BBC One ECP's

Is it just me or are BBC One not able to program an ECP correctly over the end credits of Neighbours? On Thursday and Friday we had an ECP for ' My Family'. Programme Acquisition had already edited the credits so the credit text was right aligned and the ECP could just be overlaid on the stills. On Thursday they managed it.

However, on both of Friday's episodes they managed to cock it up. They programmed it to squash the whole thing, so even on the widescreen TV I was watching on, the text was practically shunted off the screen and became unreadable. The ECP was huge!

I also noticed that the announcer on the 5:35 episode nearly forgot to mention the fact Neighbours would be off with the bank holiday. What's on going on? Why are they incapable of doing it correctly?

Who is in charge of BBC One Presentation/Network Control.

If I was being pedantic I'd point out that actually it's the edited credits that are incorrect - the text on some of them comes too close to the centre of the screen for the standard DVE move.

As marksi points out, even when the text has been squashed, the credits still do not fit the layout of the ECP. Therefore, the squashing was probably correct despite how ugly it may look.

And I'm intrigued how an announcer can "nearly" forget to mention the bank holiday...

And I'm intrigued how an announcer can "nearly" forget to mention the bank holiday...[/quote]

We had the ECP, then she made an announcement about EastEnders later on and then when we got the Grundy logo at the end she added in "Neighbours back on Tuesday" very quickly. I think she had her fader up as we could hear the chattting in the background.

Why would they need to squash if they managed to just overlay it in the space on Thursday? I know it's not Presentation's job, but if they decided to squash, couldn't they have sent it back to have the text centre aligned. Surely in that case the text would be more readable that way.

If only it were that simple.

A bunch of amateurs... All experienced directors have left, so the days of BBC Pres being the best in the world have well and truly gone.

Neither of those statements are true. As to your other comment, who is in a position to judge?

I think you will find that thats the general perception in the industry, it's scary to say but ITV are doing a much better job - with clear standard guidelines for ECP's that look clean and work well on air - where as BBC Pres lurch from one messy style disaster to another.
And if you think that all experience is still there - explain trainees being trained by people that have only recently started doing the job themselves.

Why dont the TV companies just leave us to watch our credits in peace without having a boring continuity announcer talking over them.

Isn't is because they are so scared of people channel surfing they feel ECP's and continuity announcers rambling on will keep them on that channel? In reality, it just irritates many people.

Think nothing will stop channel surfing the voices are a que to start looking the other channels or here in Ireland you can watch most programmes with out voice overs and get the longer version of the Neighbours end credits also.

Squashing is never correct. Waiting until the credits have finished and then running the trail, is correct.