
This new version of a classic will see Dougray Scott as Bill Masen and his team of survivors attempt to battle back the horror of the Triffids in their rapidly breading push to consume a newly blinded humanity.
There are two episodes of Doctor Who on Christmas Day and New Years Day that see the 11th Doctor under David Tenant make his final journey and come into contact with his psychotic nemesis.
There is John Simm, David Tenant, Bernard Cribbins, Catherin Tate, Timothy Dalton, June Whitfield and more than a few Ood.
The Gruffalo
Eastenders goes all melodramatic for Christmas as usual Gavin and Stacey will probably be pretty funny as they enjoy a holiday on the beach in Essex and what will be the real highlight in my house – The Gruffalo.
It may well have at one time been the construct of a scared mouses over active imagination but that creature from the deep dark wood with his terrible claws and terrible jaws is much loved in the Morrison household.
The the BBC is bringing the magical tale of the mouse and his nut to BBC One for Christmas complete with voices from Robbie Coltrane, James Corden, Helena Bonham Carter and many more.
There will be costumes aplenty in Cranford and other dramas
In fact here is the breakdown of who will be playing who in this most wonderful of children’s tales.
The Gruffalo himself will be played by the giant Robbie Coltrane, Mouse by James Corden, Mother Squirrel by Helena Bonham Carter and Owl by John Hurt.
But that’s not all Tom WIlkinson will be playing the charming Fox and Rob Brydon gets to play the cold hearted eating machine that is Snake. Glorious.
Comedy Christmas specials and drama
Back to normailty (or as close to normality as Christmas gets) and we’ve got Holby City, impressions from Culshaw and Stephenson the end of the series for Merlin another Christmas special for the Harper Family in My Family (set in 2039).
There’s a Christmas special for one of my favourite comedies of recent years – Outnumbered, more from The Royle Family, a series finale for Spooks a bit of Strictly and yet more costume drama.
The costume drama in question though is ‘The Turn of the Screw’ a ghost tale starring Michelle Dockery and Sue Johnston – adapted from Henry James’s novel of the same name by Sandy Welcch who also adapted Emma and Jane Eyre.
And of course a Christmas classic that, in my opinion should be all year round – Top of the Pops – presented by Fearne Cotton and Reggie Yates.
It was filmed at Television Centre, featuring performances from the biggest stars of the year and the all important Christmas Number 1.
Not that Christmas number one is particularly important given that it will either go to a charity record or the bloody X-Factor).
So there you go, Christmas television highlights from the BBC (might put them all in to a Google calendar if I get time) for the last two weeks of the year.
And to finish here is an attempt by me to write the worst piece of not particularly poetic verse I can to some up some of the stuff in the post.
Who goes for two as the Master returns
Coltrane gets tusks in the Gruffalo
As Nan does Dickens in Christmas never heard
Justin from Beebies plays a butch bird
My Family is in the future
Outnumbered watch a play
The Royle Family goes on a trip
Then Gavin and Stacey play away
Eastenders make you scream as cheer disappears
Casulaty and Holby have the cues of Christmas fear
Culshaw plays the parts as costumes get worn
Christmas on the BBC, something for one and all
Most of the BBC’s radio and television output is available on the iPlayer for at least seven days after broadcast – some of the TV is even available for download.
The iPlayer team are now introducing a number of other features like linking to a specific point and chapters – next up I’d love to see comments and ratings.
But one of the shows missing from iPlayer, a major part of the BBC Radio 4 output is Desert Island Discs – as a format there is so much you could do with it online.
But there has always been a rights issue around it as it was created in a pre-digital era by someone obviously not under a BBC staff contract.
However that problem seems to be solved with an announcement on the BBC Radio 4 blog that not only will DDI be available on the iPlayer but will also eventually be a podcast and there will be some cool web features surrounding it.
The suggestion on the original Radio 4 blog post said: “we have plans to make the website an all-singing, all-dancing affair – encouraging people to compare their choices with the choices of castaways, looking at the most selected tracks etc.”
Which all sounds brilliant – but I hope it amounts to more than just a list of people that have been on the show with details of the songs the songs and selection – that is great content but not ‘all singing and all dancing’.
That information still exists, it’s just that now you go to the /programme site for that edition of DID – which means that in theory this info exists in a data form somewhere.
So what I’d like to see is a cool web app – let me sign in with my BBC iD account, let me enter my choices (songs, book, luxury item) and then match me to the closest DID guest.
In fact this could be expanded to match me with other DID users with the data posted to my BBC iD profile page along with my iPlayer viewing et al.
And finally – on the new DID site, as well as this cool matching app, how about linking the song titles to Spotify so they can be listened to again while splitting out the music and making the interview portion available for ever.
If a link straight to spotify isn’t possible (for legal/impartial reasons) why not create a version of the Buyer’s Guide (currently being trialled with The Archers Audiobooks) and have a page for every song (tied to /music) with details of all legal online sources for that song including last.fm and Spotify.
Every year Blue Peter runs some form of Doctor Who related competition or another – whether it be to design an alien for Peter Kay to dress up as in an actual episode or to re-design the TARDIS interior.
In fact that is the most recent competition from the age old children’s magazine show – a competition to design a new look for Matt Smith’s TARDIS – at least one that will appear in an episode of the new Doctor Who.
The Blue Peter team provided all the info you need including a template, Do’s and Dont’s, a couple of example designs and even a video.
They tell the children (or the Dad’s doing the work anyway) to use the template, include notes on features, use any method you like and to use things from around the house in the design.
This is all very interesting in a number of ways – firstly it means there will be more than one console design in the new series as this only appears in one episode and more importantly – it means we’ll HAVE a new console/TARDIS design.
But the kicker here for me though is the age groups it is open to, the age groups these things are ALWAYS open to. There are three groups (and I have a child in each) the 6 and 7s, the 8, 9 and 10s and finally the 11s and 12s.
But what about the 20-30s, the 30-40s and up? What about those of us that aren’t children but still love Doctor Who, that would love to have a design used in Doctor Who – where is the competition for Grown-Ups to have a go?
I’m writing this now for two reasons 1) I’ve just realised that The Waters of Mars is on this Sunday and the competition closes on Thursday.
I’ve been very good this year and have managed to avoid more or less ALL spoilers for The Waters on Mars to the point that I didn’t realise it was on until I read a tweet.
BBC 2’s flagship entertainment based programming featuring a bit of motoring and three childish middle aged men, Top Gear, will return in just under two months and will be in HD!
I’ve resisted calling it a motoring show as it has moved away from that over the last few years, becoming a more generic entertainment show that has motoring at the heart but focuses heavily on the entertaining fringe.
Anyway, BBC HD boss, Danielle Nagler has confirmed in a BBC Internet Blog post that the shows 14th series will air on the BBC HD Channel from November 15th.
She said: “Yes, after several hundred emails from you as to why you feel Top Gear needs to make the journey from the SD to the HD world, I can confirm that the team is now working with HD cameras on the new series.”
In the past this would mean I’d need to get myself a shiny new HD tv to enjoy the series but I’m not ready to give up on my old trusty CRT 100hz flat front television yet.
However, we now live in an iPlayer world and I’ll be able to download Top Gear in 3.2 Mbps MPEG 4, 1280 x 720 , 25 frames/sec or, as I’ll be getting 8mb/second up and 650kb/s down from October – stream it.
Or there are ‘other ways‘ for those outside the UK who don’t have the luxury of iPlayer.
Everytime a public organisation comes up with what is basically a good idea, something that will provide interesting content for free for the public in an easy to use way – somebody, usually somebody running a private company – jumps up and down and screams about it hurting the ‘commercial sector’.
I can completely understand a newspaper group getting a little anxious when they’ve got a big new service ready to launch, advertising in place and then someone like the BBC, the Government or another publicly funded body launches an almost identical service with tax payers money – but how often does that actually happen.
Most of the time the excuses for objecting to a cool new public service site, channel or project is that it would stop the private company from being able to create something similar in the future – thus cutting off a potential revenue stream.
But for me that is where the argument completely falls down – in most cases the public service version would be advertising free and as the commercial version would probably be advertising funded – I don’t see where the competition is?
OK so there would be a little bit of competing for eyeballs but I like to think that people are smart enough to rely on more than one source for their news and information – I use Twitter and Facebook even though Facebook is fast becoming Twitter.
I read every major newspaper website, I read more than one blog, even if they’re on the same subject and belong to several forums covering the same subject area.
What I’m saying is – why does it matter if the BBC runs a service similar to one a commercial company might run when the commercial company will live or die by advertising revenue (charging for things on the web doesn’t work unless its a mobile app) and the BBC won’t be taking advertising?
Equally why shouldn’t a local council create a local online television service to let people know what is happening in their town if they can afford it – although if they’re cutting other services I would suggest maybe thinking again?
In fact, scrap the example above as that really just seems to be about promoting the council – what councils should really be doing, and this would help local newspapers – is filming all council meetings and then providing a feed – for free – to all the newspapers, radio stations and other media in their area.
Those media services could then broadcast that feed on their sites, cut up videos/speeches to publish with articles and even be able to properly cover local council meetings without having to send a reporter – it could just be on a TV in the background in the newsroom.
This would provide local news services with free content, would allow them to have a journalist doing something else and would hopefully encourage greater transparency in local government.
If councils have the money to launch a TV service or newspaper promoting the council – surely that money would be better spent actually covering council meetings.
In fact, maybe that is something the BBC could help fund with some of the ‘digital switchover money’ instead of giving it to ITV or other broadcasters.
It could be an extention of the digital democracy project but instead of it all being broadcast on the BBC – it could be part of BBC Parliament with a branding free feed offered to each of the relevant local newspapers, websites, blogs and radio stations.
Kevin Lewis has been working with film for the last 40 years and his passion extends beyond what you see on screen.
For Kevin his passion is as much in the nuts, bolts and water cooled appature ring as it is in the moving pictures.
For the last 15 years he has been rebuilding the 50 year old projector that now brings the prints at the Jersey Outdoor Film Festival to life.
And despite telling me it is finished, he still finds himself tweeking, playing and cleaning it every day.
The projector in question is a Westar, is 50 years old this year and is one of the last to be made in Britain.
However, after being rebuilt over the last 15 years from spare parts and with the passion of a dedicated enthusiast it bares only a passing resemblance to the one originally built during the hey day of British cinema.
Originally built to play films in a cinema, the 35mm projector is now built into an old televisionoutside broadcast truck called ‘OB2′ – Kevin wanted ‘OB1′ but two was in better condition.
And the truck itself, brought from a now defunct ITV franchise holder in the UK, gets the same level of care and attention as the project it carries around.
The ‘truck’ has now become a trailer, partly because having big metal bars makes it easier to ‘level’ when playing a film and partly because it makes it more portable.
It has been the centre piece of one of Jersey’s ‘hidden gem’ summer events.
OK so it is a bit of a stretch to call something attended by over 3,000 people ‘hidden’ but you won’t find it in the high profiles brochures or promoted in shop windows around town.
Every year Kevin brings out the ‘pearl screen’, the projector and makes use of his contacts as a former cinema owner to get the prints – so that thousands of islands and tourists alike can enjoy a film under the stars.
Despite being watched by thousands and appreciated by all, even those asking for the big grey truck to be moved, the event’s future could be in question if a sponsor can’t be found for 2010.
Kevin payed for it himself for the first four years, got a grant from Tourism after that and in the last four has found himself begging for sponsorship to keep the event going.
It would be a shame to see this great summer tradition come to an end over money. Even more so for the projector and truck that work so hard to keep its audience enthraled.
And the projector, the truck, and the screen – those vital ingredient in playing a film- they just sit there working away.
Despite technology that is nearly 50 years old they manage to keep the young, the old and everyone in between wrapped in the grip of the magic of the movies year in, year out.
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