I’m hoping the title will help me remember: License, verb. Licence, noun. Back in December, I explained why I didn’t have a TV licence, and hadn’t for many years. I also said “As the BBC (hopefully) continues to open up ways of me watching content on my terms, of course I’m open minded…” That post […]
Category Archives: television
Social Telly – a roundup of social viewing stuff
Television has always been a social thing. Whether it’s because you’re watching it with family and friends at home, watching football in the pub, chatting at school or work with friends about that programme that you all love the night before, television is about much more than a broadcast. During the recent US election, I […]
Behind the scenes at the One Show – take 2
Tonight I sat in an edit suite in Broadcast Centre and watched the One Show being put together, live and on-the-fly. Writing up my notes on the way home, especially after a beer, I’m afraid I am liable to gush. As I mentioned when I visited the studio last week, it’s a half-hour show, and […]
Behind the Scenes at the One Show
I was invited to go behind the scenes at The One Show tonight. Having seen me venture on to the Watchdog set (twice), Ciarán Ryan (content producer at The One Show) recently emailed me to suggest I might want to take a look behind the scenes and watch Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley in action. […]
Back on the box
Thanks again to Nick for grabbing a ‘where’s wally’ shot of my second Watchdog appearance. (Last week’s TV debut, with detailed comments, is here.) This week, I was invited to sit-there-and-look-busy to fill a space in the Watchdog desks. I’ve done a lot of work with them this week, so it felt quite natural to […]
I’m on Watchdog
I’m feeling ridiculously pleased at having made it onto the set of tonight’s episode of Watchdog. As far as I know, my first ever TV appearance. (Back left. Looking tall.) Thanks to Nick for grabbing a screenshot while I was on train home.
Argh. A wasted opportunity for an ARG
Considering that season two of Torchwood had an accompanying Alternate Reality Game, I was excited to see what was apparently a mobile phone number prominently featured in the penultimate episode of Dr Who. It even completely filled the screen for a few moments. Considering the amount of screen time given to something that was ostensibly […]
BBC + iTunes
BBC tech correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones announced a while ago that he is “too old to Twitter and too mature for Myspace. Some things are best left to the young” Now he’s talking about the BBC+iTunes deal, saying that once you’ve handed over your credit card details, buying a programme from iTunes is an awful lot […]
Watchification
I’ve been helping out as the ‘chief engineer’ at Speechification for a while, and I’m now proud to be joining Russell and Steve in making Watchification happen too. The aim of the project is reassuringly simple: in the same way that Speechification curates speech radio from around the world, we want to make it easy […]
Thoughts on TV Licensing
I recently wrote about the iPlayer, and made a throwaway comment about not having a TV licence, yet enjoying the ability to finally be able to legally watch TV programmes online, on my Mac. It sparked quite a discussion. Nick Reynolds (no relation) of the BBC kindly pointed out the new licence fee page on […]