back to article The Great Unwatched: BBC hails glorious digital future for Three

The BBC's director general Tony Hall hailed a great digital future for the little-watched terrestrial channel BBC3 today. The BBC wants to move it to the internet to save money, and has submitted the proposals for rubber-stamping by the BBC Trust. The channel's budget has been cut from £55m to £30m, but TV programme …

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  1. Ralph B

    Small Correction

    "Little Britain" was originally on Radio 4.

  2. Snorlax Silver badge

    Dunno What They're Spending £55m On...

    It's handy for a bit of late night Family Guy or American Dad, but the rest of its programming is utter toss - Don't Tell The Bride, Barely Legal Drivers, etc

    It's like Channel 4 for teens... And it somehow costs £55m per year?

    1. Don Dumb
      Coat

      Re: Dunno What They're Spending £55m On...

      "It's like Channel 4 for teens"

      So like Channel 4 then?

    2. sabroni Silver badge

      Re: It's handy for a bit of late night Family Guy or American Dad

      Yeah, like a shotgun is handy for shooting yourself in the face. Those two are starting to make the endless re-runs of "Two Pints of Lager" seem bearable...

    3. jason 7

      Re: Dunno What They're Spending £55m On...

      @snorlax

      The funding for BBC3 goes like this -

      £5 million to 'original' content.

      £50 million to Seth McFarlane and Fox.

  3. Irongut

    The sooner they kill BBC3 the better. If you've ever watched it you know why.

    For every Gavin & Stacy there are a million Don't Tell the Bride, Sun Sex & Suspicious Parents and 'documantaries' presented by naive young female journalists who pretend its a shock to them that some people are poor before busrting into tears.

    If we could axe ITV (all channels) too the quality of British television would increase by an order of magnitude.

    1. returnmyjedi

      Zombie drama with brains (brainssss!) In The Flesh was of a surprisingly high standard, and Our War was rather good also. But yes, BBC Three's output is mostly complete toss on toast.

    2. Wibble

      What about the Top Gear and Dr Who repeats*. BBC3 is useful for that. Similarly for some specials.

      And Bluestone 42

      And In The Flesh

      *Some of us live in a bandwidth blackspot so can only dream of iPlayer working.

      1. montyburns56

        Yeah, if it wasn't for BBC3 you'd never be able to see repeats of Top Gear

    3. Chris Miller

      Yet, as Andrew mentioned, there are occasional nuggets. Our War and Bluestone 42 for me, no doubt others will have different opinions. I don't know how much you have to pay for basic channel + HD bandwidth on Freeview, is that where the savings are coming from?

    4. Eponymous Cowherd

      CBBC

      You know there is something wrong with a supposedly "adult" channel like BBC 3 when a kids channel (CBBC) churns out better content than it does.

      Hell, even most of Cbeebies content it highbrow compared to Don't tell the Barely Legal Suspicious Parents.

      I guess the bottom line is that when Channel 4, Channel 5 and a large amount of ITV content is puerile shite, there is no real benefit in the licence funded BBC doing the same.

      1. MJI Silver badge

        Re: CBBC

        CBeebies

        And before it was wrecked, Bob the Builder (Neil Morrisy version).

        Their Christmas special was once the highlight of the day.

    5. 's water music

      For every Gavin & Stacy there are a million Don't Tell the Bride, Sun Sex & Suspicious Parents and 'documantaries' presented by naive young female journalists who pretend its a shock to them that some people are poor before busrting into tears.

      Almost as egregious , for every Gavin & Stacy there is a Gavin and Stacey

    6. DPWDC

      I agree with the sentiment, but I don't think removing a channel and replacing it with yet another +1 service is the answer.

      If their reasoning is that people don't watch TV in the same way any more, surely the +1 channels should be first for the chop!

      1. Kubla Cant

        Presumably a +1 channel is cheap, as there's no additional editorial cost. The programs on BBC3 may look like they cost nothing, but it's still the more expensive option.

        I don't watch commercial channels much because I find it annoying when programmes are interrupted for ads. I was horrified to discover that BBC3 interrupts films with non-ad breaks in which some witless totty recites "news" about "celebrities". The sooner they close it the better.

      2. Boothy
        FAIL

        @ DPWDC

        +1 for the, errm, +1 comment!

        +1 channels served their purpose back in the early days of Satellite, Cable and Digi TV days, when people either didn't have a DVR, or if they did, it was a single channel affair,

        But now that time-shifting DVRs with 2 (or more) concurrent channels, are common place, even pretty much standard equipment these days, then there really is no purpose to these +1 channels now, and if you did miss an episode of something, it's likely to turn up on the relevant on-demand service soon enough anyway!

        I've no real issue with them existing on Satellite and Cable, as they have the bandwidth to carry them along with 100s of other (mostly worthless) channels, but digital terrestrial has a very limited bandwidth, so personally I think using that space for a +1 is not just waste of available bandwidth, it aught to be outlawed outright.

        So use the space for something useful, new content, or an additional HD channel, don't waste it on a +1!

    7. JDX Gold badge

      "a million Don't Tell the Bride, Sun Sex & Suspicious Parents and 'documantaries'"

      What part of "reaches outside the middle classes" didn't you understand? Lots of people like this dross, it's the TV equivalent to reading The Sun. I think it's puerile and stupid but that doesn't mean it shouldn't exist, because I am not everyone.

      1. Eponymous Cowherd

        Re: "a million Don't Tell the Bride, Sun Sex & Suspicious Parents and 'documantaries'"

        Yes, but this kind of shite "lowest common denominator" output is done to death by the other terrestial channels. What added value does the BBC offer by doing it too?

        Anyone who wants to can still get their fill of as much fly-on-the-wall reality shite as they want once BBC 3 has gone from a hundred other channels.

        Compare this with if the BBC had decided to scrap BBC 4 instead.

      2. Jove Bronze badge

        Re: "a million Don't Tell the Bride, Sun Sex & Suspicious Parents and 'documantaries'"

        Only if the viewers are paying for it, which is not apparent from the current model.

  4. dogged

    The only thing genuinely worth watching they ever had was Monkey Dust anyway.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Erhmm.

      Mongrels.

      1. Ben Tasker

        Re: Erhmm.

        Yup, to be honest, for all intents and purposes BBC Three was axed for me when they axed mongrels.

        Occasionally I'll watch a bit of American Dad or Family Guy, but other than that I don't really see the loss.

    2. Snivelling Wretch

      Ooh, I'm going to have to dig out my DVD now! Also I am not an Animal and Mongrels, if memory serves.

      1. returnmyjedi

        Mongrels was on Three, but Animal was originally broadcast on BBC Two.

    3. Zippy's Sausage Factory

      Monkey Dust is excellent. Got the first series on DVD and I keep moaning on their FB page about the lack of series 2 & 3 on DVD but no dice (so far)

      1. Richard Ball

        monkey dust

        Monkey dust is indeed superb. I bought a DVD on eBay containing slightly dodgy quality files of series 2 and 3. Even though it represented £4.50 of free money for whoever sold it to me, it felt like £5 well spent.

        (I know it must all be downloadable somewhere - I just couldn't be arsed to find out where and how.)

    4. Alfred

      And Mongrels.

    5. This post has been deleted by its author

    6. Zog_but_not_the_first
      Thumb Up

      Yes, indeed. Monkey Dust - inventive, satirical, dark and funny.

      However, under "New Truth"...

    7. a cynic writes...

      eh...Bluestone42?

      ...and yes Mongrels and half a dozen other things that 20 years ago would have been on BBC2 at 9pm - opposite the 9 (where it should be)o'clock news.

    8. strum

      Orphan Black

  5. Yugguy

    Only Connect

    OC started on BBC3. And I like it.

    But now it's on BBC2 so feck BBC3.

    1. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: Only Connect

      Dear gods, if the lovely Victoria Coren-Mitchell ever gets wind of that, you're a dead man.

      Only Connect started on BBC4, which is an entirely different proposition and worth the licence fee all on its own.

      GJC

    2. Don Dumb
      FAIL

      Re: Only Connect

      @Yugguy - "Only Connect...started on BBC3."

      Nope, it was BBC4

    3. MJI Silver badge

      Re: Only Connect

      BBC4

      Not 3

    4. returnmyjedi

      Re: Only Connect

      Only Connect originated on BBC Four, I think you'll find.

    5. gazthejourno (Written by Reg staff)

      moderator note

      Thanks to the 94,000,000 of you who wrote in to point out the origins of Only Connect, we think Yugguy's probably got the point now.

      1. Yugguy

        Re: moderator note

        LOL.

        Indeed.

        She is lovely though I'll give them that.

    6. Andy Mc

      Re: Only Connect

      Goodness me, if there's anything more awkward and painful to watch on TV than Only Connect then I've (fortunately) yet to suffer it. Can't we switch OC onto BBC3 before that gets switched off, oops sorry, online and take the insufferable programme with it.

      1. Jediben

        Re: Only Connect

        I sat through the excruciating episode last night between the Linguists ("Oh, how cunning!") and the Gallifreyans (sweet Jesus... one of them flew 6000 miles for a first date which should tell you something) and the ridiculous affectations they have implemented to try and make the show seem more intellectual than it is ("Ooh I'll pick the Eye of Rah please, no wait the Horned Asp" - fuck off, it's numbers 1-6 you bell ends) rather than a glorified guessing game are purely there to make what could be over in 12 minutes last 28. It's no better than Noel Edmunds and his red boxes of bollocks. Scrap it!

        1. Yugguy

          Re: Only Connect

          Part of the fun of watching OC is the same as that as watching The Apprentice.

          You get to have a good laugh at a lot of poor unfortunate bastards.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Only Connect

          Intimidated by intelligent women much?

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Only Connect

          You've missed it's one redeaming feature:- Victoria Coren-Mitchell. Actually she probably counts for more than one.

  6. riksweeney

    BBC 3 is a pretty good test bed for new programming. The life cycle generally goes like this

    First airs on BBC 3. Proves to be very popular.

    Moves to BBC 2. Ratings continue to improve.

    Gets promoted to BBC 1. The Daily Mail gets wind of it and complains that it's puerile.

    Show is cancelled.

    Seriously though, they're going to replace BBC 3 with a +1 channel for BBC 1? The BBC has always been very keen on promoting the iPlayer for catch up.

    1. Hopalong

      To be honest, a BBC 1 +1 will be of more use to a big section of the population than BBC 3. I am thinking of those with out access to iPlayer. The BBC 3 target audience are much more likely to be on the interweb.

      1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

        BBC Choice

        That was the original name of what became BBC3. It used to show time-shifted repeats of the best of the other BBC channels, except when Glastonbury was on when it was pretty much full time coverage.

        So, having BBC1+1 is almost like going back to it's roots.

        And remember, significant numbers of people who were early smart TV and BluRay player adopters have recently been deprived of iPlayer when the BEEB decided to re-work the UI to make it incompatible with older devices.

  7. Mike Taylor

    Meanwhile, the rest of the world kids into Netflix and wonders why that's not better than regular tv

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      take away all the TV programmes made for "regular TV" and there'd be nothing to watch on Netflix.

      1. Havin_it

        >take away all the TV programmes made for "regular TV" and there'd be nothing to watch on Netflix.

        That's less true by the day. The recent House of Cards remake was commissioned by and aired exclusively on Netflix, and I gather that did reasonably good business (especially on Capitol Hill, indeed). They and LoveFilmAmazon are commissioning lots of original content now.

  8. MJI Silver badge

    BBC 3 or BBC 7

    I stopped watching for two reasons.

    1) The logo was bloody irritating

    2) The programmes were poor

    Prefered BBC Choice

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