Very disappointed as I recorded Dark Towers when I was at work the other day from CBBC and in one episode (6 or 7) they decided without warning or relevancy to stick a signer in the bottom right hand corner. Why only one episode?
Still chuffed to have it on tape - been wanting to watch it again since infants in 1981
When is Boy from Space on again on CBBC? Anyone know?
See previous posts for full answers. There are one of two reasons, although Ben may have more to add to the following. I appreciate how annoying it is, and, as I've previously mentioned, signing just two episodes is a joke anyway. What is the deaf person meant to do if he or she wishes to enjoy episodes one to four etc?!
1. Because the BBC is a public service broadcaster, it is committed to showing a variety of programmes which appeal to a large audience range. This explains why we get programmes like "Songs of Praise" on a Sunday night (even though The BBC know damn well only about 10 people watch it and most of those are in their 90's). There is a good chance that the BBC are thus compelled to broadcast a certain amount of 'signed' kids programmes per week, although some research would need to be done to establish if this is true, or, indeed, whether such PSB policies would apply to their satellite channels (such as CBBC) anyway.
2. As ridiculous as this one sounds, I truly believe it's a strong possibility:- As The BBC's television catalogue grows, the network are more than aware of the potential value many past programmes have. Indeed, the demand DVD has created for so called "TV classics" intensifies this all the more. Have the BBC placed sign language half way through a TV series to prevent people pirating their shows and selling them on, for instance, the internet (which is already being done on ebay!). You can't make a very professional DVD copy of "The Boy from Space" when a woman playing about with her hands appears in the corner of the screen half way through!!
I've got a better theory :) By signing material in this way justifies the need to launch the CBBC channel in the first place. One can thus justify it by claiming it can be used by everybody including deaf persons. The fact that only one episode out of a whole series is signed in this fashion is totally irrelevant to the argument. The CBBC channel isn't as much of a "hit" as the Cbeebies channel is so I wouldn't be surprised if this is an reason/excuse (one of many) to justify why the channel exists at all.
It's really much more prosaic than a grand BBC idea of public service broadcasting - all (significant) TV channels in the country have to provide increasing amounts of "access services" by law, which includes subtitles, audio description and sign language. The first two of those can be provided in a "closed" format - they're there, but you don't know they're there unless you go fiddling with menus and call them up. Sign language can't be hidden away like this (yet) so they just have to broadcast it on top of the normal picture and be damned.
I think the real problem in this case though is that CBBC don't embrace the signing as the real asset to their channel that it could be, they just stuff it away during random schools programmes. It's probably significant that CBBC don't actually schedule the schools programmes, the schools TV department does, CBBC just allocate a big anonymous four hour block for Class TV generally; yet I think it IS CBBC that schedule when to do sign language.
Neil, I think your idea about justifying the CBBC service by the fact that it provides a specific signed service would be brilliant, if they did it right. A dedicated, regular session of signed schools programmes, carefully scheduled so that they did make sense to watch together and were a useful teaching aid, would be brilliant - something that could only be provided by CBBC, not BBC2 or schools videos. They are obliged to do all this signing anyway, so if they just harnessed it, signed whole series at a time and scheduled them in a dedicated slot (say, Friday mornings for instance, leaving the rest of the week for coherent runs of un-signed programmes) they would have a whole new schools TV service that could be vigorously advertised in the primary catalogue, for instance, as a valuable tool and a unique service. (Sorry for going on and on about this again everybody, but I really do think it would be a good thing to do!)
The primary reason for doing the Look & Read repeats really is to make all these brilliant stories available as resources for teachers to use, or for kids to learn from at home. Although what Glyn says about thwarting piracy makes you think, doesn't it. Would they really deliberately mess up these resources for teachers, just in order to annoy a few bootleggers?
Anyway it hasn't worked, has it! There's loads of bootleg L&R DVDs going through ebay (always from the same one or two sellers though, I notice, and at least one of them has been NARUd recently...). But none of the listings ever seem to mention sign language. If anybody here has one of those DVDs, does it have the sign language on it? Has the seller tried to block it out, or did they manage to record the broadcasts in the spring when there was no signing?