Message Boards

magicd, I think I have mastered the ins and outs of this message board malarchy, I post messages on it, it's not too difficult. I'm not rushing to their aid, they have folks to do that, I'm voicing MY opinion, just like everybody else.

I don't think 39 posts out of the several million subscribers warrants a re-structuring of a television channel. I don't think they would consider pleasing 39 customers and upsetting several million, it will probably be the opposite.

Of course they only hear the sound of a cash register, they are a company. Their purpose is to make profits, that is the one and only reasont hey exist. If they didn't then I doubt the channel would even exist.

Ad breaks of 4 minutes is luxury compared to many networks from other countries where they often include 10 minute ads for every 20 minutes of shows.

I doubt very much they are far from professional, the channel has been araound for more than 10 years and so someone (the person that writes the cheques) is obviosuly happy that these people are professionals and quite capable.

SamJ, I really don't think you have got the hang of this message board. UK TV are quite able to stand up for themselves without you rushing to their aid.
It is fairly obvious, judging by the amount of interest on this chat thread, that they not able to associate their customers wishes (us the viewers) to providing a service that is acceptable to the majority without loosing sight to the expectations of the minority. UKTV only hear the sound of the 'cash register'. All of us subscribe to GOLD, we pay for our entertainment, and UKTV do not come close to providing a service which is acceptable to ANY of us - just read the messages above.
Apart from us paying for the 'service' we also have to contend with advert breaks of over 4 minutes. The service is abysmal expensive and tired.
Whilst you say ITS THEIR JOB to run a TV channel I suspect in reality that they are far from professional

I fully support people voicing their opinions on UKTV and their scheduling but am I the only one that realises that these people are professionals and are paid very good money to run a TV channel, they already know what will bring in the most viewers, ITS THEIR JOB!!

If no one likes old programmes than why is ITV3 so popular, your viewers are dropping like flies why because you show the same programmes over and over again.

Bring back Lovejoy five days a week and an omnibus at the weekend. All Creatures etc... get it.

Bring back Lovejoy five days a week and an omnibus at the weekend. All Creatures etc... get it.

You say that people aint interested in the old programmes, then why does ITV3 do so well?

can we get an answer please david or richard

thanks

what about going back to the really golden days
Michael Bentine in Its a Square World
the Alan Ayckbourn plays that have been broadcast over the years
Marriage Lines
Juliet Bravo
and UPstairs Downstairs - I know you have shown this before at 3am but what a brilliant antidote to the World Cup it would have been - perhaps next time the television is glutted with sport

Not only are they showing repeats of prettty recent stuff, THEY DO NOT EVEN BOTHER TO PLAY THE SUBTITLES. I feel really really strongly about this, all these shows were suibtitled when I first watched them, if UK Gold can't show the subtitles then 1) they are breaking the Disability Discrimination Act and 2) there is not much point subscribing to UK Gold
UK Gold - please respond to this

1999 what a total joke

i will no longer watch uk gold or any of the uk channels as this is pathetic!

why should i have had to tape them all?

i expect uk 'gold' to show them and not the worst era of eastenders which was on no much more than a year ago anyway

all you channels are far to greedy for your own good and i hope you all learn your lesson very soon!

Better still erase Eastenders all together.

and eastenders from 1997 whats the point really?

needs to be from the very start

please go back to how you were uk gold

a childrens thread in the morning would be great especially saturday mornings

show old grange hill
byker grove
live and kicking
going live
maid marian
top of the pops

and see how great the ratings are

this is the sort of classic tv that we really want so why wont you give us it?

i think eastenders gets plenty of coverage, especially with the various specials, where they do go back to the eighty's, I think they should go further back with casualty, which they surely would have to do seeing as they are now playing only last years episodes, as uktv drama seemed to almost have stopped airing casualty all together.

GRRRRR!!!

I can't believe this is true why are they going to rewind Eastenders to 1997? From that point onwards the show seriously deteriorated to the useless mess we have to endure today, after watcing it from the first episode on BBC1 I have now stopped because there is no point as the storylines are pathetic. What is wrong with UK Gold why are they treating their viewers so badly, is their reasoning money or is it just that only kids now watch the channel and they woud not be able to watch something so old, I don't know I am baffled! They show endless repeats of the same old episodes packaged under some weekend rubbish, useless channel. Time to switch to ITV3 I think!!
Rewind to 1985 and bring back some good old shows of all kinds!!!

It's pretty obvious from the schedules that some time ago UK GOLD decided to move away from being a nostalgia gold channel and is seeking to compete with terrestrial with what are basically repeats of recent (last 2 or 3 years) shows that perhaps viewers heard a lot about at the time but never had time to watch. They get good ratings - they say - with this programme mix - Gimme Gimme Gimme, Vicar of Dibley, The Office, recent EastEnders etc etc - if that's what they're going for you won't get 1970s shows on, they are not going for the nostalgia audience.

The only gripe is that Richard from UKTV should perhaps be a bit more candid about the reality of UK Gold's viewer strategy - lay it directly on the line - rather than ducking the issue saying "we will consider your requests", or making up false reasons why they can't show them. Be honest with people and say that genuine "deep from the vault" archive programmes will simply not be shown again on the channel.

The thing what I dislike about UKTV Gold is that they showed the new Doctor Who from 2005 and the Catherine Tate Show and even Little Britain, whilst these might be considered 'good' programmes they are hardly 'TV Gold' yet, they've only just been aired on terrestrial, give them a break, they'd need to wait atleast 3 years before they can be considered TV classics from the past which is what UKTV Gold used to be about.

I recently e-mailed in about EastEnders and it seems that they may just rewind the episodes when they catch up to the ones that are being aired on BBC1 but there's a catch to all of this, they only plan to go back to 1997 not the beginning.

It would make more sense for them to go back to 1985 because they haven't shown those early episodes since 1998 now and it's due another run. 1997 may be nearly a decade ago but people like me want to see the 1980s EastEnders again because UKTV Gold haven't shown it for a long time apart from various episodes on the EastEnders special weekends but that just isn't good enough.

Can anybody at UKTV Gold confirm whether they will be going back to 1997 with EastEnders or 1985 and if it's 1997 can you please tell me why? (

I am really unhappy about UKTV Gold I really want them to rewind The Bill too but no doubt this will end up being rewound to some random year in the 1990s too as opposed to showing the classic archive of the 80s. (

Come on UKTV Gold get your act together.

They could rewind EastEnders now, who really gives a toss about the episodes that they are screening? So there's a few Den and Dennis fans that might be gutted but the episodes were only on BBC1 a matter of a couple of years ago anyways. Don't forget that EastEnders has been through a slump so I have no idea why UKTV Gold want to repeat that slump. (

Bring back Sue, Ali, Lou, Den and Angie for gawd sake!

I am happy to wait until they catch up with the current episodes but only if it's 1985 they go back to so once again can anyone at UKTV Gold confirm this and put me out of my misery once and for all?

Thanks
Tom

I loved some of the old shows but after seeing them for the umteenth time the magic wears off.Please uk gold give some of the shows a rest and ressurect them in a couple of years or so
Richard Bryers said his repeat fees for some of his shows were not worth having,do you get discount the more you repeat the same shows?this would explain a lot! zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

why did uk gold,a few weeks ago,show superheroes,and you have to text which one wins,then hey presto,we get the same shows a week or two later showing ie:fletch and godber versus del and rodney etc,then text again,all these shows are good,but to re-package,re-name,and show the same episodes is taking it a bit too far,what next,del versus rodney fletch versus godber,blackadder versus baldrick,come on uk gold,enough is enough.(frana versus uk gold!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!),i`ll give you my bank account number!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Hi David,
I will have to take your word for that!!!
But seriously please put on some good programmes...every time I look at this forum there seem to large amounts of messages from people begging you not to take certain shows off the air, which you do anyway and then you replace them with Murder she wrote??? Its inexplicable...whats going on, all we ask for is some good GOLD shows. Stick on a nice bit of Dallas and some old Eastenders, not forgeting Dr Who and Baywatch and you might get some really positive posts! (in fact just show all the programmes you used to)

Hi all - we have recently canvassed opinions about which programmes we could show on UKTV Drama on the Drama messageboards and we hope to do more of that kind of thing in the future. I take your point about the number of repeats. With new shows - we really do have to be careful about which shows we invest in.

Stormcat - one man's Two Pints is another man's poison, but the show has proved very popular on UKTV.

By the way Stormcat - I'm not speaking about the industry as a whole but your description:

"the media industry is run by fresh out of uni kids with a degree in media studies and not much else by way of intelligence, they are just clones with no individualism and you are over the hill by the time you reach 25"

definitely does NOT apply to UKTV staff!!!!

Magicd - Casualty and Holby City are on UKTV Gold at the moment. Sweeny and Minder aren't BBC shows so it's not so easy for us to show them - I believe Paramount currently have the rights for Minder, or at least they did recently.

Magicd - It's not suprising that you haven't been or known anyone that's been surveyed as research groups only take a relatively small cross-section of the millions of potential viewers that can be canvassed.

cheers

Good on you STORMCAT. I am a an avid UKtv GOLD viewer and I am very 'dis-chuffed' with the way we are being treated by UKtv.

They tell us that they are giving viewers what they want because they have surveyed people. I say which people have they surveyed, certainly not me. Has anyone out there been surveyed?

UKtv note, this message board is your survey, not some person standing on a street corner asking well written questions which will give a positive answer. The management of UKtv have a dual responsibility firstly to the share holders but mainly to their customers, us the viewers.

Reading most of the comments on this message board the trend seems to be the same - stop repeating continuously. How many more times are we going to see Basil Fawlty goose stepping around his hotel, or Vicky Pollard having a pee before she gets out of the swimming pool. It was funny the first dozen times but not now.

Freshen up the channel with new old programmes Where is The Sweeney, Minder, Casualty, Holby City, Dallas, and why is The Bill only shown during the day?

I am sure that your system has captured every Email address of people who correspond with you on this message board. Let us be your survey community, send us your questionnaire let us tell you what we really think.

UKtv you need to clean up your act SIT UP & TAKE SERIOUS NOTE.

Hi Damien,
Yes I do work in the media, first in broadcast and now in advertising, so I have a very good understanding of how the media works and that is precisily why I am so angry at UKTV for what they have done to their channels. Unfortunately the media industry is run by fresh out of uni kids with a degree in media studies and not much else by way of intelligence, they are just clones with no individualism and you are over the hill by the time you reach 25, UKTV is dumbed down like everything else available to the British public these days.
As much as I love some of the shows aired I would like a bit of variety on occaision I spend alot of money on cable tv and would like to see it being spent on proper vintage shows rather than something that has just been on terrestrial tv only weeks before. I have asked for many good shows only to be told that there isnt a market for them, so how come most posts on this website are requesting the same thing? Take Dallas for example, not high brow BBC4 stuff but a classic of its time and very entertaining it was aired on UKTV for years, now its trendy again they are making a movie version and you can get some episodes on DVD, clearly this is a popular show so why is it not on Gold now? It makes no sense to me to air repeats of My Family and Two Pints (Awful) that have just been on BBC 1 & 3, who is going to watch it?
I understand the problems that UKTV has and that they have survive in a competitive and changing media industry, but they won't if they continue churning out the repetitive rubbish that they are subjecting us to, I used to watch UKGold all the time but now only very occasionally, when there are true classics on.
I also wish that we could all have a good discussion about classic TV, but if there isn't any being shown then how can we talk about it?