‘Every time I see a glossy trailer on the BBC I see banknotes being shat into a burning dustbin.’
If you follow Charlie Brooker on Twitter you might have spent Saturday evening reading his 140-character rants about the wasteful cost of BBC trailers:
Last night at around 4am I got irrationally angry about how much the BBC spends on promo trails for shows.
Hadn’t even seen a trail to prompt it. It was during a conversation on a night shoot.
It’s not that the trails are bad, just that they cost so much fucking money. SO MUCH FUCKING MONEY.
I reckon the BBC could’ve made Avatar for the amount they spend on trails for shows each year.
They could definitely keep BBC4 afloat. Fuck, they could probably shoot all the BBC4 shows with a gold camera for that money.
Every time I see a glossy trailer on the BBC I see banknotes being shat into a burning dustbin.
Once turned up to record a trail for Screenwipe. Massive hangar-size studio, huge crew. Could never afford that in the show itself. Never.
To clarify: not talking about trails made up of clips from shows. I mean this sort of thing (random example):
MONEY IN A BIN:
MORE MONEY IN A BIN:
(Incidentally, I believe those last two were part of a very expensive Radio 1 campaign that never even saw the light of day, so nobody had a chance to watch Zane Lowe setting off explosive bags of flour and think, ‘I know, I’ll give Radio 1 a listen’.)
Let’s face it, he’s got a point. The BBC are threatening to close down BBC4 because of lack of funding, so when you see this somewhat indulgent approach to getting people to watch/listen to its programming it does rather stick in the throat.
What I don’t understand is why they cost so much when the programmes have relatively tiny budgets. People in TV often complain about the amount of money that sloshes around this industry, but how come they can produce an hour of TV for the price of a minute of advertising?
Surely it’s questions like this that are behind the reductions in advertising budgets. And the natural conclusion of that has to be much less cash in the industry.
Brace yourselves…
Don’t know what the BBC are like with TV but on stills the suppliers contract is beyond lousy, the pay is rubbish and they want all rights. Various trade bodies have been fighting it for years and thankfully a lot of people won’t work with them
The Radio 1 ones did air, afaik.
Grow up.
The BBC are a commercial entity.
They also use these trails to advertise their programming overseas.
The sale of which, greatly adds to our contribution to pay for it.
It’s demise is seamingly being exhaserbated by the grossly overpaid stars who have sucked at the teet for so long, they’re now calling the teet a cunt and trying to fuck it on it’s death bed.
well, i do like the trailers/teasers. but it doesnt make sense to blow money on them if other parts have to be closed down or get less because of a lack of funding. like what? no idea how they do their accounting, but i bet its all about profit centers. which doesnt really make sense to me either, btw.
Yeah, G-L, I bet they sell a fucking TON of Radio 1 overseas for loads of cash…
Are you serious?
If you used that logic, all our clients would stop advertising.
Last year the BBC made 16.4 million from selling their radio services to digital cable subscribers in the united states alone.
Use google ben. It’s amazing what you can learn.
‘Their radio services’.
Not the actual shows, then?
Sure, their stings, production, jingles, amusing SFX and all that, but I tried to Google ‘selling radio one abroad’ and nothing much came up.
Wouldn’t it be pretty tricky to sell the shows when they depend so much on the content, and topicality. How well does Chris Moyles’ Breakfast show work a day late in China or at midnight in LA?
its a matter of efficiency. creative people should be able to get something amazing out of footage. if they are hard pressed for money, they should have a fucking look where and how to reduce costs, not simply axe shit for the sake of saving money. it just doesnt make sense. it is a publicly funded fucking enterprise. the commercial end must never overtake the fucking foundation of it all. or there should ads be run. end of contributions. simple as that. and if there is money made from the fucking license fees, it is the people’s money. no right in the world to axe a fucking channel. full stop.
Cripes. Chris Moyles is well lardy. You don’t get to see that on the radio. Money well spent, I reckon. Poor horse.
I blame Vernon Kaye. Has anyone heard him on the radio? I’m so bloody glad I’m not Vernon Kaye.
Sorry. To clarify, it includes all radio shows and the generic world service, which is like a mix tape delivered with pomp and circumstance.
Interestingly, the BBC iplayer back end is used by itv and c4.
And the move to Manchester has boosted the local economy by thousands with all the bicycles and iPhones the locals can scoop up.
I do think that people like mr brooker should shut the fuck up though. He launched into a rant that he didn’t have the knowledge to back up. Just a hack whose talent lies in moaning, trying to find something to moan about. He seems to write a reactionary comment about something. If it gets a reaction, it then turns up in the guardian two weeks later. Can’t wait for his piece on the guardian being cunts for advertising. He’s like the creative who has been made redundant but is more pissed off the agency summer party still happened.
Basically. He’s a cunt.
Does nobody else think that the success of the ‘save 6Music’ campaign has something to do with threatening to close other channels?
Threaten to close something and the fan base rises dramatically etc. Cynical, but I think there is an element of truth to it – ‘well it’s not making enough money to justify itself, let’s announce that it is closing in a few week’s, and see what happens on Facebook and shit’.
The BBC campaign was held back as I recall – they only showed a few 20’s, where this is what was meant to air. It’s awesome.
http://www.roguefilms.com/directors/item/359/most-viewed/#10
those radio one ads aired as 20 second ads but the big old 90 second didn’t because although the budget wasn’t big at all it looked like the bbc had spunked aload of money on an ad so they pulled it. oh the irony
gl, brooker may be a cunt or not. i dont care. but i know i would passionately loathe any agency that would have made me redundant because of cost cutting and then has an expensive summer party going as if everything would be great. but then, im a cunt.
Well I’m sorry Mary. But the one very rarely effects the other. Especially in an agency over 75 employees.
And redundancies very rarely happen because of a lack of funds. Just a reorganising of them.
Such is life.
i thought that had been clear anyway. this is the whole point why i would loathe them. passionatley, oh yes. soulless number crunchers. such is life. they are everywhere. but then, i know for a fact that i am not alone in my disgust. such is life as well.
Ben?
OMG… they killed Benny! Need… timewastin’…stuff…real…bad