BBC's 'digital faces' attacked by governors
The BBC's controversial 'faces' trail promoting digital television has again landed corporation chiefs in hot water. The computer-animated trail ran in November and December last year on BBC One and BBC Two in daytime and peak. The trail was intended to explain the full choice of BBC channels offered on digital TV and how to get them, but more than 1,000 viewers complained that the trail was too frightening for children, and some viewers said it made them feel sick.
The BBC pulled the trail early after defending it. But now the BBC Governors' Programme Complaints Committee (GPCC) says the trail should never have been shown before the watershed, and has criticised the way the corporation explained the decision to stop airing it.
The GPCC, responsible for monitoring the effectiveness of complaints handling by the BBC, said it "recognised the creative challenge inherent in producing a memorable message in less than a minute".
But it drew a distinction between pre- and post-watershed material. Before transmission research had found that the trail would be disliked by some sections of the audience, and the BBC's editorial policy unit had advised that the trail could be "predictably unsettling to sections of the audience (very young and older) because 'playing' with the human face and image typically elicits a strong reaction in these segments".
The GPCC therefore felt the trail was "unsuitable for broadcast pre-watershed". It also agreed that the "trail itself was potentially distasteful to any section of the audience and, as such, that broadcasting it at any time was likely to provoke complaints from significant numbers of the audience". However, it did not feel that it breached the guidelines for after the watershed.
On the BBC's explanation for the trail coming off air, the GPCC said it "gave the impression that the trail had been withdrawn primarily because the marketing job had been done". Instead it should have "properly acknowledged the role of audience complaints in the decision to withdraw
and apologised for the offence".
Partly upholding the complaint the GPCC said it would write to BBC marketing chief Tim Davie "to request that in any statement to the audience the BBC should be open in acknowledging when it had made a mistake or misjudged the content of its output".
The BBC digital faces trail featured several small faces making up a large head quickly hovering through a mountain valley. One viewer posted a note to the Points of View bulletin board saying "it makes me feel physically sick and now I have to go out of the room when it is on".
Another viewer said: "I saw this trail for the first time last night, and I thought it was hideous. It struck me as the kind of image you'd get in Quake or Doom. Very demonic, and not what I would consider to be money well spent."
Regards Satdude.
The BBC's controversial 'faces' trail promoting digital television has again landed corporation chiefs in hot water. The computer-animated trail ran in November and December last year on BBC One and BBC Two in daytime and peak. The trail was intended to explain the full choice of BBC channels offered on digital TV and how to get them, but more than 1,000 viewers complained that the trail was too frightening for children, and some viewers said it made them feel sick.
The BBC pulled the trail early after defending it. But now the BBC Governors' Programme Complaints Committee (GPCC) says the trail should never have been shown before the watershed, and has criticised the way the corporation explained the decision to stop airing it.
The GPCC, responsible for monitoring the effectiveness of complaints handling by the BBC, said it "recognised the creative challenge inherent in producing a memorable message in less than a minute".
But it drew a distinction between pre- and post-watershed material. Before transmission research had found that the trail would be disliked by some sections of the audience, and the BBC's editorial policy unit had advised that the trail could be "predictably unsettling to sections of the audience (very young and older) because 'playing' with the human face and image typically elicits a strong reaction in these segments".
The GPCC therefore felt the trail was "unsuitable for broadcast pre-watershed". It also agreed that the "trail itself was potentially distasteful to any section of the audience and, as such, that broadcasting it at any time was likely to provoke complaints from significant numbers of the audience". However, it did not feel that it breached the guidelines for after the watershed.
On the BBC's explanation for the trail coming off air, the GPCC said it "gave the impression that the trail had been withdrawn primarily because the marketing job had been done". Instead it should have "properly acknowledged the role of audience complaints in the decision to withdraw
and apologised for the offence".
Partly upholding the complaint the GPCC said it would write to BBC marketing chief Tim Davie "to request that in any statement to the audience the BBC should be open in acknowledging when it had made a mistake or misjudged the content of its output".
The BBC digital faces trail featured several small faces making up a large head quickly hovering through a mountain valley. One viewer posted a note to the Points of View bulletin board saying "it makes me feel physically sick and now I have to go out of the room when it is on".
Another viewer said: "I saw this trail for the first time last night, and I thought it was hideous. It struck me as the kind of image you'd get in Quake or Doom. Very demonic, and not what I would consider to be money well spent."
Regards Satdude.