The Great! TV Thread

[Aplus1]

Shame it has to be listed on the EPG instead of being treated as an interstitial

That's because Ofcom use the EPG as the determining factor for how long something is, and therefore how many commercial breaks it can have, so it has to "look like" two programmes rather than one to get the extra breaks. (Technically speaking, the short programme in the middle doesn't even need to be there at all, as long as the two halves were always visibly two separate programmes, the regulation would be satisfied - but doing it this way looks more intended and makes it less obvious that something shifty is going on.)

[nionlogos18]

Shame it has to be listed on the EPG instead of being treated as an interstitial

That's because Ofcom use the EPG as the determining factor for how long something is, and therefore how many commercial breaks it can have, so it has to "look like" two programmes rather than one to get the extra breaks. (Technically speaking, the short programme in the middle doesn't even need to be there at all, as long as the two halves were always visibly two separate programmes, the regulation would be satisfied - but doing it this way looks more intended and makes it less obvious that something shifty is going on.)

What I don’t get is, why air it in between each movie? Take Horror for example, they only air it like once a day (Horror Highlights) and it’s AFTER a movie, not in between

[RR]

What I don’t get is, why air it in between each movie? Take Horror for example, they only air it like once a day (Horror Highlights) and it’s AFTER a movie, not in between

Sometimes it is less to do with ads and more to do with wanting to start on the half hour / hour. Tomorrow Horror Highlights is on four times at a quick glance. Running mainly films can lose the standardized programme schedule.

[Brekkie]

Great Movies Christmas seems to be sticking to two hour slots as well where if the films ran in the roughly 1 hrs 45 min slots they fill with ads they could probably cancel out the additional ad breaks within movies through airing a couple of extra films a day.

[doppler]

Might be to align the start times with the other great! family of channels. Padding schedules with promos and trailers for up to 30 mins means less content needed. At least it's not padded with teleshopping.

[Kunst]

Great Movies Christmas seems to be sticking to two hour slots as well where if the films ran in the roughly 1 hrs 45 min slots they fill with ads they could probably cancel out the additional ad breaks within movies through airing a couple of extra films a day.

They mostly air made-for-TV moves that are generally long around 1.30, hence why they can be slightly modified in order to have them 2 hour long, like they're "intended" to be in the US.

This is also realized by means of splitting movies into two, and adding an extra break, since movies can only have (by EU legislation) a break every 30 minutes.
So they don't have massively long (ad) breaks, I mean more than 5 minutes.. they already have a very long one at around :53 when the film ends

These movies,as shown in the US, obviously have much more frequent ad breaks to them

[Kunst]

What I don’t get is, why air it in between each movie? Take Horror for example, they only air it like once a day (Horror Highlights) and it’s AFTER a movie, not in between

Sometimes it is less to do with ads and more to do with wanting to start on the half hour / hour. Tomorrow Horror Highlights is on four times at a quick glance. Running mainly films can lose the standardized programme schedule.

This.. UK similar to the US (but not as extreme) and Scandinavia etc. has a "culture" of shows starting (when possible, especially on satellite/cable channels) on the hour/half hour

[London Lite]

I attempted to watch one of the supposedly GREAT! channels, but the bitrate was so dire that the Christmas part of the DOG was blurry.

The main GREAT! Movies channel appears to have better PQ by Freeview SD standards.

[BagelCrisp]

Pop > Boing
Pop Max > Boing Kix
Tiny Pop > Mini Boing
That's how it'll work.

Boing Kix? That Doesnt sound right in my opinion.

They won't do it but, If they were going to do it, i would think that it would be BoingMAX or Boing+ etc

[BagelCrisp]

Pop > Boing
Pop Max > Boing Kix
Tiny Pop > Mini Boing
That's how it'll work.

Boing Kix? That Doesnt sound right in my opinion.

If they were going to do it i would think it would be BoingMAX or Boing+ etc

[JAS84]

I don't know why you're responding to that post from May. Rob already said at the time that such things shouldn't be posted as it's not going to happen.

[CameronYoung]

Anyone else find one scene (where the VO says "have Beckett save your life") in the Castle trailer a bit strange?

It appears to have been specially shot at HD/60fps whereas everything else around it is at SD/30fps - unless it's just taken from one specific series/episode that was shot at a higher frame rate? Either way it still looks odd to me.

[nionlogos18]

Not going to lie, I really hate how a lot of companies don't take care of their "adult" channels properly. For example, Narrative Capital, owners of GREAT!/POP, add a lot of new shows to Tiny Pop/Pop a lot of the time, while they hardly give any variety to GREAT! TV.

I think it's high time we got a proper classic TV channel, not just one with only a few TV shows and that's it. One like MeTV in the USA. I also wish CBS Drama/Justice would be better too. I wanna see shows like Cannon, Have Gun, Will Travel and Rawhide on CBS, and for GREAT!, shows like Donna Reed, CHiPS, Dallas (considering True aired the TV movies for those at one point), and a bunch of other Sony shows like Early Edition, I Dream of Jeannie, Naked City, Route 66, and maybe even some more rarer shows like Apple Pie and maybe some lost shows that came to Crackle/CTV like Guys Like Us, David Cassidy Man Undercover, All's Fair, etc.

GREAT! TV would be a perfect "classic TV" channel, but I have contacted the owners of the station about this months ago and never got a reponse back. I think we deserve the rights to have a classic TV channel, as there aren't really any proper ones in the UK, at least not anymore, but unfortunately Narrative just care about the kids channels. Shame. US has lots of classic TV channels like MeTV, Decades, Antenna TV, Rewind TV, etc. while here apart from a few couple shows there's nothing.

I just wish there was a way for GREAT!/Narrative to listen to us. One thing I haven't tried yet tho is physically mail Narrative, so we'll see if that works.

[Neil Jones]

Not going to lie, I really hate how a lot of companies don't take care of their "adult" channels properly. For example, Narrative Capital, owners of GREAT!/POP, add a lot of new shows to Tiny Pop/Pop a lot of the time, while they hardly give any variety to GREAT! TV.

I think it's high time we got a proper classic TV channel, not just one with only a few TV shows and that's it. One like MeTV in the USA. I also wish CBS Drama/Justice would be better too. I wanna see shows like Cannon, Have Gun, Will Travel and Rawhide on CBS, and for GREAT!, shows like Donna Reed, CHiPS, Dallas (considering True aired the TV movies for those at one point), and a bunch of other Sony shows like Early Edition, I Dream of Jeannie, Naked City, Route 66, and maybe even some more rarer shows like Apple Pie and maybe some lost shows that came to Crackle/CTV like Guys Like Us, David Cassidy Man Undercover, All's Fair, etc.

GREAT! TV would be a perfect "classic TV" channel, but I have contacted the owners of the station about this months ago and never got a reponse back. I think we deserve the rights to have a classic TV channel, as there aren't really any proper ones in the UK, at least not anymore, but unfortunately Narrative just care about the kids channels. Shame. US has lots of classic TV channels like MeTV, Decades, Antenna TV, Rewind TV, etc. while here apart from a few couple shows there's nothing.

I just wish there was a way for GREAT!/Narrative to listen to us...

Well we have Talking Pictures TV which is very similar to what you outline.

That aside, commercial TV will always go after the lowest common denominated programming it can get its hands on that attracts viewership and sells ad space. SImple as. This is the reason why CBS Reality for examples airs Judge Judy all day every day - because it attracts the viewership (and being ultimately owned by ViacomCBS which paid to make the show in the first place) means it probably didn't cost much to air.

Also its been demonstrated many times archive programming just doesn't rate in this country outside of a handful of core shows/material. Channels that decide to air archive material tend to drop it shortly afterwards in favour of newer material. Networks that exclusively only show old films are one thing and thrive happily (usually because they're cheap to buy/licence) but old TV costs money to licence and if the incoming dosh doesn't pay the bills, it will be replaced with something else. Usually newer.

[Brekkie]

Yes - Narrative Entertainment doesn't exist to provide entertainment, it exists to make money out of providing entertainment. That means the business model is built around low cost content, which sadly does mean like many digital channels focusing on largely archive content you basically get the same content looped for years. And even if they add one or two new things a year it often gets lost amongst the older stuff - and indeed ends up rating less so getting replaced by the programming people are supposedly tired of anyway.


I also think with Great! TV and similar channels there isn't an expectation people will watch it every day and follow a series for it's duration but will just dip in and out of it and happily watch an episode of Murder She Wrote or Millionaire, which largely stand up on their own, and then perhaps not watch another one for a couple of weeks or more. With that strategy the expectation is many viewers will rarely see the same episode twice, even if they do loop the entire series every few months.