Episode 19 Points of View

Good afternoon and welcome to Points Of View,

the place where we air your views on the TV you've been watching.

So straight to business, and a panellist on last week's

Question Time who you'd prefer not to have had to watch.

And the economist Vicky Pryce,

briefly detained at Her Majesty's Pleasure earlier this year for taking

her husband's speeding points, which she's written a book about.

APPLAUSE

Ms Pryce, who was convicted of perverting the course of justice,

was judged an unsuitable choice by some.

Well, did Vicky Pryce deserve to be given airtime?

We asked the bosses of Question Time.

They didn't want to appear on screen themselves,

but they gave us this statement.

So that is the reasoning behind Vicky Pryce.

Staying with Question Time's panel of experts,

some of you just feel the right people are not being used.

I think it is high time we had more appearances by scientists

on the panel of the BBC Question Time programme.

Between May 2010 and June 2013, we've had for example, 13 appearances

by comedians, eight by Nigel Farage, but only two by scientists.

Subjects discussed included climate change, UK energy policy,

secondary school education and international espionage.

All of these are highly technical subjects

which would benefit from some expert comment.

Here is the answer from the Question Time folks.

And before we leave Question Time, we can't not mention

David Dimbleby's latest addition. His scorpion tattoo.

He acquired it during filming

for his new maritime series Britain And The Sea,

and it even made an appearance on the Six O'Clock News.

Sir David Dimbleby says he has fulfilled a lifetime's ambition

by getting a tattoo at the age of 75.

So was the tattoo really news?

We asked the powers-that-be in the News Department.

Not to be outdone, Jeremy Paxman joined in

with the fashion for body art on Tuesday's Newsnight.

I'm back tomorrow. Until then, sleep well.

Don't worry. Points of View remains a tattoo-free zone.

No repeat performance here, I promise.

Staying with the issue of what you don't want to see on screen,

Godfrey Bloom on last Friday's Have I Got News For You

created a stink all of his own.

I think one thing I've been proud of is opening that national debate,

bongo or not bongo.

'Most of what was said probably isn't suitable for us

'at this time of day.

'The other contestants did make the MEP the butt of nearly every joke.'

I know you've said that women aren't very good drivers,

but they're much better than men at finding the mustard in the pantry.

And I wondered, was that a euphemism?

But that wasn't enough for some of you.

Next up, not so much an issue of who appears, but what doesn't appear.

And the mystery of the "now you see it, now you don't" HD channel.

When can we expect the BBC

to have fully integrated HD on regional programmes?

We have to switch channels to standard definition

to catch up on any local issues.

Viewers in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales

who watch the BBC One HD channel get everything in glorious HD.

But when it comes to their local news,

viewers in England are confronted with this -

an instruction to switch to BBC One Standard Definition.

So why are the English regions the poor cousins to the nations

when it comes to high-definition?

Good evening.

We're trying to make BBC One the best it can be,

and part of that is transferring it, moving it to be

in HD, with better picture quality.

But at the same time, one of the really important reasons

why BBC One is so good is because

it offers local programmes for your area.

The challenge that gives us is that there isn't one BBC One,

there are 18 BBC Ones.

So if we want to take BBC One to HD,

it means we have to do that 18 times over.

And it's expensive to take even one channel HD.

So the approach we've taken at the moment to balancing

giving people the benefits of HD in a way that delivers value for money

for the licence-fee payer is we've taken a phased approach.

So we started a few years ago with one version of BBC One HD

across the whole UK, and in the course of the last year we've

produced three more, so one each for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

What we're doing at the moment about it is we're working through

a plan for how we can stage our investment.

We're taking that proposal to the BBC Trust early next year,

so I hope to have more news next year.

Moving on. And the daytime drama Moving On

returned for a fifth series.

With writer Jimmy McGovern

behind the stories of life-changing moments,

This one was always going to make an impression.

Drama in daytime getting it so right for many of you,

all points noted.

But the sharper observers were watching another drama,

The Escape Artist, and noticing a problem with geography.

The charge on the indictment is that on 23 March

at a house near Overton in Kielder Forest, Scotland...

Miriam wasn't alone in spotting this one,

quite a few of you getting in touch

to complain about the forest's hop across the border.

Perhaps dramatic licence has gone just too far this time?

Plenty of drama every day on the set of the quiz show Pointless,

and we've been given a special behind-the-scenes look

at how the show is made. While there,

we took the chance to put some of your questions to the team.

Hello, I'm Alexander Armstrong and welcome to Pointless,

the quiz show where the lowest scorers are the biggest winners.

When we started, I have to say, I thought

we would do one quick series and I could always tell my grandchildren

that I presented a TV show and that might be quite fun.

Being on the 11th series of Pointless,

I think the biggest thing for me is the atmosphere in the studio.

There is a real genuine friendship between Richard and Xander.

Richard? Oh, he's not at all what he looks like on-screen.

I mean, he's a dark man.

'Alexander is a really quite...'

unhappy human being, I would say.

He's not really, he's lovely, I adore him. I hope he likes me.

Have you asked him the same question?

Over the years there have been some incredible memories.

We had the woman who was asked

who was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas in 1963.

I'm going to have to go with

assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas

was JR.

LAUGHTER

Oh, thank you, Gemma.

We get lots of praise from the programme's loyal viewers

and even some suggestions as to how things could be improved.

We put some of them to David Flynn.

We actually did used to show you the questions

in a split screen in the previous series.

What we found was that some of our viewers found it difficult

to read the information because it was too small.

So what we try and do now is make sure we cut to

the question board as much as possible during the question.

Now all our questions on Pointless

have been put to 100 people before the show.

Contestants need to find the obscure answers those 100 people didn't get.

We use an external market research company.

People who are asked the questions

don't know these questions are for Pointless.

We make sure that the questions are asked

to a cross-section of people from around Britain.

But there is one Pointless question that has many of you flummoxed.

Which is, why was the current series interrupted mid-run

by seemingly random repeats?

It's been spoilt continually for those of us who are ready

for tea-time television by showing repeats again not in sequence.

Therefore the jackpot can be 1,000 today, can be 6,000 tomorrow

and can be a different one the next day.

So people we see as returning are not returning,

they're brand-new to us viewers.

Does the BBC really think that the tea-time viewer

doesn't know from one day to the next where he's going?

We asked BBC scheduling to provide an answer to this conundrum.

Away from quiz shows, choirmaster extraordinaire Gareth Malone

is back on BBC Two on Tuesday nights.

I have a new job title.

I'm now the Director of Harmonic Integration

and Strategic Vocal Performance Officer.

APPLAUSE

And this time round, he's working for the council -

Birmingham City Council - in an attempt to find its best voices.

But along the way it became hard to ignore

the impact of the current cutbacks.

So some doubts about the added politics in the series,

but lots of praise for the singing ambition in the choir,

proving once again that there is no one view

that represents all the viewers.

We hear that again and again on Points Of View,

and in fact, that's something the BBC Trust is reflecting now.

Because this week they are launching the biggest-ever review

into BBC television, BBCs One, Two, Three and Four,

to find out whether they're delivering

in terms of quality and value for money.

I'm joined here by one of the trustees, David Liddiment. Tell us

why it's so important for the public to be involved here.

Because it's the BBC and we all pay our licence fee.

So we want to hear what licence-fee payers,

what the viewers think about the BBC television services.

And it's important because television is the most used

of the BBC's services and the BBC Trust was set up to represent

the views of the licence-fee payer.

Are you going to change anything as a result of what people say?

Can you change things?

We can make recommendations to the management.

We did at the last review around the distinctiveness of BBC Two,

and we've seen wonderful dramas like Peaky Blinders and so on,

some extraordinarily innovative, fresh and distinctive programmes,

which is one of the things the Trust has been looking for.

So yes, I think we can make a difference.

The full details of how you can get involved in this review

are on the Trust website.

And don't forget, we like to hear your views every week.

You can get in touch to give them to us in so many ways.

And we're really enjoying reading all your tweets -

the address for them @bbcpov

Until next week, when we will be putting your questions

to the BBC director-general Tony Hall, goodbye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd