But surely POV has always been bit of a joke. One of my favourite NTNON sketches is the POV parody. Look at the people who have presented it in the past - Took, Robinson, Vorderman (didn't Searle to a stretch or did I dream that?) none of them known for their incisive wit and probing questioning.

Channel Four is the only channel who managed to make a reasonable attempt to make programme makers accountable for their output. Even in the case of RtR it tends to be filled with whining minorities who have been offended for one reason or another. Still, beats proles writing in smug tones about spotting continuity errors in Eastenders.

If you think the people who eventually appear on R2R are bad then you should check out the forum where they source the majority of their complaints from. At the moment Channel 4 are being accused of being:

Racist (anti-white)
Racist (anti-black)
Anti Semitic
Biased towards Jews
Anti Moslem
Pro Moslem

And that's just in the serious threads. The majority are people complaining about Angel being rescheduled, lack of programmes aimed at transgendered people, and people whinging because they can't see the new series of 'Fiends' because it's on E4.

>But surely POV has always been bit of a joke. One of my favourite NTNON sketches is the POV parody. Look at the people who have presented it in the past - Took, Robinson, Vorderman (didn't Searle to a stretch or did I dream that?) none of them known for their incisive wit and probing questioning.
>
Agree with all you say - but - these presenters don't have to be probing questioners within the format of POV. The selection of topics and letters used has already been done for them and,BTW - Barry Took was quite a prolific comedy scipt/gag writer in his day.

I am aware of Took's past career. I wasn't having a pop at any of the individuals who were charged with the task of pulling a smug grin at every letter that drew our attention to the fact that a character in an Aus soap opera had completely changed his appearance between two episodes. Not even Paxman could have made anything of the format. How could anybody do anything useful in the allocated ten minutes?

It is, however, symptomatic of the way the BBC treats POV. Put a nice friendly presenter in the chair (and that loathsome Robinson started affecting the venomspitter personality when she moved to Watchdog), break the letters in nice little chunks, don't enter into any discussion, raise an eyebrow, smirk then move onto the next letter. Oh look, it's a poignant one about the last episode of Blackadder Goes Forth. Hmm deep.

POV is a sop to the notion of accountability. The letters, those that are read out, are written by people one step away from going outside in their pyjamas or writing to What's On TV. Almost none are critical and tend to be of the “BBC is splendid when is that nice Mr Dyke going to get a pay rise/” or “When are they going to repeat Birds of a Feather for the fifth time? Come on BBC it's just not good enough!”

Is it that the BBC can't be seen to be accepting any of this criticism? To broadcast openly critical letters regarding piss poor production or shabby edits and the like would be to give credence to the notion that maybe, just maybe, the BBC's output isn't quite what it should be.

I was a bit young at the time to appreciate it but wasn't Did You See? more along the lines of discussion and criticism of the BBC's output? I recall Ludwig Kennedy presenting it.
The problem with any of these programmes is that regardless of format, timing, presenter, guests and writers they end up as a forum for concerned minorities who are worried that someone, somewhere got upset by a reference to kittens.

>I was a bit young at the time to appreciate it but wasn't Did You See? more along the lines of discussion and criticism of the BBC's output? I recall Ludwig Kennedy presenting it.
>
Yes, Did You See? was a great programme I had forgotten completely until you mentioned it. It wasn't really about holding programe makers accountable, though. It contained a panel of reviewers who gave their judgments on certain programmes broadcast that week. It had features, too. I seem to recall a rather lovely one on Doctor Who monsters.

One week they were reviewing "Hello Mum" - I think this was a TV version of the Radio 4 comedy "In One Ear". The show was recorded the week of transmission (or possibly even went out live) and the cast tried to ingratiate themselves with the reviewers by holding up a banner reading "Please like us, Did You See?". It didn't work.

I seem to remember they reviewed the 1st episode of French and Saunders in the same programme - they slated that as well. Filthy Rich and Catflap didn't do too badly, however...

>I seem to remember they reviewed the 1st episode of French and Saunders in the same programme - they slated that as well. Filthy Rich and Catflap didn't do too badly, however...episode

Ian Hislop was on the panel for that particular programme. He hated both 'French & Saunders' and 'Hello Mum' ('I mean it's okay when they do straight sketches but there's this whole feeling of "oh, we have to be different, we have to be alternative..."').

Before it went to TV as Hello Mum, "In One Ear" used to try and get lots of Margaret Howard references across, just so they could get mentioned on Pick Of The Week. Worked at least a couple of times.

I thought Did You See? was fabulous, but not so much when they revived it with Paxman in the 90s. Kennedy seemed to be a real fan of television, while Paxman seemed sneery of it.

Hooray for "Did You See?".

I used to be addicted to that as a kid, while treating PoV as a sort of TV version of the Radio Times letters page (ie: rather silly but at least it was about TV, so I'd watch it.)

I remember the Filthy Rich edition of DYS, and thought they were a bit quick to like it, as if eager to atone for the critical drubbing which The Young Ones received in its early days. I seem to remember they weren't keen on "Happy Families" though.

'The Young Ones' - Ludo and Laurie McMnemeny(sp) thought it was 'ghastly' but the other two on the panel enjoyed it (one of whom was Julie Walters). Laurie didn't like the 'schoolboy humour' ('I think perhaps, because I'm a football manager I prefer things to be neat and tidy with no bad behaviour or swearing...').

Michael Palin was on the panel when they reviewed 'Spitting Image'. It got a cautious thumbs up as far as I can recall, although Palin didn't think the Alistair Burnett puppet was as good as the others.

'Hello Mum' also did a joke about reviewing 'Did You See'. Come the actual show somebody on the panel pointed that out, saying 'Aw, isn't it sad - they had all those little notices up and everything?'

>>POV is a sop to the notion of accountability. The letters, those that are read out, are written by people one step away from going outside in their pyjamas or writing to What's On TV.

Yes, but they did also run 'The Viewing Room', a kind of pseudo-Right to Reply which appeared intermittently last year (running about once a month after Newsnight on BBC2) and was a *bit* more critical, but not much. It seems to have disappeared altogether now, along with Biteback (which also cropped up monthly, if I remember rightly- but in a marginally better slot). Considering how much the BBC like having Anne Robinson let loose on unfortunate Travel Agents and the like on Watchdog, it's a shame she isn't allowed to bully TV producers in a monthly 'Watchdog-TV'- or maybe not such a shame at all.

But I agree, POV is the Radio Times letters page, wholly inaccurate when it comes to being a barometer of the viewer's feelings.

And as someone who works on Right to Reply I have yet to see a letter which praises the BBC for anything. Though maybe they wouldn't write to us about it.

But surely “Watchdog – TV” would end up as every other Watchdog clone. A dog-faced woman shouting theatrically at some programme maker or presenter because they had upset someone from Hull.

Every attempt the BBC has made to produce a serious discussion programme covering their own output has been left to die quietly in some graveyard slot. Why is this? Is it a nervousness that viewers cannot be allowed to see the BBC tacitly admitting that some of their programmes are badly made/written/presented or is it an arrogance that say that their programmes are beyond reproach?

Perhaps this is why Channel Four is the only channel to make an attempt at discussion programme which criticises their output. Almost all discussions and debates on RtR feature representatives of the production companies. In this way the criticisms are a reflection on the production company, not the channel. The BBC on the other hand does not stress the input of independent companies. All output is, for the plebs who don't pay attention, from good old Auntie Beeb. To criticise a programme is to damn the whole organisation.

On the other hand, maybe it is a supply problem. Have a serious discussion programme which discusses the quality of the content and the production of a programme and suddenly the letters dry up. It is easy to write letters expressing delight at OFAH being repeated for the nth time or how they spotted a continuity error in the most recent heart rending scene in Eastenders but a little more difficult to spot clumsy edits or criticise poor writing or production.

Keep POV friendly and simple and there is a steady flow of letters. Keep it short. Keep it simple.

Beans comment of the Pasty saga reeks of modern BBC cross-plugging. A cheap plug for a Beeb show, and then another for BBC local radio. By dragging it onto national television it makes them look as if they listening to local viewers (& listeners)demands - when more important issues (quality of shows, wasting money on balloon replacement, etc;) gets quietly ignored.

...and as always, it reads as if there was no serious discussion - as seems to nearly always be the case with PoV.

>...and as always, it reads as if there was no serious discussion - as seems to nearly always be the case with PoV.

Why, oh why, oh why, oh why... etc.

Spells yoyoyoyoyyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyo

It spells yoyoyoyetcetera to be precise.