BBC to change TV credits
Friday, January 25th, 2008Auntie to kick out the credit squeeze
Now, for a piece of news which should bring a smile to the Lawrence Fishburne-esque lips of the TV critic and Guardian mainstay Charlie Brooker, the BBC has pledged to put an end to ‘credit squeezing’ at the end of their programmes.
Last year the BBC decided to implement squeezing – shoehorning the credit roll of a programme into a third of the screen – in order to promote upcoming programmes on other BBC channels.
Whilst this may have been an admirable attempt to promote channels such as BBC Three and Four, and thereby promoting the benefits of digital TV for those who hadn’t yet made the switchover, it also meant that the majority of the credits were illegible, to the chagrin of licence fee payers.
Roly Keating, the controller of BBC2 and acting controller of BBC1, has announced that the BBC was taking steps to address the problem, by asking producers to increase the font size of the credits so that the information was easier to read, and commissioning a redesign of the current format. “We are very sensitive about the problem… I am conscious that [credit squeezing] has led to shrinking illegibility,” he said in a statement.
Mr Keating also said the corporation was considering publishing the closing credits on the internet for viewers who were unable to read them on screen.
