do you agree with my letter [below] to the BBC's 'point of view'? also if youre american, is it your TV that..?

Question

has infected ours with its dumbed-down infantile MTV-style frenetic editing loud intrusive background music, pitched at rednecks and the mentally sub-normal?

[version 2 with mistakes edited out!

hi,
i'm writing to express my continuing dismay at the bbc's failure to act on the complaints i and many others have expressed in relation to two issues. they are so fundamental to viewing pleasure, that if not addressed, will drive away increasing numbers of viewers.
they are:
1. editing speed [: manic/frenetic insessant pop video style editing]
2. loudness of background music.

things have got so bad that i have literally had to switch off programmes because the annoyance and frustration has become so intense that i risk becoming emotionally upset if i continue viewing. dont misunderstand, i am not some fuddy duddy retiree used to beige slippers and beige viewing habits....i have an anarchic punk sensibility with a partiality for atonal and disturbing industrial music. if you are annoying someone like me, me then you know you are doing something wrong!

there is nothing wrong with pop video editing.......in a pop video! but not in a documentary for gods sake. when i watch such garbage, i often feel like a boxer on the ropes who is being continuously pummelled from many different directions. when i watch a documentary, i dont want anything to distract from what the narratror is saying. when i watch a documentary, i want to let my eyes roam where i want them to, not to have my attention hijacked and dragged around at breakneck cutting speed [like tin cans bounced around in the wake of a speeding -just wedded- fast car] through a succession of scenes that last sometimes mere milliseconds before your whisked off to the next one. it seems that many of your editors are not taught anything about pacing, they just seem to be obeying the rule that the more editing cuts that can be crammed into a programme, the better it is. this is exacerbated when as well as this ADHD editing, there is loud intrusive background that is competing for attention, in competition with the narrators voice. this results in your attention being torn in three different directions....unable to concentrate fully on what the narrater is trying to impart....and exhausting your visual attention, because instead of letting your gaze wander and rest on what you choosed it to, you are agitatedly and annoyedly anticipating the next yank to your visual attention conming a mere half a second after the last one.
now, i dont object to little mini 10 to 20 second bursts of this rapid fire editing dotted through a programme to add a bit of interest, but when it continues incessantly, it really winds you up and tires your eyes out. you may laugh but it got so bad recently during a programme that i first held up a newspaper to partially obscure the screen, when that wasnt effective....i tried looking at something in the rest of the room and then tried to watch the screen out of my periferal vision......finally, i turned on ceefax and just listened to the programme, and finally i could concentrate on, but no longer watch the programme.
if your progammes are doing this to someone with my anarchic tendencies, imagine what you must be doing to masses of ordinary viewers.
its has deteriorated so much in the last year or two, that as a person who is usually quite logical and skeptical about most things, i have begun to seriously wonder if the BBC is engaged in some sort of mass broadcasting psychological experiment on the public, for i know not what purpose. maybe its a test of how far and frenetically you can BLUDGEON a persons awareness before they are willing to object or complain......it really is reminiscent of the eye-dropper scene in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.
if you dont address the problem of hyperactive editing and loud intrusive hollywood-blockbuster-style background music, i will be tempted to throw my tv away when the digital switchover comes, and you will get nothing more from me in future, in the way of a liscence fee.
i love much about the BBC, but if you persist with this infantile MTV style programming, you will drive away big chunks of your audience.

lastly, can i make plea [and i realise this is a personal preference] but can you do as many of your documentaries as possible, with the narrator being a mere voice over. i am not interested in watching the narrator. you are losing the plot and forgetting whats important, when you focus on a narrator and try to stick him in every scene that he's commenting on. i'm NOT INTERESTED in his face. i want my narrators to be disembodied invisible gods, not vain and vacuous attention seeking limelight-hoggers.
narrators should be HEARD, and Not seen.

mr *********

Answer 1

what's wrong with beige slippers?

Answer 2

No.



No not really I think your seeing and hearing what isn't there, the documentaries the BBC makes are second to none, I'm no big fan of the BBC but I've got to give credit where credit's due, and the BBC deserves some good credit for their documentaries, especially their science documentaries,,, very good.



If I was you I'd cut down on the wacky-bacca, its not good for you y-know, and your question is a point in being.

Answer 3

you are the infamous Mr Angry from Slough aren;t you?

Chill dude! I'm not even aware of what you are talking about, speeded up TV with loud music? WTF? Where? I watch a lot of TV and last night I watched Casualty, it gave me an awareness of hidden mental illness but thats all....Have you tried counselling?