Paula Carter is Channel 4’s viewers’ editor and contributes regularly to The TV Show blog, reflecting on issues raised by viewers
Author: |Posted: 4:42 pm on 05/11/09
Category: Blog
Last month Channel 4 received a flurry of comments from viewers who suggested that the on-air trails for shows including True Blood and Age 8 and Wanting a Sex Change had been broadcast at inappropriate times of the day. In order to find out more, I spoke to team responsible for scheduling our on-air trails and asked them to explain a bit more about their decision making process. read more
Author: |Posted: 1:47 pm on 26/10/09
Category: Blog
Last week Channel 4 broadcast Age 8 and Wanting a Sex Change, a Bodyshock documentary about young children with gender dysphoria. It was a fascinating film that prompted a great deal of comment amongst viewers, both online and through C4’s viewer enquiries. read more
Author: |Posted: 10:38 am on 14/10/09
Category: Blog
Channel 4 has just announced details of a new season that aims to debunk the myth that science can support notions of racial superiority.
Anchored around five thought-provoking science documentaries to be broadcast from Oct 26, the season encourages viewers to delve deep into the subject of race with online features including a Define Race tool (which asks viewers to consider the true meaning of the word ‘race’) and a selection of exclusive video interviews that reveal why our programme presenters and C4 representatives believe the subject of race is such an important one to explore. read more
Author: |Posted: 3:26 pm on 10/09/09
Category: Blog
There is no doubt from the blogs and feedback I have read that many viewers were intensely moved by 102 Minutes That Changed America, a documentary broadcast on Monday night that showed – through hundreds of pieces of video footage and audiotape – the tragic events of 9/11 unfolding, minute by minute. But for some people, their viewing experience was marred by the content and number of adverts broadcast during the programme.
Author: |Posted: 11:27 am on 08/09/09
Category: Blog
As viewers’ editor at Channel 4, one of the annual fixtures in my diary is a trip to the Edinburgh International TV Festival. Each year, the great and the good of the television industry gather in the Scottish capital to ponder the future of the business and discuss the many challenges we face in keeping hundreds of channels afloat in order to entertain and delight our audiences. read more
Author: |Posted: 11:10 am on 26/08/09
Category: Blog
Channel 4 has announced today that it will not be renewing its rights deal for Big Brother when its contract with programme maker Endemol ends in 2010. This means that next year’s series of Big Brother and Celebrity Big Brother will be the last on Channel 4. read more
Author: |Posted: 10:32 am on 29/07/09
Category: Blog
Early this month, Channel 4 broadcast a week-long daytime series called Life Class: Today’s Nude, which gave viewers an opportunity to learn to draw through five 30-minute nude life drawing classes. read more
Author: |Posted: 11:53 am on 10/07/09
Category: Blog
As many of you noticed, there have been some quite significant changes happening over at 4oD in the last few weeks. The original application that required viewers to download Channel 4 programmes to their computers has been quietly pensioned off, while over 4,000 hours of archive content has been added to the channel4.com site, creating a brand new – and far easier to use – 4oD experience. read more
Author: |Posted: 5:14 pm on 26/06/09
Category: Blog
Not my turn of phrase, but the description chosen by the BBC for a large scale piece of research they conducted in the wake of the incident featuring Jonathan Ross, Russell Brand and some tasteless remarks broadcast on Radio 2. The research is indeed extensive, and the headlines are helpfully summarised in a report which makes for some interesting reading.
Author: |Posted: 5:31 pm on 09/06/09
Category: Blog
We have a small but steady number of complaints about the levels of background music in certain programmes that appear to be drowning out the commentary for some viewers. A recent post on this website about the background music levels in Time Team: The Secrets of Stonehenge led me to a very knowledgeable person indeed – the series editor for Time Team was trained as a sound engineer at the BBC so he was able to explain to me in some detail how background music levels are set and what can go wrong between the perfect conditions of a recording studio and the ears of the viewer at home.
