[UKTV]

Hi all,

Over the past few months, UKTV has been aware that our channels and programmes come up in conversation quite regularly here on Digital Spy. It is always interesting to read the comments you have about UKTV (both the good and the bad!) so we thought it would be a good idea for us to have our own account which we can use to make statements on subjects of conversation.

If there are any updates on developments happening here at UKTV, and they are not of a commercially sensitive nature, we will do our best to share with them with you. All of our threads will be located here within the Broadcasting Forum.

Kind regards,

UKTV

[markelliott]

Welcome to the forum.

I think one of the biggest things we'd appreciate on here is if you could sort out that hideous pink dog in the top left corner of the screen on G.O.L.D. Why not just use the 'G.O.L.D.' wording part of the logo for the one in the corner, instead of the whole circle thingy? This would be much much better. Also, the 'next' banner which is displayed at the end of each programme is awful. It needs to be dramatically toned down.

Personally, I would have called the channel 'Gold' and given it a professional look and feel, rather than the silly cartoon design. UKTV Gold looked much better than what you have now.

I think you've done well with Watch though.

[Netizen]

Always good to get official feedback, nice to have you here

I think I'm warming to the new channel brands, although at first they seemed gimmicky. Gold's schedules are a bit better after the rebrand, but I agree fully with markelliot that the DOG shouldn't bright pink, and the channel image is a little bit cheesy. Gold, of all your channels, has the biggest profile and recognition so surely you don't need to reinforce the branding *that* hard? Oh and I appreciate this isn't something you will change at the drop of a hat, or that you won't get a torrent of abuse from some people for daring to use a DOG at all

[gottago]

Could you please stop with the "created by the BBC, chosen by Dave/Watch etc". It's just cringeworthy especially when that awful Dave continuity bloke says it.

And can you please take the plunge in the UK and put the DOG in the bottom right hand corner where it won't end up on the heads of whoever's on screen. And the coming next banner on Dave during programmes is so unnessacerily huge and distracting and sometimes it doesn't even have the right information on it!

[markelliott]

Originally Posted by gottago

Could you please stop with the "created by the BBC, chosen by Dave/Watch etc". It's just cringeworthy especially when that awful Dave continuity bloke says it.

Totally agree. I wish they'd get rid of that.

Originally Posted by gottago

And the coming next banner on Dave during programmes is so unnessacerily huge and distracting and sometimes it doesn't even have the right information on it!

At least the one on Dave is neat and tidy. The one on G.O.L.D. is terrible. It's a big yellow cartoon bubble thingy that pops up and goes right across the top of the picture and the logo enlarges and goes solid pink!! It looks like a piece of garbage, cluttering up the screen and totally spoiling the end of the programmes. As I said in my post above, it's awful and needs dramatically toning down.

[Sover_99]

Here's a novel idea - how about not changing the DOGS but actually not having any DOGS. Show some faith in your audience that they might be able to realise what channels they're watching and be able to use the EPG.

Restoring normality to the channel names is obviously out as it's Mr Littleford's 'kick-ass' branding project but hopefully the failing of Watch should tell him something.

And as they've already been mentioned, get rid of the 'coming next' banners during programming.

Maybe when he says 'We went back to the first principle of 'what do our audiences want?'." he should actually consider what their audiences don't want. i.e DOGS, banners and rebranding.

Just a thought.

[Toxteth O'Grady]

Originally Posted by Sover_99

Restoring normality to the channel names is obviously out as it's Mr Littleford's 'kick-ass' branding project but hopefully the failing of Watch should tell him something.

The new names are much better as as the channels themselves as they've sorted out exactly what each channel is for.

Has Watch failed?

[gottago]

Originally Posted by markelliott

At least the one on Dave is neat and tidy. The one on G.O.L.D. is terrible. It's a big yellow cartoon bubble thingy that pops up and goes right across the top of the picture and the logo enlarges and goes solid pink!!

Well at least the Gold one has character! The Dave one is one massive green bar that streaches right across the screen and then hidden in the far left corner with tiny letters often comes:

Next
QI

Why, prey tell, do you need such a massive bar stripped across the foreheads of the people onscreen for six letters?! It's so patonising when channels do this, it's only an insentive to switch off (and unlike others on DS I'm actually quite happy for you to do credit squeezes but actually doing it during the programme itself is downright idiotic).

Another thing I must act, why exactly does UKTV People/Blightly? All of its content could quite easily be integrated into the line-ups of Dave and Eden. It just seems like such a waste of money to run a seperate channel when you could be spending it on the woeful Watch.

And please god, could you please stop investing in those useless countdowns like "When Were We Funniest?" and "Britain's Funniest Moments" or whatever they're called. Entertainment programmes that rely on clips of archive footage are such a poor excuse of original programming.

[Toxteth O'Grady]

Originally Posted by gottago

Could you please stop with the "created by the BBC, chosen by Dave/Watch etc". It's just cringeworthy especially when that awful Dave continuity bloke says it.

Yes, I'd be interested to find out why the phrase is needed.

The announcers are great, Iain Lee on Dave especially

[Sover_99]

Originally Posted by Toxteth O'Grady

The new names are much better as as the channels themselves as they've sorted out exactly what each channel is for.

Has Watch failed?

Their flagship show Richard and Judy is down to about 28,000 viewers after predicted figures of 400,000.

Is that a success?

And was there ever any confusion over what each channel was for? I pretty much knew what I'd get with UKTV Drama. How exactly does 'Alibi' translate more to the prospective viewer than UKTV Drama, and I was fully aware UKTV Gold was not an in depth study of mineralology. (Is that a word?)

If they really wanted to rename and raise brand awareness UKTV Comedy might just've hit the mark better as they've removed the drama content from UKTV Gold

[Thebenster]

Please could you use the limited space on Freeview for something more original than Dave+1?

[cnbcwatcher]

Nice to have you here. Official feedback is always appreciated.

Is there any chance of Watch launching on cable in the near future? Hope you don't mind me asking.

[Thebenster]

Originally Posted by cnbcwatcher

Is there any chance of Watch launching on cable in the near future? Hope you don't mind me asking.

Watch is on cable, channel 124.

[cnbcwatcher]

OK I didn't realise!! Sorry about that!

[Sover_99]

Originally Posted by cnbcwatcher

OK I didn't realise!! Sorry about that!

A perfect example of how their rebranding has failed to get the message across, if ever there was one.

[linkinpark875]

How about bring back UK Gold? With Casualty, The Bill, Eastenders early episodes.

The G.O.L.D channel is just a comedy channel and lacks what UK Gold once offered.

[UKTV]

Originally Posted by linkinpark875

How about bring back UK Gold? With Casualty, The Bill, Eastenders early episodes.

The G.O.L.D channel is just a comedy channel and lacks what UK Gold once offered.

The decision was taken to turn UKTV Gold into purely a comedy channel because it was the comedy content that always performed the best for the channel. We are aware that the dramas such as Casualty and EastEnders had a loyal following but unfortunately the audience sizes were not large enough for it to be commercially viable to continue showing them. You can, however, now see older episodes of The Bill on Alibi weeknights at 6pm.

As to the other posts, we will try to get back to you ASAP with some answers.

Regards,

UKTV

[Toxteth O'Grady]

Originally Posted by Sover_99

Their flagship show Richard and Judy is down to about 28,000 viewers after predicted figures of 400,000.

Is that a success?

Short-termism isn't good for such a venture, give it a year or so. Do you know how all the other programmes do on Watch

And was there ever any confusion over what each channel was for? I pretty much knew what I'd get with UKTV Drama. How exactly does 'Alibi' translate more to the prospective viewer than UKTV Drama, and I was fully aware UKTV Gold was not an in depth study of mineralology. (Is that a word?)

'Drama' 'People' and 'Documentary' were such blanket terms and their programming was often a mish mash. Do you remember when Have I Got News For You was appearing on Gold, G2, History and Documentary? The line between Documentary and People was very blurred. They also put dramas on Gold and History

Now they're much more focussed - a channel about crime, one about Britain and one with nature and travel programmes

[UKTV]

CHANNEL DOGS
This is a discussion that comes up quite frequently and we are aware that it polarises a lot of viewers. Some people don't mind them whereas others are not so keen! We do listen to all feedback and adjust accordingly wherever we can.

In the case of G.O.L.D. the decision was taken to give the whole channel a fresh and modern look. As the majority of our content is classic BBC archive shows, we tried to make everything else on the channel as new and stand out as possible. There have been conversations internally concerning the size and colour of the channel DOG on G.O.L.D. and there may be changes over the next few months. We will update you here if and when these changes occur.

As you know UKTV went widescreen just over a year ago now. As part of our channel rebrands, we have taken the decision to move the channel DOGs from the 4:3 safe area to the 14:9 safe area instead. We believe having them at the 14:9 position is much less intrusive for viewers watching on widescreen sets. You can see these newly positioned DOGs on Eden and Blighty. We will be rolling out the new position on all of our channels during this year.

[AaronG]

Originally Posted by Thebenster

Please could you use the limited space on Freeview for something more original than Dave+1?

Dave+ 0.5 would be better as often you miss the start of something, intend to watch it on the delayed channel and because it's an hours wait you forget.

[krooney]

Originally Posted by Thebenster

Please could you use the limited space on Freeview for something more original than Dave+1?

That won't happen until Channel 4 buy out Virgin's stake in UKTV as is being mooted. With Virgin they are just interested in premium stuff like Sky, Viacom etc. Unfortunately they don't have the policy of BBC, ITV, C4, Five and maybe even Discovery.

Blighty does seem like a total waste of a channel and some people have been complaining about Blighty defacing the British flag!

Dave+1 is the biggest waste of space ever! At least Channel4+1, E4+1 and ITV2+1 give you good varied choice on Freeview.

I suspect if Channel 4 does buy out Virgin all the UKTV channels will be on Freeview by DSO.

Then Richard and Judy (if it lasts until then) will be getting good viewing figures.

Gold or Watch would be good on Freeview but not Blighty, Eden or Alibi.

Can 'UKTV' fill us in on the new channel Yesterday launching in a fortnight on 2nd March?

At least this channel will be on Freeview!

[Toxteth O'Grady]

Originally Posted by AaronG

Dave+ 0.5 would be better as often you miss the start of something, intend to watch it on the delayed channel and because it's an hours wait you forget.

Dave +40 minutes would be even more useful

[AaronG]

I was looking forward to when Eastenders on UKTV Gold caught up with the BBC1 show. I wonder if they'd have reset back to 1985 or just showed Peggy Mitchell biting her fingernails waitng for a few months until BBC1 raced ahead.

[linkinpark875]

What about HD?

Is Freesat on the cards for UKTV History and Dave/Dave+1?

What else for Freeview any chance of 24 Hour UKTV History or another channel?

[gottago]

Originally Posted by UKTV

CHANNEL DOGS
This is a discussion that comes up quite frequently and we are aware that it polarises a lot of viewers. Some people don't mind them whereas others are not so keen! We do listen to all feedback and adjust accordingly wherever we can.

In the case of G.O.L.D. the decision was taken to give the whole channel a fresh and modern look. As the majority of our content is classic BBC archive shows, we tried to make everything else on the channel as new and stand out as possible. There have been conversations internally concerning the size and colour of the channel DOG on G.O.L.D. and there may be changes over the next few months. We will update you here if and when these changes occur.

As you know UKTV went widescreen just over a year ago now. As part of our channel rebrands, we have taken the decision to move the channel DOGs from the 4:3 safe area to the 14:9 safe area instead. We believe having them at the 14:9 position is much less intrusive for viewers watching on widescreen sets. You can see these newly positioned DOGs on Eden and Blighty. We will be rolling out the new position on all of our channels during this year.

But can you please explain why the DOGs can't be in the bottom left/right hand corner rather than at the top where they are less intrusive but still noticable?

Oh, and I too would like to know if Dave +1 on Freeview will eventually be replaced by something, god knows we all want something that isn't a timeshift!