BBC Four & CBBC to close

[johnnyboy]

There's a couple of things that I would like to say about BBC Four. I think it is a wonderful channel. I had it for 10 years in my house so far. The range & breadth of programmes that have been shown on the channel has been amazing.

As I live in Ireland; I have experienced reading other people's assessments of the channel online. I am a member of boards.ie in Ireland. I have been a member of a thread formally called The Beebrock Thread, now called BBC Four and Sky Arts Thread which is located in it's Television forum.

When BBC Four has been talked about in this thread on boards.ie; I suppose you could say that it has acquired a cult following among it's posters in the thread. I have not read their own responses yet about BBC Four as of yet. But I think they could be hit with high amounts of disappointment as the channel has been a big favourite among this cohort of posters for a very long time.

I am very disappointed with this proposal that BBC Four will be closing in the near future once Ofcom give it full approval. I think it's big theme nights covering both TV Shows and movies have been a big draw for the channel over the years. I will be gutted to see BBC Four go off the air in the next few years if this proposal came through. I will miss it a lot.

I completely concur with this poster. I also live in Ireland and over here, you can get BBC Four through Sky, Virgin and so on, but not through Saorview (Freeview/linear tv). And since we do not pay the license fee (though I would become an avid subscriber), people in the Republic cannot access the iPlayer. So once BBC Four ends transmission, none of its programmes will be available to us in any form.

I watch the channel on a regular basis, for instance Jim Al-Khalili's new series on the science of size broadcast just this week. It is a channel which truly offers a unique service, and since I'm in my early twenties, I've only ever watched the channel in this supposedly repeat-ridden lesser form than when it first launched. And I detect in this thread a conflation between older viewers being the main demographic, with older viewers being the only demographic. BBC Four has appeal across all adult age groups. Yes I am in a minority, and probably have no moral right to have a say on the BBC's future given I'm outside the UK, but I will be very disappointed if BBC Four closes down.

I truly hope that BBC Two becomes the bolstered channel for science and the arts that some posters have suggested, because otherwise, the BBC is a much depleted service in my view.

Agree with you both. There is something special about BBC4 even though its remit, budget and ambition have wained in the second decade of its existence.

However, as I have conceded in previous threads to other TVLF posters, its passing will be mourned by a few and completely missed by the majority.