Resetting the buttons

 Today we're back to the Gogglebox in the corner of the room.

We will almost certainly by the month's end be in another cycle of retuning our televisions, something we seldom did back in the days of analogue 625 line PAL Colour due to some changes.

We may not understand everything about but most of us have heard of 5G, the latest and quickest mobile phone and computing service that today includes streamed media.

It uses frequencies previously used by our television service as it is held we need less "channels" that today one each may hold several whole tv stations than we did in the past.

Well the company EE will from july be using another former Tv channel allocated to it and this means a transmitter that uses Channel 55 will be closed down meaning a few stations will go completely such as Forces TV.

It means the BBC will move BBC Four and CBeebies to another group for HD (High defination) services but because there is no longer space for it the BBC News channel will lose its HD version although to be honest in an era where footage is broadcast from mobile phones in portrait (vertically held) mode by people I don't think it'll be missed that much.

This was expected although Ofcom provides no really guidance in how such shortfalls are to be remedied, leaving it to the companies to sort out.

Some ten years on from switchover completion when London was the last to change over, you might of thought we'd of moved transmissions on the mainstream channels to HD by default given there has been no new  tvs without the ability to accept the transission standard for HD for over eight years and most older sets would of gone to landfill by this point.

The inequitious black set top box can still be had - there is a Humax for around £40 from some stores - for those who still have older sets and in an era where the BBC and ITV companies talk about shortfalls in revenue you do wonder what it costs to produce and transmit the output in both standard and high defination.

It is believed by years end the BBC's studios will be able to send news in HD to the regional BBC 1 set up (Midlands West here) as they didn't invest in the technology to do that which doesn't encourage people to use HD if you're having to flick but and forth.

Adventures in comicland

 Weekend was rather busy here so I had a few things partly planned out .

First off, May 31 saw the Schools Out bi monthly edition of Monster Fun come out which as the title suggests has the majority of the stories being centred around that ritual where school takes a break while (hopefully) we do get away.

The resurrected comic continues to bring in a actual child base which distinguishes it from other more retro for adults attempts at doing  new specials such as those for the girls comic Jinty and clearly Rebellion Publishing are putting a lot into building up a new audience.

Meanwhile in The Beano it has reported Pup Parade, the cartoon strip that featured dogs many of Class IIb's pet dogs is set to finish in July after Lew Stringers excellent work in a new mini strip from April without official explination.

One thought I have is given how in some communities Dogs are seen as "unclean" to the point they would not be allowed to be pets or to be say cars and the continuing additions of often new children from the Indian Sub-continent to IIb's class as part of the attempt to diversify and make more inclusive that series that originally debuted in 1954, if it may be seen the dogs get in the way and so axed.

It wasn't as if every child in that class had one Cuthbert Cringyworthy for instance was never given one way back in 1972.

We'll see what replaces it in due course.

The return of Toy Cars

This week we're going backwards really because  person I know who outside of their day job had a number of side businesses talked recently about the reason they enjoyed those things and that was their interest in tapes and putting out special music releases was actually connected to the things they liked  when they were young and that this spilt over into other things such as toys.

Now the tape business dealing in new old stock had to go simply because in Europe there's few hidden warehouse finds and prices go beyond that which people are prepared to pay and the record side of the music releases hit a snag with massive delays with vinyl pressing prints doing the umpteenth Abba and Dark Side of the Moon re-issue while independants with new music struggle to get time.

Now this person has children of his own and shares interests that any dad would with them and that was the genius behind Tony's Toy Chest his new online venture taking in gaming and model cars.

He specializes in getting harder to get models in rather than the everyday stuff toyshops already do such as these Tomica models produced for the Japanese market in Vietnam which are high quality die cast ones that remind me of those Lesley models I bought in the 1970's over here. 

They come packaged in outer polyproperline box with flaps to push out the main card box and the care itself is wrapped in plastic.

The genius of the Nissan Silvia line goes way back to 1965 comprising of  small sports cars built on the Nissan S platform some of which were sold under the Datsun brand name.

The models are finely cast and have that feel of real quality about them with things like the wheel assembly and tires spinning smoothly so they can be used as intended for playing with obviously with some care.

These are great models, a step up from Hot Wheels.

That was why I bought this one as unashamably a boys toy to be played with slotting in well with engaging with my younger inner boy self.

Saving children's television

This week we are going topical by talking about a proposal likley to affect children in the next three years that was announced by The BBC director general, Tim Davie last Thursday to a good deal of controversy.

In a response to the funding settlement involving the UK's Television license by the Government, he issues a raft of proposals dressed up as repurposing the BBC for the modern age and this envisioned moving to a "digital" online only system involving the iPlayer where the programs would be listed to be watched at any time rather than having programs scheduled in linear time going out as a channel.

One channel outlined for this approach is CBBC, Children's BBC, which grew out of children's programming segments for family viewing from the earliest days of BBC tv when there was just a single BBC channel on tv and as we moved into the 1980's the establishment of a Children's BBC Unit with strands of labelled programming.

As the UK moved toward digital multichannel television in 1998 with the advent of digital terrestrial and satellite boradcasting children's only channels started to emerge and into this came ITV Kids and in 2002 CBBC which simicasted cbbc linear tv content from the main BBC1 channel and added extra programming.

When during the period 2009 through 2012 the analogue terresterial service was turned off, it was decided to move all children's programming to dedicated channels so anything of pre-school audience went to Cbeebies and all else went to CBBC exclusively.

CBBC is the home of some iconic shows such as Blue Peter and Newsround  and does show or have produced for it UK produced programs including drama such as  Jamie Johnson, So Akward and Almost Never and some specialist programs.

They include Book Club which is designed to introduce and get children talking about books which is not something that commercial channels touch and involve a good deal of interection between the audience and the show.

Some have suggested that actually to loose the channel but keep the programming online isn't a big loss but it does cut into interactivity because an audience often asks questions in real time on a show creating an air of suspense and surprise which if people didn't know when it was "live" it couldn't happen.

A big part of CBBC is the sense of community - the sense everyone is together watching - from the days of "The Broom Cupboard" with Gordon the Gopher and Edd the Duck to todays HQ (Headquarters) with Hakker T Dogg.

In real time quizes and appearence by stars of CBBC happen between the programs born of the old continuity announcer links that children interact with today online but in the past by letter and phone calls.

In a very real way it makes CBBC a "homebase" for children supplimented by things such as Blue Peter Fan Club where they talk about and during the show with each other and afterwards with presenters.

It may seem odd perhaps to broadcast a whole channel when between say 8:15 in the Morning to around 3:30 in the afternoon most schooldays the audience is at school and like all the BBC's services it is sent out in so-called Standard and High Defination feeds which is costly.

The times you as child looked for extra programming were school holidays and weekends simply because at all other times unless you were poorly you were in school.

Many children themselves have pointed out the numbers of families with poor or no internet, a shortage of devices big enough to watch on for period of time without squinting  and in some households a combination of Mum or Dad working from home, an older sibling playing multiplayer games and younger members tring to watch could lead to freezing.

This was one reason Ofcom, the regulator ruled out a regular tv switch off until 2040 when the infrostucture might be ready.

There is the also the increasing concern over screen time increasingly younger children are spending stearing at small screens and unlike the past they may well of looking at screens also in school.

Perhaps one sensible way that some grown ups have suggested is to run first showings between 3:30 and say 6PM which gives you two and half hours a day into which as most childrens shows are half hourly allows for five shows a day and most shows only have one episode a week.

You could then show 25 shows on schooldays backed up by the iPlayer for later viewing, keeping the HQ interactivity and critically access to all while tackling cost issues.

Such an approach does mean a return to idea of BROADCASTING, making things for wide appeal and sharing spaces rather than the niche NARROWCASTING that has left daytime BBC 1 into lifestyle tv about makeovers, buying houses with bar like quizes and antiques with the odd soap tossed in.

That's similar to what we had before but if idea of transmitted linear channels is to provide it needs to do something other than just playing out shows, it must be for all and be involving directly an audience while those who do want to pick and choice from lots of shows even from decades ago are able to too.

I'm not so convinced a entirely virtual digital world is where we all are when we know sales of records have increased, that despite the use of electronic readers, even children read physical books and magazines of which there is much competition for rack spaces still sell and where live contact is still valued.

We need to find  away offering this that does fit in with the digital world  too rather than just scrapping an actual transmitted channel and identity (and BBC4).