Episode 19 Points of View

Good afternoon and welcome to Points Of View

from the new home of news and current affairs output,

New Broadcasting House.

And, for the past week,

all eyes have been on the US presidential election.

A good thing?

That's a resounding no, then.

But surely the powers that be had good reason

to send so many different faces to cover the polls?

It is a big story. We think really hard about how to cover it

and because we do so much output on television,

television services, radio services and also on the website,

we need to make sure we have a team that can do everything.

And so what we do is combine the really strong

and brilliant team in Washington, in America,

with people that we send from London.

The people that you see in the piece of output that you watch

are actually doing a lot of other things besides.

They may indeed also have been working for radio

or writing for the website.

So we think really, really hard

about the deployment and cost-effectiveness

and making sure all our people share journalism across the platforms.

In fact, we sent fewer people this year than in 2008.

Back at home and if some music fans are to be believed,

an international incident was almost triggered on Strictly

by the audience reaction to a world-renowned opera singer.

I don't think it was your fault, Norman.

APPLAUSE DROWNS OUT SINGING

APPLAUSE DROWNS OUT SINGING

Naturally, the studio audience for Strictly

is more likely to be made up of dance fans than opera fans

but it seems a spot of cross-arts courtesy wouldn't go amiss.

Now, on to the natural world. Miraculous, isn't it?

That appears to be the only word BBC1 can think to apply to it

as they launch two entirely unconnected

but eerily similar-sounding documentaries.

Nature's Miracle Babies and Miracles Of Nature.

First, the babies.

We are here in Australia

but you have Tasmanian devils. Why? Why are they here?

Well, the devils in Tasmania are doing quite badly.

They are suffering from devil facial tumour disease,

which is really spreading quite fast

and has wiped out over 80% of devils down there.

-80% now?

-Yes, that is right.

So what we are doing is building up an insurance population.

Should the Tasmanian devil get wiped out in Tasmania,

we will have a population large enough

and diverse enough to hopefully later reintroduce it to Tasmania.

On the other hand, Miracles Of Nature

was presented by petrol-head Richard Hammond,

which put the cat among the pigeons before it even started.

-Oh!

-You doing all right?

I am scared, on an Olympic scale.

-All right, have a look up to your left.

-Whoa!

There's millions! How did we get in amongst them?

Outdoing Richard Hammond in aerial acrobatics was Felix Baumgartner.

His space dive made headlines in the newsrooms last month

and made an hour-and-a-half-long documentary for BBC2 last week.

SOARING MUSIC PLAYS

And our guardian angel will take care of you.

Alarming, Ashley, spot on!

And how on earth do you film such an endeavour?

Felix's jump, we had to find ways of covering it

from every possible angle

and the most important cameras to us, in some respects,

were the cameras on Felix himself.

We had five cameras on him and it was really important

that we were able to capture the moment

when he passed through the sound barrier on him,

through his point of view.

And those cameras were the cameras that we used to illustrate

just how severe the spin and tumble was.

So just as he was about to pass through the sound barrier,

Felix lost control completely.

You see the sun spinning at an incredible rate.

You see the Earth in his visor spinning at an incredible rate.

And then, when he gets that stability back,

you see that moment where he is tracking, head down again,

the way a skydiver would want to.

And the cameras caught those moments absolutely perfectly.

A legendary achievement and, speaking of legend,

"In a land of myth and a time of magic..."

Merlin is attracting around seven million viewers

into its web of medieval intrigue each week.

EXPLOSION

Arthur!

You can't imagine that when you start a job

and it is this little show about magic down in Wales,

that it would become this phenomenon that it has done.

And five years and over 180 countries later, we are still going.

We are taking the fans who came with us from Series 1

all the way to series 5.

They have grown up with the series.

It has got tonally more darker, which hopefully will be right.

We do not shy away from, not the bloodshed,

because there is no blood but there are a lot of fight sequences

and it looks amazing.

The main thing about Merlin has always been the story

and then the CGI and all those elements come in to round that out

and give it the extra colour, the tapestry and things like that.

But it is difficult when people look at TV and they expect film.

But I think what has made Merlin so successful

is it does stand up well to that.

The CGI is incredible on this show. It really is.

Every year they get bigger and better

and it makes it really fun for us to watch and see what they have done.

I think it is really impressive, especially for a British show.

The effects are as good as you will see on American TV

and I just think that it is brilliant.

HORSES WHINNY

SNAKES HISS

It is not strictly science-fiction,

although Merlin is now making

as much use of computer-generated images

as the glossiest of Hollywood sci-fi.

But little else on the BBC offers an adult outlet

for fans of science-fiction, according to George Matthews.

Can I please ask why there are no adult science-fiction

programmes on BBC television?

We get lots of cookery, costume dramas and soap operas

but we do not get any adult science-fiction.

Doctor Who is OK but really is just for the children.

Please can we have some adult science-fiction?

There are lots of great stories out there just waiting to be

made into television programmes and films.

Now, strap yourselves in tightly.

How Safe Are Britain's Roads?

has had a far from smooth ride with viewers.

The BBC2 investigation into traffic accidents

nearly caused a few, by all accounts.

We are down to 60 but let us take her up to 70.

It is going to take a while. This is the kind of car that was around.

It is so different from modern cars

and, if I am honest, so much worse.

So, it is not just belt up but eyes front, Justin Rowlatt.

Now, subtitles have proved a valuable addition

to help viewers with hearing issues

get greater enjoyment from TV programmes.

Audio description is a similar service

designed to help those with impaired sight follow proceedings on screen.

If you are finding your television programmes are narrating themselves,

what you have probably done is turned on the audio description service -

a service for the blind and partially-sighted.

Hi, my name is Scott, and basically I am an audio describer.

It is a service primarily for visually impaired and blind people.

When no-one is talking,

we provide a commentary of what is happening on screen

to help them understand and follow the programme.

A young knight with wavy black hair

swings his sword at Arthur in the training ground at Camelot.

Well over 10% of all the programmes

on the main television channels is audio described

and that ranges from prime-time drama

to documentaries, to children's programming.

If this is a service you don't require,

there are a number of websites with information on how to turn off

and on the service, such as the BBC and the RNIB.

If you are still having difficulties, the best thing to do

is either to refer to the instruction manual for your TV or set-top box,

or to speak to your television service provider.

If it is a service you think you might benefit from,

then please do turn us on.

I hope you find it useful and enjoyable.

So, now we know.

Audio description is a valuable service

for large parts of the audience and,

if you accidentally switch yours on and don't want it,

simply switch it off. You have made a mistake.

For once, the programme-makers haven't.

However, I'm sure there are plenty of other things to comment on.

So if you want to, do write to us.

Here is the address:

YOU are also more than welcome to email. The address is:

Or you can jump on to our very lively messageboard which is at:

and you can still phone us, of course.

The number is charged as a local rate call from a landline.

Here it is for you.

Oh, and before we go, a quick apology to our weather friends

after a spot by David McIlwaine last week.

Now, as Brian Hughes and Carolyn Dee have pointed out,

there is indeed a small town called Jacksonville in South Carolina,

as well as one in Florida.

So we end where we started, in those swing states. Goodbye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd