Michael Jackson: A Life in Pop

Channel 4’s viewer enquiries team handled a total of 14,848 contacts (phone calls and emails) from viewers in June. Each query was logged and the appropriate people at Channel 4 notified. Of these contacts, 2,796 criticised the channel and its shows, while 235 complimented the programmes broadcast.

*Big Brother generated 1,837 complaints and 48 appreciative comments in June.

Top 10 programmes most appreciated by people who contacted Viewer Enquiries in June 2009 (quote is an example of viewer comment):

1. Michael Jackson: A Life in Pop (12 contacts)
   Thank you so much for an absolutely fab tribute to Michael Jackson! All his great music and none of the negative stuff that the media are still broadcasting even after his tragic death! As a lifetime fan, this is a sad time and what we want is to see and hear his great music, thank you!
2. Undercover Boss (9)
   Brilliant. Hard to believe a marketing director on a six figure salary has no experience of the product he’s selling. Great to see Andrew eat his words that low paid staff receiving extra money wouldn’t lead to improved productivity and happier employees. To his credit he rewarded his staff which was great viewing. Can’t wait for the next episode.
3. Dispatches: Orphan’s of Burma’s Cyclone (8)
   The coverage on the Burmese orphans was remarkable and heart breaking. I know there are many organizations in Burma providing food and aid but is there anyway to help those orphans featured in the programme?
4. Dispatches: Rape in the City (6)
   I know nothing of inner city life or gangs but I found the programme hard hitting and extremely well made, dealing with a difficult subject in a sensitive and intelligent manner. I found Sorious Samura extremely good and his style and method excellent. I do so hope we see more of him.
   
5. The World’s Greatest Music Prodigies (5)
   ‘Amazing television! Whoever commissioned this should get a raise. It was wonderful to see such an uplifting documentary that celebrated the gifted children, amazing families and incredible mentors this world has. I hope there will be similar programs to come.
6. The Operation: Surgery Live (5)
   I’d like to congratulate C4 for this excellent series. It was that rarest of things in modern TV: a serious documentary that treated its audience as intelligent but uninformed. There was no attempt to “dumb-down” what we were seeing. I’d like to thank all of the surgeons, medical teams, and patients that permitted us to glimpse their procedures. I would very much hope that a second season could be commissioned. Are there any plans to do so?
7. Bremner, Bird and Fortune: Who Broke Britain? (4)
   Congratulations on having the balls to show the Dinner Party sketch. We need more honesty like this in our comedy programs. Let’s not allows the minority to dictate what the majority wants to see and hear. More please!
8. Alan Carr: Chatty Man (4)
   I love Alan Carr and this show has me in stitches - he’s so cheeky!!
9. Inside Nature’s Giants (3)
   I just wanted to congratulate you on an incredibly interesting, informative and well-thought out documentary handled without excessive sentamentalisation (sic) but thought-provoking nonetheless. It answers questions as they occur to the viewer and is a really wonderful example of documentary, showing people something that they would otherwise have been very unlikely to see. Thank you and more of this type of programme please!
10. I’m Running Sainsbury’s (3)
    I am writing to say how much I love the “I’m running Sainsbury’s” series on Tuesday evenings Channel 4. The programmes are very well produced and are very entertaining. With the music and production it reminds me very much of “The Hotel Inspector”, and is just as addictive. It also illustrates how shop floor staff has great ideas basically because they are fully in touch with what makes the shopper tick. The other interesting thing that the programme illustrates is just how superior some managers feel about themselves which translates into a patronising attitude when talking to their “front line” staff. Thank you for a great piece of TV entertainment.

Top 10 programmes most criticised by people who contacted Viewer Enquiries in June 2009 (quote is an example of viewer comment):

1. Wife Swap (161)
   After watching the first few minutes of Wife Swap last night (June 21) I was disgusted and horrified that you would even air an episode like this.
2. Channel 4 News (68)
   I was just watching the 3-way interview with the newly elected BNP MEP as one of the participants. I was disgusted at the fact he wasn’t able to give over his points without being constantly shouted down and interrupted; with no one seeming to bother about it. It was totally one sided. Disgusting.
3. My Monkey Baby (39)
   I would just like to say how appalled I was to see these monkeys treated to badly and Channel 4 for condoning this action by going to film this. These people need some kind of psychological help that does not involve taking a monkey away from its natural habitat for their own selfish needs. I will be writing to the American government to get this wicked cruelty overturned.
4. The TNT Show (22)
   I was shocked at the discriminatory segment of the show named ‘Gilbert’s special report’ which I feel was unashamedly discriminatory toward persons with disabilities. I found this transmission most inappropriate and extremely awkward to watch. I hope that Channel 4 will never show such stereotypical views again on their prime time TV shows!
5. Bremner, Bird and Fortune: Who Broke Britain? (17)
   I was most shocked and disappointed to find that the content of last night’s show included bad language which did nothing to enhance the enjoyment of the show.
6. Michael Jackson: A Life in Pop (17)
   It’s sad that Michael Jackson died but the world didn’t come to an end. There was no need to change your programming for this. He was a pop star, not God, not Royalty, he didn’t discover a cure for cancer, didn’t solve the Middle East problem! Yet another example of celebrity culture taking over!
7. 8 out of 10 Cats (17)
   Too much ridicule of Susan Boyle. A plain middle-aged woman with learning difficulties isn’t a valid target; it’s too much like bullying. I’m especially sorry to hear it from my comedy hero, Sean Lock. Try to think a bit more News Quiz, a bit less Russell Brand.
8. Dispatches: Rape in the City (16)
   I do not have a complaint with this programme, rather the scheduling which places gang rape at 8.30, before the watershed and a programme about child prodigies at 9pm after the watershed. As the parent of a 9 year old, I know which of the above my child is likely to find inspirational and which terrifying. I would be interested to learn how the timing of Dispatches is justified.
9. Inside Nature’s Giants (11)
   I was horrified when I watched the programme Nature’s Giants: Elephant it was making me sick, not the fact of the dead animal it was because of how little respect they had for the elephant. As an animal lover I will be protesting about the show it was horrific no way should an animal be dissected like that they just dragged the internal organs out and started prodding them.
10. Madonna and Mercy: What Really Happened? (10)
    The programme was full of rhetoric and vivid analogy, but lacked substance. The reporter made a number of claims; many were highly dubious and poorly supported. For example: - Madonna’s actions were repeatedly compared to those of “19th century colonialists”. At one point she was even compared to slave master! These comparisons are tendentious at best and do nothing to advance the main argument of the program.

Many viewers who contacted the channel said they had appreciated the broadcast of the tribute programme Michael Jackson: A Life in Pop, welcoming it as a positive celebration of Jackson’s music against a backdrop of the day’s news reporting, which they felt had tended to focus “more on the court cases and PR disasters of his life”. Some however expressed disappointment in the way the programme had been edited, believing that more time should have been taken to create a more “meaningful and moving tribute”. There was also some criticism from viewers over the channel’s decision to broadcast the programme twice in two days.

With regards to the coverage of Jackson’s death on Channel 4 News, a number of viewers contacted us to complain about the amount of airtime given to the story. There was some sense that Jackson’s death, albeit huge entertainment news, should not have been given top billing over other stories. As one viewer put it, “mention Michael Jackson’s death by all means, but the lead story? Is there no crisis in Iran or Zimbabwe?”

Elsewhere, a handful of viewers contacted the channel to suggest that news of Jackson’s death was significant enough to have been passed on to this year’s Big Brother housemates, allowing them to “grieve along with the rest of the world”.

What do you think? Do you think that Channel 4 handled the death of Michael Jackson in the right way? Was too much time handed over to the news coverage, or was the balance of programming correct? Was it right for the channel to broadcast a tribute programme twice over the weekend, or do you feel it was an unnecessary addition to the schedule?

We’ll be debating all of this and more on The TV Show this Saturday 4 July at 5pm. If you’d like to share your views, please leave your comments below.

According to this research, we are more worried about slipping standards of behaviour in society generally (50% of those surveyed) than in programmes on television (just 14% of those surveyed). Dig a little deeper into such concerns as there are about television and we find swearing at the top of the list, followed by violence on television and sexual content on television.But this statistic hides some clear difference between different groups of viewers – younger men being the most tolerant of stronger language and parents of younger children and older viewers being most sensitive. And it seems that there is no simple list of words that you should or should not broadcast, as we react to the specific circumstances, the time of broadcast, who is uttering the words and how they are being used and our familiarity with the programme and the individuals. So the conclusions the BBC are drawing seem to be proceed with caution but always ask the question “is this word really necessary?”

We’ll be debating the issue on the next edition of The TV Show -  Channel 4, Saturday 4 July, 5pm - so if you’d like to let us know what you think, please add your comments below.  If your comment is a good one, we will be inviting you to join the audience for the show. Obviously we will have to work within the moderation rules for this site, so if you want to include a particular swear word, asterisks are recommended!

Last month, The TV Show visited Belfast to see what viewers there thought of our programmes – while we were there, we popped in to say hello to the viewer enquiries team and asked them to tell us more about the job they do and why it’s so important.

Between them, the viewer enquiries team deal with around 200,000 - 250,000 contacts (phone calls, letters and emails) each year, most of which are requests for information about programmes past and present, general scheduling queries,  questions about the music used in programmes, and even questions about where Davina purchased her latest outfit!

Around 30,000 contacts received by viewer enquiries each year will be critical of the programmes broadcast by the channel, and around 5,000 will be appreciative comments.  Each of these contacts gets logged by the team and then distributed around C4 on a daily basis, so that everyone at the channel is aware of viewers’ opinions on what we show.

For a run down of the latest appreciative and critical comments received by viewer enquiries, see our monthly Rated/Slated blog post.

Watch the video to find out what viewers thought of programmes including Come Dine with Me, Find Me a Family, Extreme Male Beauty, Embarrassing Bodies, Hollyoaks, Gok’s Fashion Fix, Big Art, The Operation: Surgery Live and more.

Do you agree with what the people of Belfast had to say? Let us know by rating the video, or posting your comments below.

If you’d like to share your views with The TV Show, visit our Be on the Show section to find out how you can take part.

Twitter has been in the media a lot in recent months. Surgery Live was the second of three experiments to come out of Channel 4’s cross-platform department using this increasingly popular ‘microblogging’ service in connection with television programmes. The experiment reflects the increasingly common habit of ‘Twittering’ whilst watching TV, plugging in to that behaviour in the context of a bold, educative factual television series - importantly a live one.

Twitter, if it hasn’t crossed your path, is a website from which you can send short messages (of up to 140 characters) to a network of people who are interested in similar things to you or who choose to follow your short messages or ‘tweets’.

When I first saw Twitter a few years ago I thought it was the end of civilisation as we know it. Since then I’ve come to see it as a tool in search of a purpose and I’ve now commissioned three experiments (Osama Loves,  Surgery Live and the forthcoming Alone in the Wild - watch this space) that have been about applying the Twitter tool to a worthwhile mission or purpose.

Surgery Live, broadcast in May, used Twitter to enable viewers to ask questions and discuss live the surgical procedures featured in the series. Viewers were invited to watch a selection of four fascinating operations live at around 11pm each night of the Surgery Live week. From open heart surgery to awake brain surgery to keyhole surgery, viewers were invited to ask questions of the surgeons via Twitter (or email or phone), all filtered via the production team and then posed through the intermediary of the presenter, arch-Twitterer Krishnan Guru-Murthy… A matter of seconds between tweet and the question being asked on live TV.

There is of course a long and honourable tradition of surgeons talking and teaching whilst operating and every effort was made to make the Twittering aspect of Surgery Live no more distracting than that normal medical training practice.

So viewers were encouraged to tweet away during the live operations, sharing their thoughts and asking questions. The big difference from the few previous experiments in this area is that this was live TV and so viewers were able to make an impact on the actual TV editorial. Now of course there are echoes of phone-ins and combining TV with forums/chatrooms the best part of a decade ago (notably by Danny Baker on Channel 4) but what this new generation of social media brings is a networked conversation, which is global, searchable, tagable and open. In other words, unlike emails, text messages or phones, you can join in a discussion among numerous people from right across the UK and beyond – fellow viewers, experts, medical students, enthusiasts, all manner of interested parties – live and simultaneously.

One measure of Surgery Live’s impact online was that it ‘trended’ #1, #2# or #3 on Twitter every night – that is, for a while around transmission was the 1st, 2nd or 3rd most popular topic globally. Another is that by the second night, if you googled the word “surgery” the Surgery Live website showed up number 2 of 121 million results.

But to get a real sense of how the Surgery Live experiment panned out, I leave it to the words of our viewers/participants.

• philroberts: #slive this could be one of the best models for twitter, live interactive feedback brilliant twitter was a great enhancement to the show
• manpreet1: Surgery live on channel 4, and #slive, was a great use of a new format.
• bruceelrick: @wellcometrust it was a great success on twitter. #slive now 3rd most popular trend on twitter – pretty great achievement!
• J_Dizzle_: just watched heart surgery live on channel 4, twitter questions and updates.. very well done. #slive

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.

He told me that there is a universally agreed level that sound should not rise above, but that modern compression techniques tend to bring all the sound up to this level, making the overall effect that of a noisier programme, albeit one that is still within the agreed limits. This is often evident in commercials, which tend to be highly compressed to make them stand out more in a crowded environment.  Add to this trend a gradual deterioration in our ability to hear the higher frequencies as we grow older, which are important in distinguishing speech, and less than perfect conditions in many of our living rooms, and you have a situation where music, particularly percussion or synthesisers, will start to compete with the level of the voices and, in the more extreme cases, make the speech very difficult to hear.

In the case of the Time Team programme on Stonehenge, his review of the music levels on several different televisions showed that there was a danger that some people would not be able to hear Tony Robinson’s commentary clearly enough, and he immediately suggested that the sound levels should be rebalanced - ideally before the programme’s next transmission - to make sure that the programme was accessible to the widest possible audience.  So thanks to you for raising it and to Time Team for being such good listeners!

PS A quick update to let you know that the rebalanced version will be broadcast this Saturday (13th June) on More 4 at 10pm

1066: The Battle for Middle Earth

Channel 4’s viewer enquiries team handled a total of 12,435 contacts (phone calls and emails) from viewers in May. Each query was logged and the appropriate people at Channel 4 notified. Of these contacts, 1,159 criticised the channel and its shows, while 430 complimented the programmes broadcast.

Top 10 programmes most appreciated by people who contacted Viewer Enquiries in May 2009 (quote is an example of viewer comment):

1. 1066: The Battle for Middle Earth (21contacts)
   Thank you for 1066 - a stunning innovation in historical drama/documentary. My pulse raced and I cried in turns. I have never seen history documented so evocatively.
2. Kirstie’s Homemade Home (18)
   What a lovely programme this is - very down to earth, informative and inspiring and presented with Kirstie’s enthusiasm it makes you want to try the skills featured. A refreshing change.
3. Endgame (16)
   Suburb, enthralling, brilliantly made and acted. One of the best pieces of television drama that I have ever had the pleasure to watch; absolutely gripping from start to finish. Congratulations, well done and thank-you to all of those involved in its production.
4. Dispatches: Britain’s Bankers: Still Cashing In (13)
   Please pass on my appreciation to Jane Moore and the team. Another cracking piece of TV shock journalism as I call it. Once again Dispatches gets to the core of another national scandal. PS. You might need to warn viewers with high blood pressure, prior to a follow-up show on this latest scandal.
5. Shameless (13)
   Last night’s shameless - WOW. From light to dark and back again before you notice. I held my breath, with goosebumps on my arms.
6. Gok’s Fashion Fix (13)
   Gok Wan rocks! What a superb show. As a TV expert (that sounds awful, sorry) myself I just wanted to praise Gok for his beautiful mentoring heart. It comes through everything he does on this show. I’ve never seen him on screen till this series but I totally get why he is so loved. Whatta guy! I also love the way he’s prepared to share the glory with the other stylist, this is such a good example and sends out positive messages that go way beyond self image. Thank you.
7. The Unloved (12)
   It was the most powerful TV drama I have ever seen - so much so that I had to watch it in two halves as I could not cope with it all at once. Molly Windsor didn’t say much, but she spoke volumes - an outstanding young actress.
8. The Operation: Surgery Live (11)
   Fantastic programme! Excellent idea! I have nothing to do with surgery/nursing and found this fascinating, informative and reassuring. Thanks for such a wonderful series of programmes! Well done Channel 4!
9. Born To Be Different (9)
   What an absolutely fantastic documentary. I have watched every one over the years and have felt for all the families in the difficult decisions/situations that they have had to deal with. The conclusion to the programme felt very final and I’d hoped to hear that we would catch up with them all in another couple of years. PLEASE PLEASE will there be another series?
10. Dispatches: Lost In Care (9)
    Thank you so much for your programme, it has made me realise that as a family we are going to pursue this and not give up. There are children out there that need our family!
11. The Secret Millionaire (9)
    Brilliant! Another fantastic episode which has put Channel 4 right at the top so far as teaching and education is concerned. This factual exposure of real poverty should be done more on television as television is such a powerful medium. If we had politicians who really cared for everyone in society, these problems wouldn’t exist. Once again, Well Done!

Top 10 programmes most criticised by people who contacted Viewer Enquiries in May 2009 (quote is an example of viewer comment):

1. Big Brother (streaming) (99 contacts)
   I think it is an utter disgrace that BB10 is lacking live feed. It is what makes the show so interesting for a lot of the viewers. By taking away live feed yours are essentially taking away the core fans of Big Brother.
2. The Secret Millionaire (52)
   Channel 4 portrayal of Barrow-in-Furness was appalling, that was not the Barrow I grew to love. I was curate on Barrow Island for 4 years a great place and lots of lovely parts which they never showed. So the rich kid gave away his money, drop in the ocean to someone with £8 million, I found the whole programme condescending.
3. Born Survivor: Bear Grylls (39)
   Bear strikes again! I do appreciate that he needs to discuss and demonstrate survival techniques in his programme, however it is the inhumane way that he kills his meals that I have problems with - the way that the boa constrictor was killed was cruel and unnecessary - it’s not like he is not travelling without rations, supplies and a support crew.
4. Gok’s Fashion Fix (33)
   The first series was absolutely fabulous, and we were sad to see it finish, however eagerly awaited the second series. Unfortunately as we started watching the new series in 2009, we soon came to realise that the format of the show had completely changed… for the worse.
5. Cutting Edge: Madeleine Was Here (27)
   I would like to make a complaint about the biased approach that the programme makers adopted in the creation of the Madeline McCann edition of Cutting Edge. Programme-makers must never reconstruct, re-enact or otherwise FAKE any scenes of actuality and pass them off to viewers or to Channel 4 as the real thing.
6. Superbikes World Championship 2009 (23)
   My Radio Times said you were showing highlights of the Monza WSB round in the wee small hours last night at 01.35, so I set my video. What do I get? Sailing. I don’t see the point in covering WSB or any sport in such a shabby way, and it is very annoying when it turns out you don’t keep to the advertised scheduling anyway.
7. The Operation: Surgery Live (24)
   Very angry that transmission of this excellent programme was curtailed before the procedure was complete. It was already over-running so more time could have been allowed. Especially annoying as the following programme was a repeat.
8. Embarrassing Bodies (20)
   I am outraged at the content of the television programme and believe that these graphic images should not be displayed till after 9pm. I am very distressed at what I have seen and I do not want my children watching this programme. There is no place for nudity on my television and I believe that many people feel the same, I put forward that the programme should be moved to 9pm where people expect to see these images so no offence is caused.
9. The Unloved (16)
   Once again TV producers have turned what should have been a serious and thought provoking drama into an excuse to have an 11-year-old girl listening to plainly what can only be explained as gratuitous violence and disgusting language… It is of no wonder that standards of decency are being corrupted in the name of freedom of expression. What next, an actual murder to take place because the audience will not realise the potential of the drama without seeing it?
10. Extreme Male Beauty (15)
    I felt the quality of the presenter extremely poor. This programme seemed to be neither a documentary nor a comedy. If it was meant to be a comedy I found it to be unfunny and at times pathetic the way the presenter was offering so little. He kept referring to his penis as his “winkle” which was so extremely immature and actually very boring

With regular posts written by C4’s viewers’ editor and various commissioning editors, our blog is one of the best places to comment on the most high profile programmes and viewer issues. You can also rate and comment on monthly video vox pops from The TV Show’s Big 4, which travels around the country gathering honest feedback from the people who watch our shows.

And if you have something you want to say about television, but can’t find anyone else discussing it on the site, please use this area to kick start the debate by leaving your comments below. We’ll keep an eye on all your comments, along with those left across channel4.com, to make sure we respond to the issues important to you.

Throughout the year, Channel 4 will also broadcast a number of TV Show debates. Hosted by Krishnan Guru-Murthy, these shows will focus on some of the bigger issues raised by viewers and give our audience another chance to let us know what they think.

So, get involved in the conversation about television right now by making the most of The TV Show site. Remember, it’s your TV Show, guided by your opinions about television. Make sure you have your say!

Part of the success of Come Dine With Me is down to the variety of people taking part and the interaction this provokes – some contestants on the series can be outspoken and provocative, especially once the wine starts to flow! However, the show is carefully reviewed before broadcast to ensure that anything said by a contestant is acceptable and justifiable. These judgements are based on a number of factors, including the Ofcom Broadcasting Code, previous experience, the expectations of the audience for that programme and the context of the programme itself.

When I spoke to the commissioning editor of the series, she observed that the most successful contestants are those who prepare the food they think their guests will most enjoy, and she felt that, on this occasion, this particular contestant was aiming to do just that when she made a comment about the strength of the curry she was planning to serve to her guests. This comment caused a small flurry of complaints, but it was directly related to her food preparation for that evening, and her perception of her guests’ tastes and preferences - during the previous meal, her fellow diners had indicated that they did not enjoy chillies in their food to the same extent that she did. Given this context and the fact the comment was delivered in a light-hearted manner, the team previewing the episode did not think that it was either intended to be racially abusive or discriminatory or would be interpreted as such by the audience. And although the number of complaints was surprising for this programme, it was still very small when measured against the benchmark of something like Celebrity Big Brother.

But it just goes to show that racism is still an extremely sensitive issue for our audiences, which I think is very well understood by everyone at Channel 4. The channel’s head of daytime was at pains to reassure me that she will be keeping a very close eye out for any issues of this sort across all the programmes she is responsible for.

Update: Ofcom’s Broadcast Bulletin - Issue 135 (published 8 June 2009) notes that Ofcom have decided not to uphold the 35 complaints they received in relation to this episode of Come Dine with Me. The result is listed on p.39 of the document.