Losing programmes on the BBC.

[Russell]

In trying to distance themseves from Love Productions it looks like dear Aunty Beeb is shooting itself in the foot.   Auditions should have already taken place for the next Sewing Bee but have not, so it looks like the BBC have not commissioned another series.  I hope this is not the case but fear that it is.

Sewing Bee and Pottery Throw Down are shows that we both enjoy that are produced by Love Productions. They are harmless, non aggressive and educational programmes and I am sure provide encouragement to take up the hobby.

It would be a shame if yet more programmes are lost on the PSB channels.  It is getting to be a long list.

[citoyen]

That would be a shame. Making clothes isn't my thing but I find the challenges in Sewing Bee interesting. And I love the Pottery Throwdown, even if KBJ is a twerp.

What's the beef with Love?

And why can't the Beeb go back to making their own programmes? It's this kind of idiocy that lost them Bake Off.

[Vince]

Cookin' in a tent?

[hubner]

Is this to do with "Benefit Streets" made by Love Productions? I think the BBC should rightly distance themselves from anyone who makes stuff like that!

Or is this to with Bake Off (also made by Love Productions) being sold to Channel 4?

Anyway, it would be better if the BBC don't show these types of programmes, namely reality challenge/competition shows, which are just lowest denominator mass audience entertainment.

If they want to show have programmes about sewing, diy, pottery, basket weaving, stone carving  etc, make a proper programme about the subject itself, preferably without presenters.

[fuaran]

Sewing Bee and Pottery Throw Down are shows that we both enjoy that are produced by Love Productions. They are harmless, non aggressive and educational programmes and I am sure provide encouragement to take up the hobby.

They are not harmless. They are part of the BBCs agenda to promote a particular idea of Britishness.

[Dibdib]

Anyway, it would be better if the BBC don't show these types of programmes, namely reality challenge/competition shows, which are just lowest denominator mass audience entertainment.

Define "better".

(click to show/hide)

This seems to be a reoccurring cliche on yacf whenever television programming on the BBC comes up, that they shouldn't be "wasting licence fee money" on "lowbrow" shows. It's, almost without exception, "waaaa they're making things I don't like and I don't understand why so many people like them", as if the people who do should be expected to justify themselves.

rant over.

[Ruthie]

You mean there's no sewing bee this year?! But I love Sewing Bee 

[Legs]

(click to show/hide)

This seems to be a reoccurring cliche on yacf whenever television programming on the BBC comes up, that they shouldn't be "wasting licence fee money" on "lowbrow" shows. It's, almost without exception, "waaaa they're making things I don't like and I don't understand why so many people like them", as if the people who do should be expected to justify themselves.

rant over.

Indeed.

[orienteer]

TV companies seem to be adopting the same cliched concept of programmes which deliberately set out to humiliate participants, a very negative approach to life. I don't watch any of them.

I prefer programmes which both entertain and educate, but I guess that costs more.

[Ruthie]

Sewing Bee doesn't humiliate anybody! It's lovely and life-affirming and educational

[citoyen]

I prefer programmes which both entertain and educate, but I guess that costs more.

Unfortunately, these days the BBC needs to chase ratings to justify its existence in the eyes of the Tory ideologues who are driven by the anti-BBC agenda of the Daily Mail and Murdoch.

And Ruthie is right - there's nothing humiliating about the Sewing Bee.

I didn't know the same company makes Benefits Street but I guess the company wouldn't make these programmes if there weren't a market for them - and you can't hold that one against the BBC anyway.

I didn't realise it was the same company that makes Bake Off as well, but that sounds a likely explanation for the BBC not recommissioning Sewing Bee.

[rafletcher]

Well at least the Pottery Throwdown made it under the wire, as it's also a Love productions production.

[Legs]

TV companies seem to be adopting the same cliched concept of programmes which deliberately set out to humiliate participants, a very negative approach to life. I don't watch any of them.

I prefer programmes which both entertain and educate, but I guess that costs more.

This much is clear.  Three of the four programmes mentioned on this thread (Benefits Street is, I think, the exception), are quite charming.  fuaran must be on glue to think that there's anything sinister about Auntie promoting people indulging in healthy middle-class pastimes. 

[LEE]

Sewing Bee doesn't humiliate anybody! It's lovely and life-affirming and educational

But is there a dramatic pause, before they point at the worst person in the room?

There's usually a mandatory sense of jeopardy, even when it's a show about Cup Cakes or Hemlines.

[fuaran]

This much is clear.  Three of the four programmes mentioned on this thread (Benefits Street is, I think, the exception), are quite charming.  fuaran must be on glue to think that there's anything sinister about Auntie promoting people indulging in healthy middle-class pastimes. 

But why does it have to be about how fucking great it is to be British? Complete with Union jack bunting and celebrating the queen.
At the same time as the BBC 'news' reporting picking sides in the referendums, it is clearly part of a wider campaign.

[Kim]

This much is clear.  Three of the four programmes mentioned on this thread (Benefits Street is, I think, the exception), are quite charming.  fuaran must be on glue to think that there's anything sinister about Auntie promoting people indulging in healthy middle-class pastimes. 

But why does it have to be about how fucking great it is to be British? Complete with Union jack bunting and celebrating the queen.

Perhaps that makes the programme more saleable abroad, as well as pandering to a certain Little England stereotype.

[citoyen]

But why does it have to be about how fucking great it is to be British?

Eh? If it is, that went right over my head.

Complete with Union jack bunting and celebrating the queen.

Mary Berry is not the Queen!

At the same time as the BBC 'news' reporting picking sides in the referendums, it is clearly part of a wider campaign.

OK, now you're in full tinfoil hat territory.

[citoyen]

Perhaps that makes the programme more saleable abroad, as well as pandering to a certain Little England stereotype.

Yeah, I thought the bunting and marquee and all that was just a trope.

[Ruthie]

Sewing Bee doesn't humiliate anybody! It's lovely and life-affirming and educational

But is there a dramatic pause, before they point at the worst person in the room?

There's usually a mandatory sense of jeopardy, even when it's a show about Cup Cakes or Hemlines.

But it's a competition    Working by elimination.  How else are you supposed to do it? 

[LEE]

Sewing Bee doesn't humiliate anybody! It's lovely and life-affirming and educational

But is there a dramatic pause, before they point at the worst person in the room?

There's usually a mandatory sense of jeopardy, even when it's a show about Cup Cakes or Hemlines.

But it's a competition    Working by elimination.  How else are you supposed to do it?

Reduce the pause, before they tell someone to Eff-Off, to under 20 seconds?

I think it was probably X-Factor that introduced the unfeasibly long pause and it seems to have stuck as the way these things are done now.

[Kim]

I think it was probably X-Factor that introduced the unfeasibly long pause and it seems to have stuck as the way these things are done now.

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire was doing it, around the time I stopped^[1] watching live TV.  X-Factor came later.


_{[1] This makes me sound like a snob, but I was a Penniless Student Oaf without access to a proper aerial.  I did however have a housemate with an aerial and long working hours who would pass on his VHS recordings of the week's decent programmes before re-using the tapes, which turned out to be a really good way to watch telly.}

[Mr Larrington]

While I personally should rather be cast through a quick-set hedge than watch any of the programmes referenced in this thread - lacking as they are in explosions, car chases, killin's and D Attenborough - this does not the BBC should stop commissioning them.

[Kim]

Except for the ones made for ITV, of course

[Torslanda]

Cookin' in a tent?

Long Itch Live? The weekend adventures of a bunch of semi-derelict cyclists in a pub field. Group drinking, quadrophonic snoring. What's not to like?

There's a Spring AND a late Summer edition. Somebody needs to pitch this to Discovery . . .

[Cudzoziemiec]

Long Itchers do it like they do on the Discovery Channel? Let's just hope not...