Bl**dy Beeb Truncations on iPlayer

[Dave Liquorice]

On Thu, 30 Jun 2016 20:30:51 +0100, Chris Woods wrote:

> As I understand it, programmes are recorded with buffer time then may be 
> manually reviewed and trimmed if there's too much cruft.

Several ways to interperet that.

It's a good few years since I was engineering BBC radio programmes but 
generally speaking shows with "people gathered around a microphone" were 
made to time. If there is fluff in a read a stopwatch comes in handy, 
stopped and started as appropiate. There was little to no "buffer time". 
Shows with prerecorded sections would have the links written so the total 
duration was within ten of seconds or so of the required duration. The 
editing of the prerecorded sections would of course be done taking into 
account the required overall duration. And considerable amounts of material 
could be "out takes" or not...

I doubt that the BBC has substanially changed it's operating procedures. The 
programmes producer would listen to the finished programme and sign it off 
as "ready for transmission". A programme tape not signed off would not be 
transmitted. Network would request a duration at the commissioning stage and 
generally speaking that duration was stuck to +/- a loose 10 seconds. If a 
programme ran 28'45" that is the time it would occupy, if it *had* to be 
adjusted it *had* to go back to the producer, the changes made and signed 
off again. The producer is where the buck stops, only they can make 
decisions about what can or can't be cut. No one in continuity has the 
authority to make changes.

IIRC 28'30" was (is..) the requested duration of a 1/2 hour radio a show. 
The durations quoted are 28'30" +/- "a loose ten seconds"

-- 
Cheers
Dave.