As you probably don't remember I'm a big fan of British Comedy, especially comedy from an earlier, more genteel period, the 1960's.
My wife is long inured to the sight of me, headphones clapped on my head, laughing heartily at the latest (40 year old) tomfoolery on Round the Horne[^], especially when Kenneth Williams[^] chuckles from the sidelines. Good stuff!
And so with other shows, such as The Goon Show, Hancock's Half Hour, Much Binding in the Marsh and many others that have run on BBC7 over the past year and a half since I discovered em. Indeed, if you have a very good memory you might even remember that I posted on that very subject on April 1 last year!
Back then I expressed some surprise that I was able to get the show over the internet given that I'm not in Britain, have never been in Britain and have never paid a cent in licensing fees. Well, apparently the restriction applies to TV over the 'net. I run into the same problem with Australian TV - I can listen to 3LO Melbourne no problems, but when I try and watch ABC TV I'm sternly told I'm not within their coverage area.
The mystery deepened today, when I noticed that the program I was listening to was listed as having been broadcast at 3:00 AM. Understand that I'm using their 'Listen Again' service, which makes all broadcasts available over the internet for the following seven days.
The program was Saturdays Comedy Controller, which first goes out at 10:00 AM London time, coincidentally 3:00 AM Phoenix time. A further check and I discover that they're listing all program times in the Real Player with a first broadcast time corrected for the Phoenix time zone.
Now I can understand that BBC management might want to know the geographical spread of their internet service, hence looking up my IP address. What I don't understand is why anyone thought it worth the coding, testing and deployment costs to convert original broadcast time from London time to the listeners local time!
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2 comments:
Somewhere in my many bookmarks, There is a website titled 'Obscure Brit TV Shows'.
since the BBC destroyed the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore programs, I have had no faith in their brain.
Lately we are told they pay Jonafon Ross eighteen million pounds for being silly.
They never paid Spike Milligan that.
Please do go here to Glasgow blogger Jim Murdoch, to read why we all loved him.
and I loved Tommy Cooper too.
K Williams biog recently describes how he must have murdered his vile father, and went on stage that night and gave the performance of his life.
cheers
I grew up listening to records of Round the Horne and Hancock's Half Hour. Where I lived there was no TV until I was a teenager and that was the only comedy I knew.
When I first discovered that I couldn't get Brit TV over the net because of my IP address I thought about getting myself and virtual dedicated server based in Britain which would allow me to access via a local (to UK) IP address. I think, however, that a proxy server with a UK IP address would probably be more convenient. I just haven't got round to doing it yet.
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