Ordinary Gweilo

The BBC is to replace BBC Sub-Prime with a new channel, BBC Entertainment.  It’s not at all clear what this might mean (after all, BBC Prime is already supposed to an entertainment channel) but I suppose we can hope for fewer old sitcoms starring Geoffey Palmer and something more modern instead. 

The BBC will also offer three other channels, BBC Knowledge and BBC Lifestyle and CBeebies but it is not clear when (or if) they will be available in Hong Kong: 

• BBC Knowledge was once a digital television channel in the UK "dedicated to the very best cultural and factual programming", but it was replaced by BBC Four.
• BBC Lifestyle sounds as if it will be the lighter factual stuff such as cooking, gardening, travel, antiques and the like.
• CBeebies is a children’s channel (hey – more Teletubbies!!)

I suppose the decision the BBC have to make is whether to sell programmes to foreign broadcasters or put them out on their own channels.  Currently, TVB Pearl, ATV World (and sometimes even Star World) have BBC programmes scattered randomly across their schedule (ATV are currently showing Dr Who, for example).  Don’t suppose that brings in much money, though.  Do subscriptions to BBC Prime bring in more, though?  Possibly not, which is why BBC Prime usually has old or obscure stuff.

I don’t watch BBC Prime very much, but I caught some of it on Friday night.  They were showing a strange black comedy called Spine Chillers that was apparently first broadcast on BBC Three 3 years ago (see – old and obscure).  At the start there appeared to be an ‘M’ (mature) certificate, but they still bleeped out all the bad language.  Ridiculous.