p2pnet - rss feed: BBC yanks huge digital face
p2p news / p2pnet: After receiving 1,300 complaints, Britain’s BBC has been forced to yank its plan to promote digital TV with a giant, animated composite face, it admits.
“The corporation has been screening the Faces advert to heighten awareness of the national switch over to digital television, which will become mandatory for the entire UK population,” says Freelance UK.
The huge animated head, “bounces over hills and morphs into familiar BBC presenters like John Simpson, the broadcaster’s World Affairs Editor,” says the story, going on:
“According to the corporation, the promo is intended to inspire viewers to sign up for extra digital services, by using ‘innovative animation, eye-catching imagery’ and ‘upbeat, cheerful music’. But for hundreds of licence payers, the clip has proved eye-catching for all the wrong reasons - inspiring only their fears and thoughts on the BBC website.
A Beeb spokesman said the trailer had “finished slightly early”, after it “achieved its goal,” adding the BBC would now concentrate on trailing their Christmas schedule.
In a statement, “The digital faces trail was one of a very long series designed to capture the attention of viewers and stimulate interest in the BBC’s digital services,” it says.
But Freelance UK quotes a registered psychotherapist as saying, “I wish to protest that this image is disturbingly psychotic. Its unacknowledged aggression could make a fragile viewer ill’.”
“Anyone else think this is the single most terrifying thing ever, or is it just me?” - asked a post on EuroGamer at the beginning of last month going on, “Creepy in spades is what it is.
“If you haven’t seen it, it’s a BBC trailer for digital services, and the gimmick is that a giant head/face is made up of lots of smaller heads/faces. These smaller heads/faces bound across a landscape and variously merge to form a lion or John Humphreys or someone else random that I don’t recognise, all the while extolling the virtues of BBC digital.
“Terrifying. Given me nightmares, so it has.”
Also read:-
BBC - BBC drops ‘digital face’ trails, December 12, 2005
Freelance UK - BBC digital ad ‘too scary for children’, December 12, 2005
EuroGamer - BBC Digital ‘Heads’ Advert Thingie, November 5, 2005
December 13th, 2005 at 1:16 am
First time I saw it I was a little bit confused by it. Doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I thought it used some rather clever digital animation. However, I can see why some people might not like it.
December 13th, 2005 at 1:38 am
i hated it! ugh! it made me sick and i had to turn away and try to ignore it or switch the channel over.
it was a very bad, stupid promo idea.
December 13th, 2005 at 11:13 am
It also confused rather than scared me.
I don’t understand how it would inspire you to want digital. People want to see what they can do (which isn’t much except watch TV). A bouncing head made up of other heads is just a bit weird.
I would think somebody probably noticed while making it, but they had already gone halfway down the road and they had to keep going.
December 13th, 2005 at 11:55 am
“Terrifying. Given me nightmares, so it has.”
You have to be retarded to be scared by that!!
I cannot see how anyone could get upset by a simple digital picture like that.
May look a bit odd, but “Terrifying”?????
Give me a break! All 1,300 complaints can’t be from people hiding behind the sofa!
From
The BeerLover
December 13th, 2005 at 1:34 pm
You can say that, but my mother, who is in her 70s, was really freaked out by these ‘heads’ promos. Initially I thought she was just being a bit daft, but it seems she’s not alone. Personally I think it’s a nice bit of animation, especially the Christmas-themed ones.
December 13th, 2005 at 2:02 pm
I would like to take a look at myself
and really see if its that horrible =)
December 13th, 2005 at 3:41 pm
EXTERMINATE!
Now that was sofa material.
December 13th, 2005 at 8:37 pm
“heighten awareness of the national switch over to digital television, which will become mandatory for the entire UK population”
Bummer. Glad I emigrated, I wouldn’t want to be forced to have a television.
December 14th, 2005 at 12:55 pm
So that’s the plan.
Get a law passed requiring everyone in the country to have a television and charge a license fee. They charge you a fine if you have a TV without a license.
Sounds like something OM would do.
Actually, sounds like something out of 1984; screens everywhere feeding propaganda to the masses.
“Illegal filesharing has decreased. Quality of life has improved.”
Stick “Under a Labour government” at the start of that and you’re sorted.
December 14th, 2005 at 4:09 pm
people are not ordered to have a tv. that is not a law.
the only changes in law i’m aware of is that the changeover to all-digital is a requirement of tv stations, perhaps also radio. i’m not sure. no-one is required to own a digital box or digital-capable tv. that would be much worse than the poll tax in the 80s.
digital boxes - called “Freeview” - are available for £50 or less, which is much less than they cost where i live.
tv licences have been a requirement for decades and decades. that’s nothing new.
i hope i’m not wrong about anything, but because i watch a lot of BBC news, these are the bits of info i’ve been made aware of.
December 14th, 2005 at 4:28 pm
“people are not ordered to have a tv. that is not a law.”
I know. I was just commenting on the other post which said
“digital television, which will become mandatory for the entire UK population”
“Bummer. Glad I emigrated, I wouldn’t want to be forced to have a television.”
From then on I was just being silly but don’t you think it sounds like the kind of unbelievable thing that could happen? Especially if OM got behind it.
Open-source software could soon become (or already is?) illegal in France. OM are trying to hijak this data retention bill in the EU parliament to get law enforcers to work for them in fighting ‘piracy.’
Forcing people to have televisions so they can be fed propaganda doesn’t seem like that crazy an idea. If they offered a free pornography channel I’m sure there’d be a few (hundred thousand, possibly million) people who’d be won over by the idea.