Episode 4 Points of View

Good afternoon and welcome to Points Of View,

your chance to air your views on the TV that you've been watching -

and for some, re-watching,

because this week there has been an overwhelming sense of deja vu.

You go to BBC One...

It's a fantastic channel but during the day,

you don't want to watch it

because it's showing repeat after repeat after repeat.

Today, we're down under so let's go bargain hunting.

Five days a week, Monday to Friday, I'll sit down to watch things

that I've watched before.

'Today, we're down under so let's go bargain hunting. Yeah!'

It's annoying. It really winds you up.

You think, "I've seen this."

I know who wins, who loses.

I know who's bought this house on Homes Under The Hammer...

Lot 37 is a residential building plot with planning permission.

..from 2009.

You've seen them two or three times anyway.

Start me at 100 if you will.

You're talking about five days a week.

At 9.15, Heir Hunters - that's a repeat.

Homes Under The Hammer - another repeat.

Bargain Hunt - repeat.

Perfection - all repeats.

Saturday - not bad.

But hang on.

After Football Focus, you might get an hour of Bargain Hunt.

This happens so rarely!

Another repeat! I think it's a bit of a joke.

If you're going to deliver quality, then you've got to have originality.

And they're not doing that, are they?

Well, the whole theme of repeats is - well, how do I say this? -

one that repeats here at Points Of View. Comes up again and again.

BBCs One and Two daytime are the biggest offenders.

We're all well aware the BBC is having to make cutbacks

in the face of a freeze in the TV licence.

We'd been warned last year that BBC Two would have to show more repeats,

but how does that explain what is happening on BBC One?

Well, here is the new controller of BBC Daytime, Damian Kavanagh.

For us to be able to continue to do the distinctive programming

that we aspire to do on BBC One, we have to play some repeats.

If we didn't play any repeats, we wouldn't be able to afford to do any original drama in the afternoons.

We wouldn't be able to afford to continue doing campaigning shows.

We're very proud to be able to do event shows like Remembrance Week,

which just won an RTS award last week.

We want to be able to continue to do those

but without having repeats in the mix, or as part of the mix,

we simply wouldn't be able to afford them.

And it's not just the fact that programmes are being repeated -

they're also coming round too quickly.

On Monday, Homes Under The Hammer had a real air of familiarity about it.

So here are what today's bidders decided to buy

when they put their hands in the air.

The programme originally aired on BBC One in February last year

and was put in cold storage until last week.

It's enjoyed three airings in just five days on BBC One and Two.

..today's bidders decided to buy

when they put their hands in the air.

Is the new controller able to give guarantees that this should not be happening?

I'm happy to give a guarantee that we will endeavour to leave

at least six months between a repeat of any programme on the same channel.

However, we will repeat shows within the Sign Zone on BBC Two.

The Sign Zone now has a much more prominent slot on BBC Two

so you will see more repeats within there.

I have had a look into the example you gave about Homes Under The Hammer

and it seems that a mistake was made there.

I think the first transmission went out in February of 2012.

It wasn't repeated for 14 months,

which is quite a decent amount of time, I think, between transmissions.

However, the final episode went out again when it should've, perhaps, been another episode

and we will try and ensure that that never happens again.

But what about new shows?

Only six weeks into the job,

what plans has the new controller got for daytime?

We've got some new, exciting series coming up.

We've got The £1 House, where we'll explore the transformation of the houses sold in Stoke for £1.

We've got a series called The Specials, where we've got unique access to special constables

and the work they're doing on the streets across the UK.

We've got a series called Reunited, where we're reuniting people

whose lives have been brought together by the hand of fate and they haven't met since that day.

We are very excited about the developments and the new ideas that we have going forward

and I think there'll be a lot for the audience to enjoy on BBC daytime over the coming months and years.

Damian Kavanagh, the controller of Daytime,

and we'll watch with interest to see those changes coming through.

Now, Tuesday was St George's Day,

the national patron saint of England.

But according to some of our viewers,

you might never have known from watching the BBC.

Well, we've carried out just a little bit of research into Tuesday's programming

and we found quite a few references, actually, to the English patron saint.

And happy St George's Day.

The Chancellor chose St George's Day to address business leaders.

The Duchess was greeted by children celebrating St George's Day.

And what with it being St George's Day...

-And a happy St George's Day.

-Yes!

OK, so not exactly what you'd call wall-to-wall coverage -

more calendar references -

but you'd expect Songs Of Praise to set the record straight, wouldn't you?

Just 48 hours before the big day, there was little sign of St George.

Does he not deserve the same standing as his Celtic colleagues?

It might be a little late but...

So it seems Songs Of Praise has no intention of ignoring good old St George.

He will just be celebrated a week later than some had expected.

And by the way, that programme airs this afternoon at four o'clock, BBC One.

Now, staying with the theme of patriotism,

Wednesday's Daily Politics show got in a muddle over flags,

as one eagle-eyed viewer points out.

As a history student, I understand the importance of flags,

so I'm disappointed with the Daily Politics confusing the Bulgarian and Romanian flags.

Does the BBC need help identifying the two flags?

..1% of working-age Romanians...

I did say "eagle-eyed".

Here's what the team at Daily Politics had to say.

Yeah, and graphics - errors in graphics -

we seem to come back to again and again here.

Something else for you now.

Documentaries - is the BBC behind the times in the way it tells factual stories?

I feel really let down by the BBC over the last ten or so years

in terms of quality, but particularly documentaries.

They seem to have swapped Savile Row, in terms of quality,

for just mainstream high street.

Documentaries seem to be more focused on the presenters.

It's almost their name before the actual subject matter.

..by evolution.

I'm Egyptologist Dr Joanne Fletcher.

I feel that the BBC should be, you know, at the cutting edge.

Looking at, say, this year's 2013 Oscar-nominated documentaries, you've got stuff like

The Invisible War and The Gatekeepers

and neither of those are presenter-led.

The story takes centre stage.

Documentary is an art form - it really is -

and at the core of them there's always brilliant, brilliant stories.

But the BBC, perhaps, is letting the story take second place

to the presenters and, you know,

their preamble and their egos, really.

This isn't very professional, is it?

It's so beautiful.

You know, "My name's Kenny Swifthammer and I'm fascinated by iguanas."

I'm Margaret Mountford.

I've always been fascinated by ancient history.

You want to say,

"Just tell me the story. What's the story here? It's not really about you, is it?"

Pompeii's a bigger story than Margaret from The Apprentice.

The blast here would have vaporised a city larger than London.

I don't really want to see them, you know, flying all over the place

in a helicopter or looking rugged and windswept everywhere.

I just really want the subject matter to take centre stage, not the presenter.

I personally would just like a voice-over.

Decent script and a voice-over and lots of visuals.

Emma Swain is the BBC's person responsible.

Does she think the Beeb is out of step in its style of documentary making?

What we're trying to do is deliver range, so...

And if you look in detail at all of the films

we put out across all of the channels,

there's some fantastic author-driven, non-presented documentary,

which lots of audiences enjoy.

So I would never say, "If you want to make a non-presenter film, you can't come to the BBC."

Quite the opposite, actually.

I would say that we've got an outstanding documentary commissioning team

and people who want to make non-presented films are very, very, very welcome here.

A very good example of a documentary presenter throwing himself

into the centre of the story was BBC Two's Bill Bailey's Jungle Hero.

This is Wallace's flying frog.

It's a most amazing creature. Look at it.

It just goes to prove the old adage -

you can please some of the people some of the time...

And the Great Bear Stakeout should appease those

looking for their documentaries without presenters.

Billy Connolly narrated, but did not star in,

this story of a young mother grizzly bear,

her cub and their fight to survive in the vast Alaskan wilderness.

And while the BBC's team of bear followers seem to be getting things right,

contrary to its title, The Wright Way was doing everything wrong.

It pays us to minimise risk.

Even if no such risk exists.

The series is the latest offering from the comedy writer Ben Elton.

Some of you have even called for the series to be taken off air.

Perhaps it needs a little time to just bed in.

You push the button, the water comes out. End of.

No, Sue, not end of. Far from end of.

But it is the end for us for this week.

Next week, we are on at the same time.

By the way, we are aware of your remarks about our changing position in the schedules.

The production team is on constant alert for your comments.

Please do get in touch by post - at our new address, remember...

By phone, the number is charged as a local-rate call from any landline.

You can join the message boarders...

..or, finally, write an e-mail.

That's it for now. Bye-bye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd