BBC PARLIMENT - THE FACTS (BBC Parliament)

Member Name: JB01

Product:	BBC Parliament
Date:	09/07/06 (400 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Informative and relatively unique

Disadvantages: Presentation makes it a little tedious

Further to the purchase of my freeview digital box for my analogue TV another BBC channel. BBC PARLIAMENT a specialist channel by the beeb formally called the Parliamentary channel to quote the channels editor “BBC Parliament is the channel dedicated to detailed coverage of Parliament & Politics“. Some of the information that follows is from the website by Wikipedia. Launched 23.September.1998 and owned by the BBC, it has a low audience rating of almost zero (May 2006).

AVAILABILITY

Terrestrial - Freeview channel 81.
Satellite - Sky Digital channel 504.
Cable - NTL channel 128/13.
- Telewest channel 612.
- Telewest channel 05 (analogue).
Also shown on ABC News Radio (Australian parliamentary channel). C - SPAN (US). C PAC (Canadian). The Knesset channel (Israel).

PRESENTATION

WEBSITE

The channel is represented as part of the BBC on there website at www.bbc.co.uk, the pages are quite interesting and give advise on listings for future broadcasts: showings from 6.00 am - 4.30 am the next day. Also news on yesterdays broadcasts. There are icons for clicking which open into pages on 1. Bill Tracker - keep pace with legislation - key votes of the week. 2. Westminster digest - BBC roundup of proceeding’s of the day’s stories in Westminster. 3. Virtual Tour - Commons, Lords, Parliament, Pictures.

BROADCAST

From the BBC website:

The screen on Digital Terrestrial TV (DTDTV) is broadcast as a quarter screen with text to the left. WHY? DTDTV has the ability to squeeze a number of services into the frequency space that would have been occupied by just one analogue channel. The more pictures the lower the quality of each picture. It is felt to be more efficient use of space to display BBC Parliament within a text format, with the picture a quarter screen, thus enabling the broadcast of other services. This is only possible because the majority of camera shots are one person talking. Digital Satellite TV systems have a far greater capacity and more allowable frequency space therefore more room for full picture broadcasts. This might be a preferred option for people with large screens who like large pictures. I quite like the idea of text. My freeview package allows for screen expansion with a button click, however you loose the text (this is useful for short watching periods - between review writing for example).

MY OPINION

To summarize Peter Knowles the channels editor:

BBC Parliament is a highly specialised channel, which is unlikely to be watched by most people unless they are especially interested in national level politics. The biggest user's of this channel are likely to be "political professionals" (i.e. lobbyists, party workers and corporate monitors), academics, and the media itself.
I believe it is healthy that in a "civilized" "democratic" country like ours that citizens should have easy access like this to the centre of the electoral, democratic, and governmental processes. See where your taxes go!

Its nice to have the option, you pay for this service via your TV licence. I think it should stay. Margaret Thatcher was against TV broadcasts live from the commons (I may have got that wrong) when they started in the 1980’s. With the development of citizenship in our country and in our educational system (The Citizenship module for lower secondary school students). I think more and more regular TV viewers will check this station out when they get time. Today (Sunday 13:00 hrs) I tuned in to a debate taking place outside the Commons and lords on Russian Democracy, which included comments from US, commentators.

CONTACT

BBC Television Centre
London W12 7RJ
Head Office 020 8743 8000
BBC Website www.bbc.co.uk/info

Summary: The BBC's version of action in the Houses of Parliament