BBC Four no more?

[Gangster Octopus]

Details, details, details, It's guilt by association and they're forever tainted as far as I'm concerned. I can't even look back fondly at all those Tour de France wins.

I used to believe in better but then it turned out that nobodies like me shouldn't be allowed to experience any culture unless we pay pay pay.

Pay TV has taken major films off me for three decades, not that I care about missing blockbusters. They've deprived me of comedy programming and cricket, I haven't seen a televised match from England's top division in my house for 28 years. I used to have a working knowledge of Formula 1 (thanks to my mechanic dad's interest - it was something to watch on a Sunday afternoon), and we even could watch boxing on ITV if we felt like it. Now if some reports are to be believed, they won't allow me to take a passing interest in the six nations any more , another link with my late dad gone or going. Mind you I could deal with all of that, sort of.

Do you know how televisually deprived I've become, a few months ago I watched what I thought was a recent episode of The Simpsons, well I hadn't seen it. It turned out that the episode was 16 years old.

Once upon a time we had interesting things to watch via the license fee. We had The Wire, Larry Sanders, Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm on the BBC and The Sopranos on Channel 4. What do we have now? Endless repeats of Frasier and Everybody Love Raymond on repeat.

Then there was BBC4, they gave you Wallander, Beck, The Bridge, Montalbano, Follow The Money and Spiral. They gave us slow TV, Cold War Docs, Welsh stuff, stuff about art and music and Jonathan Meades talking about concrete. Now they want to turn that tap off.

Bollocks to the democratisation of opportunity in the market economy! In the kingdom of the bland it's 9 o'clock on ITV. Bloody hell I'm dispirited.

Good stuff.

[Arturo]

Excellent post Kowalski.

For what it's worth, I don't find myself tuning in to BBC4 as much as I used to, but I still find myself finding the odd gem be it new or a repeat. I think a lot of this scheduling will be lost forever, as I can't see BBC1 and BBC2 radically altering their line-ups to accommodate much that is abandoned.

Back in the day, my main reason for getting a freeview box was to access BBC3 and BBC4. That seems a long long time ago now.

[Ginger Yellow]

To be fair, C4 has aired some interesting stuff in recent years, both imports and (semi-) homegrown. But, yeah, I basically don't watch terrestrial TV any more. The good C4 stuff (eg Humans, Venture Bros, Rick & Morty). A couple of BBC dramas and documentaries. Very occasionally a Film Four film (still shamefully in SD on Freeview while they have a bunch of other crappy channels in HD).

[Duncan Gardner]

Kowalski quoted HMHB above. I really hope rumors of their imminent retirement are misplaced and some new songs appear.

Like others above I'd miss it but not as much as 3 or 5 years ago. Podcasts, YouTube etc fill a gap

[elguapo4]

BBC4 is losing some sympathy tonight for putting a documentary about bloody Dana as part of their Friday music programming.

[Duncan Gardner]

A little respect for yer Presidential candidate, please. This calls for a top 5

5 Something cooking in the kitchen
4 All kinds of everything
3 Please tell him I said hello
2 Yer man
1 Fairytale

[Diable Rouge]

She'll be raging you left Totus Tuus out of the mix!

[Jah Womble]

BBC4 is losing some sympathy tonight for putting a documentary about bloody Dana as part of their Friday music programming.

That was part of this weekend’s BBC (no-)Eurovision love-in.

I was on a Zoom last night so the sound was off, but I thought Nicole looked to be holding up well.

[Satchmo Distel]

Nicole's 'A Little Peace' was the only Eurovision single I ever bought. Possibly under-rated. Nicole in 2008:



Website: https://www.nicole-4-u.de/

[Fussbudget]

It was Gina G for me (I know)

[Diable Rouge]

A petition to save the station has already reached almost 34,000 signatures within 2 days.

[Satchmo Distel]

Thread title is a Proclaimers earworm.

[Various Artist]

A petition to save the station has already reached almost 34,000 signatures within 2 days.

Good work DR, thanks for sharing. Have signed, one of 37,000+ now.

[Jah Womble]

Also signed. Approaching 40,000 now.

[elguapo4]

Signed up.

[Come along, Min]

41,000 plus now but I haven't signed because the BBC is like NHS you're allowed to hate, so I will ha.

Sky Arts are showing Heimat atm. That's public service programming.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Signed.