Is USA TV Far Superior To UK TV?

[Hawkmonger]

Oh, and we have Quatermass. 70 years to late to the argument but it's good enough to out way ALL US TV OF THE TIME AND NOW on excellence alone. British TV could have been so different if it never existed.

[Drakie79]

I much prefer US tv, though only the bigger shows, The Strain, Walking Dead, Deadwood, Oz, Brotherhood, Breaking Bad, and so on. However I hate any CSI programme and often wonder why its ok to stand around wise-cracking over bodies that have been raped and butchered.....yet they seem to....like I said I hate them. British tv is still good in parts, Brasseye, Utopia and Jam (most Chris Morris stuff I guess).
If I am honest the BBC(the channel, no a bla...forget it) makes somewhat biased. The notion that in the modern age of tv, where channels can be scrambled, we HAVE to pay for something just turns me off. Make it pay per view if people use it!!! At least give the option.

[Demoncrat]

Is it buggery. Remember that we get the creme de la creme of US tv over here as well.....

[Susan Foreman]

Cookies must be enabled. | The Australian - US cable-TV shows are sped up to squeeze in more adverts

It's a subscription only site, but the article says:

"WHEN Stephen Cox was watching “The Wizard of Oz” on TBS last November, something didn’t sound quite right to him about the Munchkins, who are near and dear to his heart.

“Their voices were raised a notch,” said Mr. Cox, the author of several pop- culture books including one about the classic 1939 film. “It was astounding to me.”

He wasn’t imagining things. Time Warner Inc. ’s TBS used compression technology to speed up the movie. The purpose: stuffing in more TV commercials.

As they contend with steep ratings declines, many top cable networks are jamming more ads into programming to meet audience guarantees made to advertisers and prop up revenue despite falling ad prices.

Tinkering with shows to squeeze more advertising dollars out of them has been done before. Cable networks have long made room for ads by shortening the opening credits. Re-runs of “Law & Order” on TNT have a 24-second opening, in contrast to the original 1 minute, 45-second opening when it aired on NBC.

But speeding up the actual content is a more subtle tactic TV networks use to achieve a higher volume of ads. TBS also has sped up sitcom re-runs of “Seinfeld” and other shows, and sister network TNT has also employed the approach as well. Viacom Inc. ’s TV Land has done the same with “Friends” re-runs.

“It doesn’t look like ‘The Keystone Kops,’ but you can tell by the voices,” said Mr. Cox of the tampered shows.

Cable-TV networks use the more densely packed ads to counterbalance sinking viewership and a stagnant cable ad market. But the growing ad clutter is rubbing advertisers, content owners and Hollywood’s creative community the wrong way.

Marketers worry that an oversaturation of commercials will reduce the effectiveness of their spots and drive more viewers away from watching traditional TV to commercial-free streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon.

“It is important for us to consider the effect this is having on the viewer experience,” said Jackie Kulesza, executive vice president and director of video at Starcom USA. “We want to ensure our message is seen by receptive viewers.”

Commercial clutter increased for many cable channels in December, according to a Nielsen analysis of prime time. A&E Network, which is co-owned by Walt Disney Co. and Hearst Corp., averaged 18 minutes and 39 seconds of commercial time per-hour in prime time, up almost three minutes from December 2013. It sister channel History had 18 minutes and 42 seconds of ad time, up two minutes from the previous year.

Other networks that added commercial time include TBS and Discovery Communications Inc. ’s Discovery Channel and TLC. Many Viacom networks including MTV, TV Land and Spike all have over 20 minutes of non-programming content an hour.

Cable networks haven’t commented publicly on the increased ad volume in recent months. But executives at several companies privately acknowledged that rating declines were the cause.

“It is a way to keep the revenue from going down as much as the ratings,” said a top executive at one major cable programmer. “The only way we can do it is to double down and stretch the unit load a little more.”

Critics say the practice is misguided.

“They are trying to deal with a problem in a way that is making the problem bigger,” said Chris Geraci, president of national broadcast at media buyer Omnicom Media Group of the practice of increasing the commercial loads to make up for declining ratings.

Broadcast networks have boosted their average commercial time per-hour as well but the increases aren’t nearly as large. Broadcast networks and local TV stations also typically have less commercial clutter than cable.

Most of the ad clutter is in re-runs and movies that are a large part of a typical cable network’s schedule. The studios that sell the re-runs are concerned that the glut of commercials and the lower ratings that seem to follow will decrease the value of their shows down the road.

“It has gotten completely out of control,” said the distribution head of one major television studio. “I’m concerned when you look at the performance being diminished and hurt by their running the shows that way.”

Some studio executives say shortening TV shows through compression (speeding them up) could run afoul of contracts between networks and studios. “They are not allowed to do anything to the content. They have to run it in the way it is delivered,” the distribution chief said.

A senior executive at one major cable programmer said the speeding up of shows, which is done by removing repetitive video frames, is usually a last resort. However, the practice, which has gone on for decades, seems to have become more prevalent in the past few years.

“Friends” co-creator Marta Kauffman, already upset at how opening and closing credits are “squashed,” doesn’t like networks tinkering with the running time of shows to add more commercials and compares it to the colorization of black and white movies.

“It feels wrong,” she said. “It is not how it was shot, written or imagined. It wasn’t meant to be that way, so don’t make it that way.”"

[Vipp]

ggggrrrrrr! i bloody hate TV adverts and the lack of over all quality in our broadcasting output/actors - I had to delete my original post because i think you get banned for more than 2 bad words in any post!

[iank]

I would say that for the most part British TV was very much superior in the 80s, but US TV had something of a golden age in the 90s. I'm not terribly keen on either of them these days, though.

[Susan Foreman]

Kinda related to the subject topic!

We Asked Americans To Watch British TV Shows – And They Got So Confused | Buzzfeed

Read the wacky comments about:

• University Challenge ("This team can’t possibly be comprised of people named Gillow, Savory, Binnie, and Quinn, right? Oh, it’s their last names.")
• Hollyoaks ("Did that little girl say “chav”? What is a chav? Is that appropriate language for a child?")
• Countdown ("This is like Boggle! But harder. Oh my god. Much harder! WHY IS MATH HAPPENING?!")
• Geordie Shore ("I’ll be honest, I can understand maybe 70% of what these people are saying. Christ, they just played more blanket sex and I jumped.")
• Made In Chelsea ("I barely watched The Hills, but I remember it looking so fake, and this seems even more fake, so I’m not entirely sure this isn’t some utterly clever meta-satire of American reality TV in the 2000s.")
• Take Me Out ("This is like The Voice but it’s like The Date instead. Also, f*** that guy, he’s such a douche.")
• Points Of View ("Is this the most British thing I’ve ever seen? You made a talk show about your quibbles?")
• Grand Designs ("This is definitely the kind of show you watch on a Sunday afternoon while accidentally drinking an entire bottle of rosé. I’m very much into it.")
• Come Dine With Me ("This feels like a show that is trying too hard to be American and overblown. It was so obnoxious and uninteresting that I stopped watching before the 90-second mark.")

[Justin101]

Originally Posted by Susan Foreman

Kinda related to the subject topic!

We Asked Americans To Watch British TV Shows – And They Got So Confused | Buzzfeed

Read the wacky comments about:

• University Challenge ("This team can’t possibly be comprised of people named Gillow, Savory, Binnie, and Quinn, right? Oh, it’s their last names.")
• Hollyoaks ("Did that little girl say “chav”? What is a chav? Is that appropriate language for a child?")
• Countdown ("This is like Boggle! But harder. Oh my god. Much harder! WHY IS MATH HAPPENING?!")
• Geordie Shore ("I’ll be honest, I can understand maybe 70% of what these people are saying. Christ, they just played more blanket sex and I jumped.")
• Made In Chelsea ("I barely watched The Hills, but I remember it looking so fake, and this seems even more fake, so I’m not entirely sure this isn’t some utterly clever meta-satire of American reality TV in the 2000s.")
• Take Me Out ("This is like The Voice but it’s like The Date instead. Also, f*** that guy, he’s such a douche.")
• Points Of View ("Is this the most British thing I’ve ever seen? You made a talk show about your quibbles?")
• Grand Designs ("This is definitely the kind of show you watch on a Sunday afternoon while accidentally drinking an entire bottle of rosé. I’m very much into it.")
• Come Dine With Me ("This feels like a show that is trying too hard to be American and overblown. It was so obnoxious and uninteresting that I stopped watching before the 90-second mark.")

Grand Designs ("This is definitely the kind of show you watch on a Sunday afternoon while accidentally drinking an entire bottle of rosé. I’m very much into it.")

I approve of this person

[Susan Foreman]

As above:

We Asked Americans To Watch British Kids’ TV Shows – And They Were Utterly Baffled | Buzzfeed

Including

• The Animals Of Farthing Wood ("Holy s***! What the f***?! It’s been TWO MINUTES and a character is already dead")
• Chucklevision ("This episode of ChuckleVision seems like it will give small children unrealistic ideas of business ownership. How did these men get a storefront? In this episode, why would you open a pet store with no pets?")
• Get Your Own Back ("This is immediately more diverse than any American children’s competition show.")
• Bodger And Badger ("What does this guy think is going to happen when he willingly lives with a badger? THIS IS NONSENSE.")
• Rosie And Jim ("Well, I know what I’m having nightmares about tonight.")
• Knightmare ("Oh, whoa, this takes the time period VERY SERIOUSLY. This is like Dungeons and Dragons but for TV?! And it carries over from episode to episode? That is kind of fascinating. ")
• Byker Grove ("There should be subtitles on this.")
• Postman Pat ("Now this is exactly what I expect from a British children’s TV show: folksy charm, cheery talk of gardens, packages wrapped in brown paper, and adorably handcrafted stop-motion animation.")

[Inspector Abberline]

Every time I watch Seinfeld or Curb you Enthusiasm I just think,well I do not really think we have made anything as good as this,I mean Im a fan of British comedy but is not much that can touch these two shows.