Oh Q, whatever happened to you? (Q TV)

Member Name: hugon

Product:	Q TV
Date:	14/04/02 (296 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Still plays some good music

Disadvantages: Plays a lot of tat as well, Premium rate phone numbers to request track, Adverts

Oh dear. Whatever happened to Q? Channel 453 used to be one of my regular calling channels on Sky, along with Kerrang! and MTV2, but now I watch it less and less frequently.

Why is this? Well, a few weeks ago, Q drastically altered it's output. It went from a "credible" channel, showing the likes of Travis, Starsailor, Ash, U2, etc, to just another pop station showing the likes of Westlife, Blue et al. Admittedly, the likes of Oasis, Nickleback and some more guitar based bands still pop up occasionally, but much less frequently than before.

Q is on of the EMAP owned channels on Sky - alongside Magic, Smash Hits, Kiss, Kerrang! and the Box. It's essentially a video jukebox - they have a playlist, which scrolls along the bottom of the screen while videos are playing, or you can access the channels teletext and look at the full list on page 150. To get your choice of video played, call a premium number, enter the three-digit code for the video you want to see, sit back and wait for it to come up. It generally doesn't take too long for your video to pop up, three or four songs later and you should be watching it.

As far as I know, Q's rules limit them to playing a certain song once per hour. So if you've seen a song you'd like to request, it's probably best to wait a while before phoning up and requesting it again. You can keep an eye on what videos are being requested, as the number relating to each song appears as someone phones up to request it. This means that is three people phone up one after the other requesting video 137, video 137 will still only be played once. However, the calls are logged, and a chart compiled of the top 10 requested tracks on the station, a run down of which pops up every couple of hours.

Q didn't used to run adverts, save for promos for new release albums, which it would feature with a short critique from one of the Magazine's writers (although they never ga
ve a bad review, which is a little suss - surely they couldn't be featuring albums the record company has paid them to promote?). However, these days, it has succumbed to adverts like most other channels. Admittedly, they only run about two sets of adverts every hour or so, but it does break up the flow a little - it makes you start channel surfing and means you might spot something else and not come back.

I wouldn't mind the Q line up so much, if it weren't for the fact that EMAP already runs two pure pop channels, Smash Hits and The Box. You could say that Q promotes the classier end of the pop market, it that it doesn't feature any of the novelty acts or euro-cheese found on Smash Hits or The Box, but I thought the point of the channel was to complement the type of music you'd read about in Q magazine - Radiohead, REM, Oasis etc. I can't imagine the average Q reader being overly interested in Westlife or Celine Dion's latest singles.

Q pre-empted this change by featuring a "number 1's" week, where it featured many of the previous few years number ones (and funnily enough, a few that didn't make it). I can only guess that more people called up to request videos and the money generated was higher during this week, to make them make such a radical change to the playlist. Up until then, Q had been featuring a lot more pop compared to its early days, but this radical change was completely unexpected.

There's still Kerrang and MTV2 I guess, but I used to enjoy Q because it played a lot less nu metal than featured on the other channels. I do still flick onto Q when I'm flicking through my channels, but it's come off my favourites list, and I generally don't stick around much when I do jump to the channel.

I've read on the Q message board (http://www.q4music.com) that many of Q's readers are quite annoyed at the changes made to the channel recently. Happily, some pe
ople seem to be taking notice, and while it may not return totally to the way it used to be, hopefully some sort of compromise can be reached.

Still if you're a Kylie fan tune in - she seems to pop up at least once every hour.

Summary: