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BBC News 24 Idents Given An F For Physics

Written by Martin Belam
Published 12 July, 2005
Categories: BBC

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In this thread on the BBC's Points of View message board one poster has started a debate about whether the BBC hates science.

According to the Media Guardian website, the BBC is to close the science-fiction website, bbc.co.uk/cult.

Recently anything resembling meterology has been removed from the BBC TV's weather service.

...

BBC FOUR is supposed to be "a place to think", but the only scant science programs are Open University programs.

Does the BBC hate science? Does anybody in charge at the BBC have any scientific background or qualifications?

Once the corporation produced a weekly Tomorrow's World and the BBC Micro, but now we have a few stories a week on http://news.bbc.co.uk and a few dumbed-down Horizon's and that's it.

I would be interested to know how many people who make descisions in the BBC actually understand science.

Following the publishing of the BBC's Annual Report they noted that the word Science appears in the report only nine times, yet the word 'Arts' appears over fifty times, and wonder if the BBC has the balance right.

What caught my eye in the posts though was the URL they published:

And every hour there is a most unscientific countdown sequence on BBC News 24, see http://bnb.bpweb.net/N24/news24.htm

If ever a site, besides currybetdotnet itself, proved that the internet was a haven for people with bees in their bonnets and time on their hands, it is this one. The site owner has carefully screen-captured and then diagramatically illustrated how the BBC News 24 ident does not depict the reception of signals via satellite dishes in a scientifically accurate way. At the speed with which the idents are cut, I wonder how they even noticed in the first place?

Posted by Martin Belam, July 12, 2005
Read more posts on currybetdotnet about: BBC

The views expressed on currybetdotnet are my own, and do not reflect the views of my current or former employers.

1 comment so far

Frankie Roberto commented on July 13, 2005:

Haha, that's brilliant.

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About Martin Belam

I'm a London-based internet consultant and writer, with 8 years experience in product management, information architecture, and user experience design for global brands like Sony, Vodafone, The Guardian and the BBC. I specialise in advising on search, widgets, RSS, online news publishing and bulk email delivery.
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