A friend of mine has recently created a new television pilot - called Naked Bridge, and I think it's going to be a very interesting programme. It's called what? Here's some more information:
"The concept of the television pilot is to get bridge on TV. This wasn’t a simple thing to do. Bridge is not an easy game to pick up, and to do this in a 30 minute show is no easy task However, Matthew Baylis – the deviser and host – came to us with an excellent idea of how we could manage it. As Matthew says, “…I wanted something that shows bridge in a really positive light and had happy, smiling people enjoying themselves. My own view is that previous attempts at television programmes have tended to be a bit stuffy and formal. The other thing I wanted was to draw in as big an audience as possible. It needed to be clear enough so that new players would be able to follow it and yet interesting enough for more experienced players to enjoy.”
To make sure we managed this, we have a commentary by Andrew Robson, professional graphics and a tone that is light, friendly and welcoming. However, there is still an air of tension in the play – just like you get in a club. Mostly it was important to see the players’ faces, which means the viewer gets to share in that smug moment when things go well and the anxious looks when things are going horribly wrong…."
Tuesday 27 January 2009
TV Quiz Shows
Over the last nine or so years, the TV Quiz show world has exploded into a supernova of new and original formats as well as old but tweaked formats.
One of the first major quiz shows to hit British Television was ITV’s ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’ back in 1998. This type of programme, basing itself on the art of suspense rather than a time frame, was a particularly new concept which took off phenomenally well- it has now broadcast in over 100 countries and even featured in the recent film ‘Slumdog Millionaire’.
On the 14th of August 2000, The Weakest Link first appeared on British Television, another concept to sell worldwide. This format of TV Quiz show was an instant hit as it pitted both time and pressure on its contestants as well as the fear that if they got a question wrong, they faced a vote-off from each other, not to mention Ann Robinsons inquisitive wrath. The Weakest Link is iconic because it is a quiz show in which one must have some form of intelligence to take part and it is not a show in which the contestants win a great deal of money. This insures, unlike Millionaire, that the contestants are serious about playing the game, and although the money may help, it isn’t the only incentive to win.
However, jumping a few years forward to today’s programming and in particular contemporary TV Quiz shows, one could argue the formats have begun to become slightly less catchy, slightly lazy and often rely more on the wit of the presenters or guests rather than the format or questions to push the show along. An example of this, yet controversial, is ‘Deal or No Deal’. Now, this programme has done remarkably well and has brought in huge revenue for its broadcaster and essentially re-launched Noel Edmunds back into the spotlight (good or bad as that may be) however, when one analyses the format of the show, it is simply a case of luck, fate and the presenter talking to himself down a fake telephone. The reason the audience is hooked on such a quiz is not because of its great and original concept; it is merely based on human nature and our natural curiosity to see what happens.
Dave, a Freeview channel essentially run by BBC Worldwide, makes up a lot of its broadcasting schedule from the Quiz show genre. These shows are Mock the Week, 8 out of 10 Cats, Q.I, Never Mind The Buzzcocks, and most recently, in 2008 their own quiz called Argumental, and in case you haven’t seen this, it is a quiz show/comedy panel argument show that uses all the same panellists one can find on the other above mentioned quizzes – personally, not that original.
One often finds that the same panalists do the rounds of the TV Quiz shows as it is themselves that often make the show interesting rather than the content. For example, you may be watching Never Mind The Buzzcocks on BB2 and Phil Jupitus is a panel guest, you then switch over to BBC One once its finished to catch a bit of Q.I and, low and behold, Phil Jupitus is a panel guest on that too.
A debate that came up recently in a University lecture of mine was whether Never Mind The Buzzcocks has moved from being a quiz show with some chat to a chat show with some quiz? You can decide on that one.
I would put a pretty safe bet on that over the next 2 years there will be a huge rise in TV Quiz Shows and the panel guest formats. Why? Because with the recession in progress and producers and broadcasters cutting jobs and funding each and every day, have a guess at what the cheapest format/genre of programming is to make – yes that’s right, TV Quiz Shows.
One of the first major quiz shows to hit British Television was ITV’s ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’ back in 1998. This type of programme, basing itself on the art of suspense rather than a time frame, was a particularly new concept which took off phenomenally well- it has now broadcast in over 100 countries and even featured in the recent film ‘Slumdog Millionaire’.
On the 14th of August 2000, The Weakest Link first appeared on British Television, another concept to sell worldwide. This format of TV Quiz show was an instant hit as it pitted both time and pressure on its contestants as well as the fear that if they got a question wrong, they faced a vote-off from each other, not to mention Ann Robinsons inquisitive wrath. The Weakest Link is iconic because it is a quiz show in which one must have some form of intelligence to take part and it is not a show in which the contestants win a great deal of money. This insures, unlike Millionaire, that the contestants are serious about playing the game, and although the money may help, it isn’t the only incentive to win.
However, jumping a few years forward to today’s programming and in particular contemporary TV Quiz shows, one could argue the formats have begun to become slightly less catchy, slightly lazy and often rely more on the wit of the presenters or guests rather than the format or questions to push the show along. An example of this, yet controversial, is ‘Deal or No Deal’. Now, this programme has done remarkably well and has brought in huge revenue for its broadcaster and essentially re-launched Noel Edmunds back into the spotlight (good or bad as that may be) however, when one analyses the format of the show, it is simply a case of luck, fate and the presenter talking to himself down a fake telephone. The reason the audience is hooked on such a quiz is not because of its great and original concept; it is merely based on human nature and our natural curiosity to see what happens.
Dave, a Freeview channel essentially run by BBC Worldwide, makes up a lot of its broadcasting schedule from the Quiz show genre. These shows are Mock the Week, 8 out of 10 Cats, Q.I, Never Mind The Buzzcocks, and most recently, in 2008 their own quiz called Argumental, and in case you haven’t seen this, it is a quiz show/comedy panel argument show that uses all the same panellists one can find on the other above mentioned quizzes – personally, not that original.
One often finds that the same panalists do the rounds of the TV Quiz shows as it is themselves that often make the show interesting rather than the content. For example, you may be watching Never Mind The Buzzcocks on BB2 and Phil Jupitus is a panel guest, you then switch over to BBC One once its finished to catch a bit of Q.I and, low and behold, Phil Jupitus is a panel guest on that too.
A debate that came up recently in a University lecture of mine was whether Never Mind The Buzzcocks has moved from being a quiz show with some chat to a chat show with some quiz? You can decide on that one.
I would put a pretty safe bet on that over the next 2 years there will be a huge rise in TV Quiz Shows and the panel guest formats. Why? Because with the recession in progress and producers and broadcasters cutting jobs and funding each and every day, have a guess at what the cheapest format/genre of programming is to make – yes that’s right, TV Quiz Shows.
Monday 26 January 2009
2008 Round Up
It has been a very turbulent year for television in 2008. It has seen very stringent rules put in place and many top industry professionals lose their job for being in the wrong place at the right time – the wrong place being in Television and the wrong time being 2008.
Ofcom, the television regulator, has become much more aggressive over the way they monitor television output leading to producers cutting out perfectly good footage because they have become scared of sparking Ofcom complaints. It would be hard to imagine now, but I would take a guess that if ‘Little Britain’ were to be released now as a new TV Show, it wouldn’t get past its pilot episode.
This spark of tip toeing around the industry has been created from some disastrous scandals that have come to light over the last few years, starting with the money scam phone-in scandal in which some of Britain’s best loved TV programmes such as ‘This Morning’, ‘Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway’ and ‘Match of The Day’ led to being either taken off air for a period of time or suspending on air competitions. At this very point, the audience began to lose to faith in the big broadcasters such as the British Broadcasting Corporation and ITV.
To follow the phone-in scandals was Queensgate. In this case, the editors of a documentary following the Queen at her royal residence edited a trailer in the order of A C B instead of the natural A B C. This lead the viewers to be falsely misguided into thinking the queen had stormed out of a photo shoot in Buckingham Palace, where in actual fact, the footage was from a completely separate incident. However, this was a step to far for the BBC thinking they could mess with Royalty, and on October 5th 2007, the controller of BBC One resigned.
The turmoil of the BBC continued and in 2008, Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand upset the wrong person live on air on their Radio 2 programme. This controversial move, which, should never have been broadcast as it was pre-reordered, led to Ross being suspended of ALL his TV and Radio commitments, Brand resigning and moving to LA and on 30th October 2008, the shock resignation of well loved Radio 2 controller Lesley Douglas.
The BBC re-trained ALL of its journalists with a teaching programme that literally taught them the basic Do’s and Don’ts of making television. This training programme led to BBC Jersey’s newsroom re-think the way it did its lunchtime broadcast. In the past, BBC Jersey use to record news inserts and then, in edit, put a ‘live’ sign on the footage and inserted it into the news programme to look like the news anchor was talking ‘live’ to the journalist. Now it MUST be live, no added graphics that may be considered to intentionally mislead the audience.
Moving away from the woes of the BBC, ITV has not seen its best year in 2008. Over the past 5 years, ITV has been losing revenue and viewers alike. In 2003, since broadcasting from 1983, CITV moved from the morning slot on the main ITV channel to its own digital channel, losing money and viewers. CITV offices were moved out of ITV Granada in Manchester, along with Factual and a lot of postproduction offices. In 2008, ITV also announced it was planning to cut its regional news output, cutting down from 17 newsrooms to just nine. Although
it will economically help and even save ITV from failing as a broadcaster, it will not continue to provide valuable news to small communities which is what regional news strives to be.
The recession hasn’t helped Channel 4 either who are currently in talks with Five about a merger. This would secure high-end output at a cost-effective price, however, as yet, nothing has been confirmed with the BBC calling the move ‘ridiculous’.
2008 also saw the biggest rise in return of reality TV shows than any other year from 2000. For fun, William Hill bookies have a bet running that says X-Factor will have Christmas No.1’s for the next 10 years!!
2009 seems to be the year of bring backs, with channels re-writing past shows that proved hits with the audience. For example, FIVE have brought back ‘Minder’ and ITV have brought back ‘Krypton Factor’.
2006 saw the end of long running BBC show Top of the Pops. This was due to the ever-increasing demand of online content and illegal downloads taking place. The rise of technology saw the end to Top of The Pops, however, it has a positive effect on television today as Hi-Definition cameras are in many studios and location productions, which improves the quality of the programme no end. Producers strive to make the best programmes in Hi-Def such as Plant Earth and with the technology getting better, the productions will continually to improve in quality.
Ofcom, the television regulator, has become much more aggressive over the way they monitor television output leading to producers cutting out perfectly good footage because they have become scared of sparking Ofcom complaints. It would be hard to imagine now, but I would take a guess that if ‘Little Britain’ were to be released now as a new TV Show, it wouldn’t get past its pilot episode.
This spark of tip toeing around the industry has been created from some disastrous scandals that have come to light over the last few years, starting with the money scam phone-in scandal in which some of Britain’s best loved TV programmes such as ‘This Morning’, ‘Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway’ and ‘Match of The Day’ led to being either taken off air for a period of time or suspending on air competitions. At this very point, the audience began to lose to faith in the big broadcasters such as the British Broadcasting Corporation and ITV.
To follow the phone-in scandals was Queensgate. In this case, the editors of a documentary following the Queen at her royal residence edited a trailer in the order of A C B instead of the natural A B C. This lead the viewers to be falsely misguided into thinking the queen had stormed out of a photo shoot in Buckingham Palace, where in actual fact, the footage was from a completely separate incident. However, this was a step to far for the BBC thinking they could mess with Royalty, and on October 5th 2007, the controller of BBC One resigned.
The turmoil of the BBC continued and in 2008, Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand upset the wrong person live on air on their Radio 2 programme. This controversial move, which, should never have been broadcast as it was pre-reordered, led to Ross being suspended of ALL his TV and Radio commitments, Brand resigning and moving to LA and on 30th October 2008, the shock resignation of well loved Radio 2 controller Lesley Douglas.
The BBC re-trained ALL of its journalists with a teaching programme that literally taught them the basic Do’s and Don’ts of making television. This training programme led to BBC Jersey’s newsroom re-think the way it did its lunchtime broadcast. In the past, BBC Jersey use to record news inserts and then, in edit, put a ‘live’ sign on the footage and inserted it into the news programme to look like the news anchor was talking ‘live’ to the journalist. Now it MUST be live, no added graphics that may be considered to intentionally mislead the audience.
Moving away from the woes of the BBC, ITV has not seen its best year in 2008. Over the past 5 years, ITV has been losing revenue and viewers alike. In 2003, since broadcasting from 1983, CITV moved from the morning slot on the main ITV channel to its own digital channel, losing money and viewers. CITV offices were moved out of ITV Granada in Manchester, along with Factual and a lot of postproduction offices. In 2008, ITV also announced it was planning to cut its regional news output, cutting down from 17 newsrooms to just nine. Although
it will economically help and even save ITV from failing as a broadcaster, it will not continue to provide valuable news to small communities which is what regional news strives to be.
The recession hasn’t helped Channel 4 either who are currently in talks with Five about a merger. This would secure high-end output at a cost-effective price, however, as yet, nothing has been confirmed with the BBC calling the move ‘ridiculous’.
2008 also saw the biggest rise in return of reality TV shows than any other year from 2000. For fun, William Hill bookies have a bet running that says X-Factor will have Christmas No.1’s for the next 10 years!!
2009 seems to be the year of bring backs, with channels re-writing past shows that proved hits with the audience. For example, FIVE have brought back ‘Minder’ and ITV have brought back ‘Krypton Factor’.
2006 saw the end of long running BBC show Top of the Pops. This was due to the ever-increasing demand of online content and illegal downloads taking place. The rise of technology saw the end to Top of The Pops, however, it has a positive effect on television today as Hi-Definition cameras are in many studios and location productions, which improves the quality of the programme no end. Producers strive to make the best programmes in Hi-Def such as Plant Earth and with the technology getting better, the productions will continually to improve in quality.
Friday 23 January 2009
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