Re: [Swprograms] BBC E-mail: World Service soap Westway axed

[John Figliozzi <jfiglio1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

But if you recall the news story about the coming end of Westway, it 
described the program as critically acclaimed, as well as popular.  
That can be a pretty rare combo.  To reiterate, "popular" and 
"well-crafted" are not mutually exclusive adjectives.  So, to that 
extent, I disagree with your description of "we critics".  I don't 
think we're talking out of both sides of our mouths.  Too often (in 
both commercial and public interest applications), popular is the only 
thing that matters.  In this instance, both popular and well-crafted 
were not enough to save it.  One throws their hands up and shouts, 
"What's the standard then?"

And, to be honest, yes...I did denigrate the program when it first 
appeared.  But either it was always intended and I didn't know it, or 
it grew, to become a vehicle for education about AIDS, hate-mongering, 
multicultural issues, and other important topics.  So, mea culpa, mea 
culpa, mea maxima culpa....  <g>

As to the cost of maintaining the streams, it may not be all that much 
in the scheme of things; but neither would maintaining minimal 
shortwave coverage to all regions.  What was it they saved to NA?  
L300,000 per annum?  Dropping the streams approach would have paid for 
adverts to Arabs too.

Priorities, priorities...  I guess that's what we're really discussing 
here.

John Figliozzi

On Apr 2, 2005, at 6:02 PM, Richard Cuff wrote:

> In terms of "costly to maintain", my guess is that the biggest cost is
> the fact that multiple satellite feeds are necessary to create all of
> these, and some management overhead to keep track of them.
>
> I agree there is no reason the BBC shouldn't announce "You're
> listening to the BBC World Service with programming for West Africa"
> or something different.  Also they need to do a much better job of
> announcing frequency changes -- I don't think they make a single
> frequency announcement anymore.  That is wrong.
>
> The Westway discussion is a microcosm of the debate over how an
> international public service should plan its programming.  I remember
> when Westway was launched we widely criticized it as "dumbing down".
> Now that it's departing we (collectively) say we'll miss it.  We don't
> have a set of universal criteria we can apply when it comes to the
> relative merits of one program versus another.  As a result, every
> decision is subject to criticism.
>
> I am frankly not trying to defend Mike Cronk's rather weak performance
> last week on "Write On".  It reminded me of corporate doublespeak,
> deliberately obfuscatory in order to insult my intelligence.
>
> Still, I would love to see some of these audience research statistics 
> someday...
>
> Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA  USA
>
>
> On Apr 2, 2005 4:54 PM, John Figliozzi <jfiglio1@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Well, I'm just getting a little confused about what the standards are.
>> I know you had the "sarcasm" flow on there, but many a things are said
>> in jest that are meant in earnest.  I never said that popularity
>> couldn't be a measure for a public service broadcaster; just that it
>> shouldn't be the only one (or always the most important one).
>>
>

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