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The Sky at Night - The End

palebluedot

By palebluedot
in The Astro Lounge

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Grotemobile

Grotemobile

Posted
Posted

I've just remembered a piece on S@N a couple of months back where they had a "tug of war" between "gravity" and "energy" as some sort of bizarre means of illustrating the balancing forces in a star.  It was cringingly awful and totally unnecessary.  One of the things I do appreciate about S@N is that they just get on with the science and assume the viewer can keep up.  If they're going to have more stunts like that one then frankly the programme is better off being killed off.

James

It looked more like Blue Peter,

Than Sky @ Night.Seems to have

lost touch a bit. :glasses9:

Steve.

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mikehab

mikehab

Posted
Posted

Anyone know what the monthly ratings for the show are?

I wonder what the viewing figures *would* be if they moved S@N to prime-time BBC1 Saturday night, hosted by Tess Daly or Holly Willoughby with a phone-in vote for viewers to vote on which planet they want to keep in the solar system ;-)

I actually think S@N might be better placed on BBC4, along with all the other interesting / cultural programmes.  As long as they don't get rid of it completely ...

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foundaplanet

foundaplanet

Posted
Posted

I wonder what the viewing figures *would* be if they moved S@N to prime-time BBC1 Saturday night, hosted by Tess Daly or Holly Willoughby with a phone-in vote for viewers to vote on which planet they want to keep in the solar system ;-)

I actually think S@N might be better placed on BBC4, along with all the other interesting / cultural programmes.  As long as they don't get rid of it completely ...

I think you'll find it is on BBC4..:)

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foundaplanet

foundaplanet

Posted
Posted

I think TV in general has lost the plot. It seems that no programme is allowed to stay on the same subject for much longer than a couple of minutes before you get the....''more on this later in the show''. In other words ''we put all of you in the dimbo category with an attention span of nil''.

It seems to me that all TV shows these days use the same formula based on the attention span of the soap opera watchers, ''the viewers''. There are of course other people who like to watch something interesting because they are interested and don't need the whole broken down into little snippets to stop them channel flicking. 

I don't do TV because in the main I find it patronising and the odd thing that is worth watching ends up on the internet at some point.

It isn't The Sky at Night that needs a revamp for me (old formula of a few folk sitting and chatting about astronomy = interesting) it's the whole purpose of TV.

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Dave Dubya

Dave Dubya

Posted
Posted

The schedule for it is fairly regular. You have:

- the initial broadcast in the traditional BBC1 Sunday graveyard slot,

- a longer edition the following Wednesday on BBC4 at 7.30pm,

- a repeat the following Saturday on BBC2 at about 11am.

- plus it's then available on iPlayer.

So it's not like it's lacking in availability.

It's hard to pull meaningful data from the BARB website. Reportedly, if the Daily Fail is to be believed, the average audience was approx. 500,000. If that figure is taken across all those platforms above, you can see why it would make cancelling it an easier decision for the BBC to justify.

For comparion, the Patrick Moore tribute episode of S@N was reported at the time to have reached a peak of about 2 million viewers.

I would hope that, similar to how BBCn6Music was saved, that news of cancellation will cause a spike in audience numbers for the next few episodes and the BBC will have to rethink.

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JamesF

JamesF

Posted
Posted

I think TV in general has lost the plot. It seems that no programme is allowed to stay on the same subject for much longer than a couple of minutes before you get the....''more on this later in the show''. In other words ''we put all of you in the dimbo category with an attention span of nil''.

It seems to me that all TV shows these days use the same formula based on the attention span of the soap opera watchers, ''the viewers''. There are of course other people who like to watch something interesting because they are interested and don't need the whole broken down into little snippets to stop them channel flicking. 

I don't do TV because in the main I find it patronising and the odd thing that is worth watching ends up on the internet at some point.

It isn't The Sky at Night that needs a revamp for me (old formula of a few folk sitting and chatting about astronomy = interesting) it's the whole purpose of TV.

In another recent thread Qualia (I think) recommended a book called "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman.  It was written in the mid-80s (pre mass-access Internet, basically) and takes most of its cultural references from the USA, but it's worth a read.  It's an exposition of the author's views on why and how television has become so damaging to modern society.  I'm not sure I totally buy into his ideas, but I can certainly see where he's coming from having independently come to some of the same conclusions myself.

James

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starman1969

starman1969

Posted
Posted

Obviously the country needs another cookery show. There are just not enough shows about cookery nowadays so the BBC will use the money they save from the S@N to fund one.

Audiences must have been getting sick of having The Sky at Night rammed down their throats for a marathon 25 minutes a month.

I have a tendency to be just a little sarcastic at times.

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alan potts

alan potts

Posted
Posted

Rightly or wrongly I watch most of TV through a torrent site, I don't feel guilty as I paid a TV licence for 8 years having forgot about the standing order and was not in the UK. It is strange how I only seem to watch the old programs with only one or two exceptions, it appears reality TV has taken over. I think it was Billy Connerlly that joked " there is something very odd about people sitting at home watching TV of people sitting watching TV".

Long live the Sky at Night.   Would this happen if the Americans had the Sky at Night with the same history, I think not!

Alan.

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