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When Celebrity Big Brother 2 began in November last year, so didChannel 4’s permanent Red Dot, a device that they stuck onscreen 24/7 (exceptduring adverts), without regard to how it inflicts upon the otherwise-entertainingcomedies and dramas they show.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I hardly watch live television anymore. Irecord everything I want to watch on myTiVoand play that back at a time and day to suit myself. This is a device whichallows you to watch your programmes when you want to and not when the schedulersdecide and more information can be found about it in my reviewhere.
Why does this have an impact? Because if the drones at Channel 4 want me to’press red’ to access their interactive services then they’re sorely mistakenbecause pressing red during a pre-recorded programme will achieve absolutelynothing. All it will do is screw up any other recordings taking place.
As of early January, the red dot disappeared. We, that is those who detestthe use of onscreen logos and other menaces, includingLogoFreeTV.org,thought the victory was won. Then it returned in early February… and thenwas gone again from Saturday February 15th, as were the interactive serviceswithin…
Now, personally, I’m not too bothered about the interactive content beingavailable, but the important thing to note is that it can be made availablewithout the need for a constant onscreen reminder. It’s incredibly insultingand patronising.
As of Monday February 17th, 2003, it returned. I, and many others, have hadenough.
As of Friday April 11th, 2003, things have got even worse. The picturebelow is courtesy ofLogoFreeTV.organd shows how far Channel 4 want to go to bastardise their TV programmesby advertising new services over programmes that bear no relation.
As of Friday December 19th, 2003, as the year draws to a close, Channel 4,Like Sky One, appear to have relaxed their behaviour with the red dot and it no longerdominates the output like it used to. It still appears onscreen during everythingon E4, but not E4+1. In fact, while you can still ‘press red’ without it beingthere on C4, this is not possible on E4+1. Big loss(!)
Channel 4, just please don’t bring it back as the onscreen menace you oncehad!
The new Channel 4 Chief in Charge of Putting More Crap Onscreen, Peter Good hasgone on record as saying:
- Interestingly, viewers are far more likely to vote on a show if prompted to do
so by the presenter–as Channel 4 has learned from its experience withBig Brother:
“If we just put on a red icon that said ‘Vote!’ we would get anumber of votes and we would be quite happy,” Good explained. “We weregetting 2-300 votes over a period of a few minutes. But, as soon as you hadthe presenter saying, ‘You can phone in on this premium number or you canpress your red button,’ we literally got 3,000 votes in the first 30 secondsto a minute. So there is real power in a presenter. It’s all aboutpromotion.”
So there’s proof if need be that the red dot alone doesn’t work and shouldn’t beonscreen during programmes that don’t need it. This new employee has proved thathe’s absolutely ‘Good For Nothing’, is 100% incompetent and should either scrapthe red dot melee entirely, or just resign.
If you feel the same, then click the following link which will forward youremail to C4’s viewer enquiries email address, along with three high-profilemembers of Channel 4, along with the appropriate subject header. All you needto do is put into the email the name of the programme for which your enjoymentwas spoiled along with a message to Channel 4. A copy of the email will alsogo to Logo Free TV, who are keeping a record of all the protests madeagainst Channel 4.
If you include further text with your email, please keep the replies politeand to the point.
CLICK HERE TOCOMPLAINNews page content input by Dominic Robinson, 2003.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.