Promising Start but Currently Weak. Doesn't care about viewer feedback.
Written: Oct 26 '03
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Pros: A bit more British programming than available via PBS.
Cons: Endless repeats of only a few shows. Cheezy ads. Annoying promos. Hostile to viewers feedback.
The Bottom Line: Never has lived up to its potential. Ltd programming. Endless repeats. Repetitive promos. Cheezy ads. Ignores viewer input.
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| lesleyd's Full Review: BBC America |
I got this station when I could finally get a digital cable package on AT&T now Comcast. BBCA had been out almost a year by then. I remember being upset because I had missed most of the showings of Bottom. It's hard for me to communicate how excited I was to be able to get a piece of the "real" BBC. I was hoping to see all the shows I had only read about, primarily all the oodles of historic comedy shows. But also more current shows. I also wanted to see shows aimed at the native audience so I could experience Britain as the British do, ie topical news and documentaries. At the beginning, the line ups were closer to what I was hoping for although its never been really all that I wanted to see.
Over time, however, this channel has degraded so much I hardly ever watch it anymore. This is a bigger phenomenon than you can imagine since I am a huge Anglophile. But BBCA gives one so little to watch these days - a massive amount of its programming is endless repeats of two main DIY shows called Changing Rooms and Ground Force - one is about redecorating on a budget and the other is how to transform your backyard garden yourself. These are not bad shows really but BBCA abuses them by filling up huge blocks of time slots with them day after day after weeks after months.
The channel completely alienated me, however, with the way it treated its viewers of the massively popular soap called EastEnders. In Britain, this 4 new episodes a week soap is given two showings on the day a new episode is released then a once weekly showing of all 4 episodes at once that it calls the omnibus. At first, BBCA relatively followed this format but since I work during the day, I almost always just watched the weekend omnibus. I was already a fan from it being on my local PBS although those episodes were 3 years behind. This is a soap shown around the world - it has fans it over 100 countries. Then BBCA started to restrict its showing to just the weekend omnibus making it even harder on its fans to catch it. Viewers started to complain and the BBCA started its threats to pull the show due to what it felt were weak ratings - even though it got huge feedback from viewers about the limited showings and lack of attempts by BBCA to publicize the show. This is while BBCA was simultaneously doing endless promos for the DIY shows that were on @40 times a week anyway.
Well, recently BBCA did the unthinkable and pulled Eastenders entirely from its lineup. In other words it pulled from BBCA the number one BBC program. It's also never shown Holby City which is a massive hit for BBC. At one time, they made some effort to show some of their children shows of which they have tons - now they show zero. They make no effort to show any of their huge backlog of wonderful classic comedy series - they used to have a section of programming they called Britcom which has since been pulled.
If you don't get BBCA now, I wouldn't bother. Not after at least a thorough review of their current programming. I must warn you that the trend in programming has been towards very limited amount of shows and a great deal of repeated showing of what they do show. Plus they have a very annoying repeated showing of the same promos all day long of the few shows they do air. They also have some of the most cheesy lineup of ads - many are those $19.95 ads for various "kinzu knives" type products.
BBCA had the potential to be one of the premier stations but they have instead become a very narrow niche station apparently by choice - they do not show the best of the BBC even though the product is out there.
Recommended:
No
Average Program Rating: TV G -- general audiences
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Epinions.com ID:
lesleyd
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Reviews written: 1
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