61% of BBC TV programmes are repeats says the Daily Mail (again!!)

This week, the Daly Mail wrote another story about the number of repeated programmes on BBC TV had risen yet again.

It noted that:
BBC One aired 2,736 rerun shows in the year to March 2011, up 1.7% from 2006,
Nearly half of all content shown on BBC Two (49.8%) was repeats over the 12 months, up from just 30% six years ago.
BBC Four’s schedule was made up of 79% repeated programming, but BBC Three hit 84.2% reruns, a total of 3,144 shows.

The first point “BBC One aired 2,736 rerun shows in the year to March 2011, up 1.7% from 2006″ does sound a bit pointless. A 1.7% increase in the number of repeats…but note that that increase is over 5 years from 2006. Which does not make it sound that bad after all!!!

Yes BBC Three and BBC Four repeat figures are high, but then they have been allocated a small budget in comparison to BBC One and BBC Two, so obviously you would expect some repeats.

And strangely people still ask if there will be a “BBC1+1″ timeshift channel. Which in this age of Personal Video Recorders (PVRs), like Sky+ and Freesat+ missing programmes is less likely. And even more so when the BBC Iplayer is available for you to download programmes up to 7 days after transmission.

However, expect the Daily Mail to get even more uptight as the number of repeats starts to increase as the BBC decides what to do in the wake of its 20% budget cut / license fee freeze implemented by the UK Government. It has already been suggested that BBC2 in the daytime will become a channel of repeats, with limited new programming in the evenings only. And they have to find programmes to fill the gaps left by the reduction in live sporting events. 10 Formula one races of the 2012 season will not be shown live, most of the Australian Open Tennis which starts next week will not be shown live on any channel, not even the Red Button service.
As for the BBC, it is trying to do the best it can, and reduce its costs, with the 20% reduction in its funding. Even commercial broadcasters struggle with repeats. You only have to look at ITV3, and its repeats of programmes like Minder every day. And this week Channel 4 have suggested that they may launch a “catch up” channel, showing the best C4 programmes of the last week.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 14th, 2012 at 1:03 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.