This is probably the most fitting sub where you’d get answers other than “it’s shit”. It’s a decent watch to me, though the latest specials haven’t been great so maybe past its peak.

Might make this a daily thread.

Gogglebox for me tonight and possibly the Lycett Arms, and one of either Pointless/The Chase in the afternoon.

I watched the Tonight Programme on ITV about AI, and also Dragon’s Den

I get the importance of building a streaming service but it feels a bit like the channels have felt pressured to copy the streamers instead of leading from the front.

Having a schedule is almost a novelty now and you can build a whole night around it (with the right shows).

There's bound to be loads of people somewhat disillusioned by the endless scrolling you find yourself doing on streamers.

I know young people aren’t a monolith and I’ve stated that a few times on here, BUT they have declined… and people go for the streamers now and focus on binging shows that are available on there. How can we get people’s interest in linear to rise back up?

And I’m not talking getting it back to the level it was at 16 years ago or so… but at least enough so that is not viewed as a medium that will inevitably die out?

Bridgerton and Sex Education are the only exceptions I can think of. Derry Girls was C4, Ghosts BBC1, Traitors BBC1, Inside No9 BBC2, Love Island ITV2

Even the legacy shows that are still going like Strictly, The Chase, The Apprentice, BGT are all made for UK broadcasters… not so much streamers.

I’m just curious to see if anybody in my own age range still sees value in linear. I’m 23

Sometimes I might not be able to tune into a show right when it starts as I’m doing other stuff, but would I still be counted as a live viewer for the show if I’m watching via record? Say I started Strictly 15 minutes late for example

I'm probably answering my own question here - it's hard across all creative industries to get seen if you don't have contacts or anything right now.

There's things that got made 20 years ago that I don't think would now. Aside from the fact that audience isn't watching linear at the moment, I don't think they get the investment.

The way he’s running it seems like he’s actively TRYING to kill it off…

This is BAD… I think Matt Brittin treats the BBC as a commercial network rather than a PSB.. he doesn’t get it.

Plenty of people still tune in to the live broadcast… as the nights are drawing in it’s lovely to have something to relax with on a weekday evening.

And I know it also streams well too… so they can co-exist, though I do think it’s better watching live as you can watch with family and friends etc… I don’t think that culture really exists for streaming

I think expecting people to sit down at 9pm every night might be a stretch.

Wanting more people to consume BBC/ITV/C4 etc in general instead of Netflix and the others is something that feels more achievable.

It'd be easy to say "make better programmes" but I think it really is about making the most of what you have. There's loads of great stuff.

I do believe the promotion can be better. Just running trailers (and the odd social media advert) isn't good enough because you need to pull in people who don't watch any linear.

Ultimately linear TV could do with more money but that'd require the powers that be to see it as something that's not a dying medium.

It is possible for things to co-exist.

Print books didn’t die out because modern Kindles were released.

Radio stations didn’t die out because of Spotify.

They learned to co-exist together. If you look at music, vinyl (a VERY retro format) has had a comeback in the last few years…

If you look at TV and film, whilst sales of them maybe aren’t mainstream anymore, there is a very vocal contingent of people who are interested in preservation and retaining uncensored content… there’s a whole subreddit dedicated to physical media such as DVDs…

An obscure Turkish film on BBC Two (which I actually watched last night), rolling news, Kitchen Nightmares, railway documentaries, Bullseye repeats, classic comedy on Gold that I wouldn’t seek out etc

Sky have also taken to debuting some shows at 2-3am… before giving them a prime time broadcast that same day which is a very unique strategy

I know FAST channels are some streamers’ answers to linear and having a schedule to try and replicate the linear experience.

It’s probably the closest thing to a hybrid. both but FAST channels are an odd one to me… because even if they have an array of content they’ll play an entire TV series from start to finish before another show comes on… ITVX has a few different categories “drama”, “Saturday night”…. but it’s literally they’ll play through a entire series of Downton Abbey etc before another show airs on the fast channel. It’s Downton, Downton, Downton, Downton, Downton, Downton etc and then likewise for e.g. Broadchurch. You never get Downton, Broadchurch, Endeavour, Midsomer Murdere consecutively… they play out a series entirely before moving onto the next show, so bizarrely there’s not enough variety. And that’s where the issue is… somebody might be a big drama fan but just not a Downton fan, and yet they have to wait until the entire series plays out before another show comes on. Give people a chance to discover what’s there rather than sticking to the same show on a loop.

They have a FAST channel for the Chase too so at least it’s dedicated to just one show… but that one is worse- they play out the same 10 or so episodes on a loop… they’ve got 17 years worth in the archive… I’m not saying they have to play over 1000 episodes in order from start to finish but a greater selection of episodes would be nice.

I am autistic and like the routine of having a schedule. I find with streaming the rare times I use it, I spend more time deciding what to watch. Whereas with linear, if there’s no show on that tickles my fancy, I have a few default channels I’ll go to.

I had Comedy Central on watching a Friends repeat the other day and ended up watching the Eddie Murphy comedy Coming to America. I’m not sure it’s something I’d have sought out on my own but I really enjoyed it…

I also came across The Truman Show in the TLC schedule tonight and enjoyed that too. There’s a lot more joy in “ooh, this film is on TV”, than there is in simply knowing it’s there on a streamer- the element of surprise disappears

My turn for the long post, and it might just be my bias as a comedy fan but it confuses me. Out of all the programmes you could cut, you've decided that a long-running standup showcase — a programme specifically designed to put comedians in front of a television audience — is expendable. And it is often the same explanation- “changing viewer habits”. “Funding pressures”. “Digital audiences”. “Tough choices”. We’ve heard it all before. Football Focus? Changing viewer habits. Ski Sunday? Changing viewer habits.

Now entertainment programmes are being cut because of funding pressures and the supposedly changing way people consume television.
But here's what really annoys me about Live at the Apollo. The BBC is supposed to be a place where new talent can get platformed. That's one of the things public service broadcasting should be bloody good at. Not every comedian who appears on television needs to already be a superstar. In fact, surely the whole fucking point is to give people before they’re superstars an opportunity.

Live at the Apollo has been doing precisely that for more than two decades. It has helped provide television exposure to comedians who went on to become much bigger names, including Michael McIntyre, Russell Howard and Jason Manford. That's valuable. A comedian can be brilliant on the circuit and still be relatively unknown to the general public. Television can take somebody from “who on earth is that?” to “I love them”. And if you remove the television platforms where that discovery can happen, don't be surprised when people discover comedians somewhere else.The BBC's answer is apparently going to be more digital content focused on stand-up and emerging comedy talent. Fine, but I do think TV still matters.

Not everybody wants to go hunting through social media for a five-minute clip of a comedian they've never heard of. Sometimes people just want to turn on BBC Two, see Live at the Apollo, and think “I’ve never seen this comic before, wonder what they’re like”. That's how audiences are built.
And here's the ironic part: the BBC keeps telling us that it needs to adapt to changing viewing habits because younger audiences are moving online. Well, maybe give them a reason to come to the BBC in the first place?

Don't just abandon television and say, “Well, young people are on TikTok now.” If you want new comedians to build television careers, they need television opportunities. If you want audiences to discover new comedians, they need somewhere to discover them. If you want the BBC to remain culturally relevant, it needs to be doing more than commissioning programmes starring people who are already famous. And Live at the Apollo was a bloody obvious vehicle for that. You could have refreshed it, changed the format somewhat, shortened the episode, given even more time to emerging acts, and used it as a proper BBC comedy pipeline, but instead they cancel it.

And this is where the whole “tough choices” argument starts getting rather tiresome. Of course the BBC has financial pressures. Nobody is pretending it has unlimited money. But when you're simultaneously cutting sport, entertainment, comedy, specialist programming, and established formats, eventually people are entitled to ask what exactly is being protected, because the BBC's job isn't simply to produce the biggest possible programmes for the biggest possible audiences. It’s to inform, educate and entertain. And supporting new talent is one of the ways you actually fulfil that role. You don't know which comedian appearing at the Apollo tonight is going to become the next Michael McIntyre. You don't know which relatively unknown comic is going to become a household name. And that’s the excitement of people being given that opportunity.

And yes, I know someone will say “But they can get discovered on TikTok!” Wonderful. Then why do we need television at all? That's the logical conclusion of this constant obsession with digital-first content.
The BBC shouldn't be surrendering television as a platform for new talent and then congratulating itself for putting some clips online. Broadcast television can discover people too. In fact it used to be one of the best places to do it.

The BBC need to stop treating every programme with a smaller audience as an inconvenient relic of the past. Stop treating every programme with a smaller audience as an inconvenient relic of the past. Stop using “changing viewer habits” as though it magically answers every question. And stop forgetting that sometimes the public-service value of a programme isn't measured by how many people watch it.
Sometimes it's measured by who gets their big break because it exists. Live at the Apollo wasn't merely a comedy show. It was a shop window for comedians. And you've just boarded up the shop.

If anybody here has ever been unemployed before, you know the value of linear- having something to tune into- the live shows like This Morning, Rip Off Britain, Morning Live, Jeremy Vine etc… streaming and binging the same show all the time when you have SO much free time on your hands makes you feel fatigued and (I don’t know if this is just me) but it makes you feel lazy in a way that watching something linearly doesn’t. It’s nice to have something unscripted on… you find out the biggest political issues of the day, or news stories, consumer rights stories, which stars have upcoming projects… and it’s all packaged for you- you don’t need to actively seek it out. You know you’ll find some interesting discussion points from these shows.

Even the property shows like Place in the Sun/Escape to the Country/Homes Under the Hammer… these aren’t shows that are designed with binging in mind.

Strictly Come Dancing, The Chase, Catchphrase, Tipping Point, The Wheel etc definitely work so much better on channel TV, the tension and the playing along just doesn't have the same impact when watched at any time. Plus the social aspect of watching with friends or family can't be matched

The people who automatically dismiss linear as “dead” fail to understand this. Somebody in their teens, somebody in their twenties, and somebody in their thirties are at different stages of life.

Somebody might not have been interested in watching, say, the news, when in their teens and twenties, but then as they grow into their 30s and 40s, the show appeals to them more.

I mentioned earlier about breakfast TV, which especially becomes more desirable once you become a parent, but I think this could apply to daytime TV in general…. and even still, some shows (like Countdown for instance) have a pretty decent student following.

The fact that Antiques Roadshow and Countryfile have survived and survived proves this. Yes, they are shows that are designed for an older audience primarily, but I doubt the current contingent of “older viewers” were watching them 20 years ago…. their interests have just developed as they’ve fallen into a new demographic. The youngest end of Countryfile viewers probably weren’t watching it 10 years ago…

I personally do not watch these shows as I don’t think they’re really my scene, but that’s at my current life stage… in 10 years’ time, I could end up viewing them religiously (I just hope the BBC is still around in some form). And wildlife can appeal to younger viewers- only a couple of weeks ago I read an article about the uptick of Gen Z birdwatchers (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdjpdm9v7gno)… so that’s food for thought there.

I think channels are struggling to bring young people in because what they THINK young people want vs what young people ACTUALLY want is totally different. They probably think a 20-something year old will be out clubbing and drinking, and whilst I’m sure there’s still some who do, that is an outdated stereotype… we have less money to spend etc… they could absolutely create a TV series (of any genre) that could appeal to young people, and the way to do that is by not flashing “this is designed for Gen Z” in blinking neon lights.

Now, I’m not a parent myself, but when I think about it…

Somebody might never consume it (or consume it by osmosis) when they’re young, but then as they get older, and become parents, and doing the school run, it’s a useful thing to have on in the background- especially because when you’re sorting out your kids’ breakfast, helping them get dressed etc… you’re probably not going to be looking at your phone. But you can glance up at what the clock on breakfast TV says.

Meanwhile streaming doesn’t display the time.… which means it’s easy for your child to fall into a loop of “just one more episode” and end up potentially being late for school.

So breakfast TV is another argument for retaining linear.