Petition against new BBC credit sequence rules
 

The BBC have released their new rules regarding programme credit sequences. You can see the results for yourself here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/c...position.shtml

I urge you to sign this petition against these ridiculous rules to preserve our right to sensible un-squished credits with 15 other things going on trying to grab our attention.

Petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/bbccspt/petition.html

A very disturbing development -- thank you for bringing this to our attention. I have signed the petition and I hope the rest of the site members will follow suit.

Are the credits really that important to you?

I heard about this on TVF. I hope this never happens. I'm already pissed off that announcers talk over all the closing music, I'll sign.

Absolutely. It's always been a pet peeve of mine when networks screw with credits. Creative control of a show's credits should be left up to the people who make the show, not mandated by restrictions of the network. I find this whole thing ridiculous and outrageous.

Sorry, Ronn, but it already is happening, effective 1 June. This is already going into effect. Our only hope is to try and reverse it which is why we need people to sign the petition. Thanks for your signature.

EDIT: I encourage people to actually take note of the ridiculous restrictions they're imposing. Essentially, every credit sequence from now on will be squashed to one-fifth of the screen so that BBC advertisements and show schedules can use the remaining space. Additionally, credit sequences can't be longer than 30 seconds, and the styling of the credits themselves will be strictly controlled. I'm very disappointed about all of this!

The world is ending ;___;

Go away, RV. It might not matter to you but it's significant enough to me.

The last time I went away you begged me to come back. No pleasing some people :P

I've signed. ;)

I've signed, I urge anybody else who hasn't to do so...just remember, if this happens to Doctor Who, it will mean a condensed version of the closing theme.

*signs* You shouldn't have to tolerate that if you pay a liscence fee. We're already doing that here in US of Ads and it's pretty dumb. Even when we get digital cable...

Mine was #68... awh, just one away from 69...

Yes. I posted the link to the petition to TV Forum. There's loads of members there, and as it's a TV presentation site, I'm pretty sure we'll get a lot of "signatures"

In Australia cable TV has more ads than the commercial networks.

Nobody watches cable :D

This seems to have caused quite a stir with you guys. What's wrong with the opening titles?

Uh, they don't have credits on them? :P

I've signed it. The whole affair is a complete disgrace - how dare the BBC try to demoot the credits of their flagship show.

Besides, we want to keep the middle eight! The closing credits sequence is as much part of the show as the TARDIS or The Doctor is.

I can understand why they want to cut down the end titles, it makes for less arsing about between shows as they dont have to do all the 'still to come' stuff between them. Unfortunately, the Doctor Who credits are somewhat more dear to the hardcore fans than on other shows.

I disagree. Have you read Pete's petition? He makes many excellent points.

Remember though they are only guidelines. I'm sure some shows will be allowed some leeway, perhaps Doctor Who will be one of them.

They call them guidelines, but look at them closely. They clearly say "acceptable" and "unacceptable," and even if Doctor Who is allowed leeway, I still am very much against the principle in the first place.

Not guidelines. Rules. They say "guidelines" but really they mean "you gotta do this or we'll mess with your head even more".

Point A: On the BBC WALES SPECIFIC guidelines (bear in mind Doctor Who is produced by BBC Wales) it even has this helpful reminder:

See that? If you don't follow, you'll get rejected. Simple as. Granted, the BBC Wales guidelines are for BBC Wales transmission not BBC Wales production ("not network commissions") though to be honest I can't see why BBC Wales would reject your work and the normal BBC pass it. If anything I would expect it to be the other way round.

And it also states at the top of the normal BBC article:

ALL. All of them. No programmes will be let off the hook, Doctor Who included. Eastenders is often a bigger audience puller than Doctor Who, and it isn't being let off, so why should Doctor Who? Hell, Eastenders is even used as the template for the credit guidelines.

Does nobody think this is a good idea.

No Sam. Absolutely no way. The idea sucks.

O.k but why.

Why don't you read over the entire thread?

I have but obviously my views are different from everyone elses. I 'll just stay out of this thread before I anger someone.

Sam -- why would you want the credits of shows to be butchered? It screws up the theme, you can't pay respect to the people who work so hard to bring you the show, and it limits what creative things you can do with credit sequences!

Thank you, Daryl!

i have signed as the mini-mizing of the credits frustrates me at times , as on the doctor who "Shakespearean Code" i was looking for one of the actors names and just as it came up the credits shrunk, i think that keeping the credits large and easily readable and not shrunk to suit the broadcasters is a worthy cause.

Fine I signed. I just think that saying that it's disturbing is a bit of an exaggeration.

It bothers me very much. It may not bother you as much as it bothers me, but you have to at least recognize that it's worse than what you have now!

If it helps ill sign, make the world a better place.

I've signed too. The main thing that concerns me about these new rules is the point that the names of the people involved in putting the show together will now be much more difficult to read. All well and good if everyone already knows exactly who the people in question are, but the crew and actors in supporting roles surely deserve as much recognition for their work. There are obviously other problems with these rules, but at the moment that's the one that is my main problem with them.

I think I understand it a bit better now. I do however think it looks cool.

They should leave it how it is. Anyway I've signed.

Ive Signed as well!

HOw many signatures are we up to?

261, apparently. A respectable amount but I still don't think it will make the BBC change their minds. You'd need thousands to do that.