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What's the point, please, Tayler?
This discussion has been closed.
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Message 1.Â
Posted by carrick-bend (U2288869) on Monday, 28th March 2011
As Victoria Whitburn said that the views expressed on this MB are never taken any notice of,
(from the latest Archers Addicts newsletter, Q+A's from her -
Q: Do the views expressed on message boards and other public forums ever influence storylines or the handling of key events/characters?
A: Message boards no. It is widely known and studies have confirmed that message boards tent to attract negative comments because it is 'cooler' to be negative than positive. Our message board represents a small but vociferous number of listeners and we have to bear in mind that they can fail to represent majority opinion)
why the pretence that our views are at all relevant? -
Message 2
Posted by Reggie Trentham (U2746099) on Monday, 28th March 2011
why the pretence that our views are at all relevant?Â
I'm not sure what you mean by 'pretence'. I don't think anyone has ever said that the powers that be take pay much attention to the views expressed on this board.
Good thing too imo because the views of the majority of people who post here have been entirely unrepresentative for a long time and even more so since the unfortunate events of 2 January. -
Message 3
Posted by cath (U2234232) on Monday, 28th March 2011
>the views of the majority of people who post here have been entirely unrepresentative for a long time and even more so since the unfortunate events of 2 January.<
That's a very interesting assertion Reggie - based on what evidence?
I can see it must be very uncomfortable for the prodteam to be told that their continuity is busted and their work is dull, poor, predictable etc. But if the MB has no effect upon the prodteam then it does raise the question of why bother having it. The Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú can't afford to waste its money by keeping people off the streets however useful that might be to wider society.
To be fair I thought VW's response reeked of sour grapes and was a bit tantrumish. if she'd waited to respond instead of going with her first or second thoughts she might have come over more gracefully. I can only assume the initial listening figures are /really/ bad. Bless. -
Message 4
Posted by carrick-bend (U2288869) on Monday, 28th March 2011
Lack of grace was just the phrase I'd been searching for - thanks.
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Message 5
Posted by Reggie Trentham (U2746099) on Monday, 28th March 2011
That's a very interesting assertion Reggie - based on what evidence?Â
It's based on my own experience, cath. Both the change in my own attitude when I started reading and posting on the messageboard, reflected in the way the discussions I had with my O/H about the programme changed, which is mainly why I gave up contributing to DtA and cut down my reading of messages on it drastically. But also on the attitude of the numerous friends, relations and acquaintances who listen to the programme. While they are not all uncritical none of them have the hysterical, name calling and often childish attitude to the programme that is to often exhibited in DtA.
I'm not a huge supporter of Ms Whitburn but I do think her information and insticts on this matter are sound.
I still enjoy the programme but I'm not sure if I would if I read and took notice of the messageboard much.
That's not to say that people who post in DtA don't have the right to express their opinions or that occasionally those opinions might be valid. -
Message 6
Posted by Dusty Substances (U1474929) on Tuesday, 29th March 2011
I'd like to support messages 1 and 3. It misses the point that people bothered to post in Dissers are (in the very vast majority) committed listeners to the programme. Even those who have recently stopped listening have done so because of their commitment to the programme but feel let down.
Dx -
Message 7
Posted by Lady Trudie Tilney Glorfindel Maldini (U2222312) on Tuesday, 29th March 2011
I'm with Reggie here - I don't think there's been any pretence,
I know that a lot of DTA posters are committed listeners who have invested a lot in the programme for many years, and I know that a lot of the recent dissatisfaction is precisely because people love/have loved the programme so much.
In the early days of ML there was a more cosy relationship with the prod team, especially Keri, which perhaps led to the assumption that the MB was meant to be a way of influencing the programme - I don't think this was ever its function & rightly so. As I said elsethread, it's a place for moans, whinges, praise, ar*ing about in relation to the stories and characters, but that's all, & maybe the change in atmosphere in here is partly because people expect it to be something it isn't. -
Message 8
Posted by peacemaker (U14739277) on Tuesday, 29th March 2011
I agree Old Cath. I feel somewhat patronised when people dismiss views expressed here as those of an unrepresentative minority. As you say where is the evidence?
I expect the production team do come in here, but are not big enough to own up to it. I wish they would agree to engage in some constructive dialogue with us rather than being defensive all the time. As someone suggested over on DTA they are more rattled about the shape of the programme than they care to admit.
FWIW some time last year I began to realise that I was no longer enjoying the programme. I started to come in here more regularly to see if others felt the same and was encouraged to find that I was not alone. I suspect there are many lurkers out there who are also dissatisfied, and many more listeners who are completely unaware of these boards.
It would be nice to think that our views were being taken seriously. I have a long list of reasons why I think the programme has gone downhill and would be more than willing to discuss these in amicable terms. I am not moaning for the sake of it and it is disrespectful to categorise us as such. -
Message 9
Posted by mike (U14258103) on Tuesday, 29th March 2011
In the past Keri has said:
1. The views expressed on the MB are fed back to the production team.
2. Occasionally storylines have been changed in line with views expressed on the MB (an example cited was Helen&Greg&Cheese but in that case the production team also felt that SL wasn't working and the MB reaction just confirmed that).
So, although our views are fed back they don't determine which way SLs go (nor should they, imho).
On the subject of whether the views expressed on the MB are representative in a wider sense of all listeners I believe that (broadly speaking) they are. My reasons for this are: 1. when I used to conduct informal polls on the board about SLs I used to get about 100 responses and the result nearly always used to come out the same as Keri's poll on the front page which (when the figures were published) was getiing 1000-2000 responses. That is the size of poll that polling organisations use to measure public opinion. (Although the polling organisations use a randomly selected sample which is balanced for age, social class etc and those participating in Keri's polls are self-selecting.) 2. From conversations with other listeners who don't post on the MB (this is only anecdotal evidence of course, but I have found a remarkable general correspondence between views expressed here and elsewhere).
Opinion expressed on the MB following Nigel's death ran at about 90% disapproving of the SL and I would be amazed if a majority of regular listeners don't hold a similar view. Whether, OTOH, many of these would go as far as stopping listening and/or calling for Vanessa Whitburn to be sacked is another question (I think the answer is probably not).
None of this can be substantiated in any way unless the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú commission a proper survey of listeners' views and they have never shown any inclination to do this. -
Message 10
Posted by Byeeee (U14697115) on Tuesday, 29th March 2011
VW and co are fools if they don't take any notice at all of the MB. Time and time again the same types of complaints keep recurring - in particular continuity errors, lack of realism, characters acting out of character. I know they all probably think the people that post on here are the green ink-brigade and I don't disagree that some of the comments can be extremely pedantic at times, but surely they must see the overall pattern emerging? To me there's no obvious reason why some of these problems can't be fixed reasonably easily. Just because the points are made by a more vocal minority does not mean they are not views that are held by a majority of listeners and fixing some of the general stuff would do no harm and a lot of good to the programme, whatever direction VW is intending to take it in or whatever audience she is targetting.
In my job which involves dealing with the public I do come across the odd person who is never satisfied with anything, and I have learnt to recognise that that's just the way with some people and not take too much notice - but if I was getting the same sort of comment on different occasions from lots of different people I hope it would ring some alarm bells. -
Message 11
Posted by Leaping Badger (U3587940) on Tuesday, 29th March 2011
none of them have the hysterical, name calling and often childish attitude to the programme that is to often exhibited in DtA.Â
Reggie, I think the hysterical, name-calling and 'childish' attitude is only displayed by a minority of posters in DTA, and a fairly small minority at that.
I don't think that your comparison holds: the likelihood is that, were you to encounter any of the people who say such things about the programme, they would be people with whom you wouldn't get on, so would never become acquainted with them on a longer-term basis and therefore wouldn't hear their views on the programme. The people with whom you do associate by choice in real life tend to be people who, even if they don't hold the same views as you, have vaguely similar ways of thinking, so if you're not the type of person to get hysterical about a drama serial, you're unlikely to associate with the type of person who does.
It's unlikely that it just happens that the sorts of people who are more likely to be critical of a programme are the same sorts of people who are more likely to post to a message board. If there's a dichotomy between message board posters and the rest of the audience, it is likely to be that people who take the programme more seriously, and listen to it more regularly and closely, are more likely to take the step to sign up to a message board for that programme.
In my case, reading and, later, posting to the message board is what made me listen to the programme both more regularly and more closely. It is what encouraged me to pay more attention to the programme and take it a bit more seriously as a drama. Before that I just had it on in the background occasionally as a bit of aural wall-paper, because I thought it was a bit of silly fun. Since reading and posting here, I would listen more closely, and be critical of inconsistencies and what I consider poor drama, not because reading the message board made me think the programme is worse, but because reading the message board made me get more involved with the programme and therefore react to it differently, discussing both the failings and the successes of the programme with people here, rather than, as I would have done previously, merely snorting in derision and thinking 'silly programme'.
Yes, there's an element of hysteria in DTA, but I genuinely think it's a lot of noise generate by a very small proportion of posters. And as such is reasonably easily ignore.
'Ö' -
Message 12
Posted by Bette (U2222559) on Tuesday, 29th March 2011
It's unlikely that it just happens that the sorts of people who are more likely to be critical of a programme are the same sorts of people who are more likely to post to a message board. If there's a dichotomy between message board posters and the rest of the audience, it is likely to be that people who take the programme more seriously, and listen to it more regularly and closely, are more likely to take the step to sign up to a message board for that programme.Â
I don't see that that is necessarily true, Leaps. Some people are just more vociferous than others. I'm sure that there are many, many people who take TA seriously, but for one reason or another don't bother to post here. I really don't see why the production team should take any notice of this MB, to be honest (and I say that as a long-term listener, and a contributor here for the past 10 years). -
Message 13
Posted by Leaping Badger (U3587940) on Tuesday, 29th March 2011
I'm not saying it makes what is said on the MB more valid, Bette, simply that (it seems to me that) if someone is more a fan of the programme, takes listening to it more seriously as part of their entertainment life, is more committed to it in that sense, they are more likely to seek out a website for the programme and an area on that website in which they can discuss the programme with other listeners than is someone who just hears the programme because it's on between the news and Front Row, or while they're having breakfast on a Sunday, but doesn't get that involved in it. If that makes sense.
'Ö' -
Message 14
Posted by cath (U2234232) on Tuesday, 29th March 2011
> I really don't see why the production team should take any notice of this MB, <
Well if they don't they should jolly well close it down because it'd a waste of money at a time of real cuts in funding for programmes.
However I think VW was being pettish and the MB is of rather more use than she's prepared to admit at the moment. Apart from the instances Mike cites above I remember the prodteam shoved in a reference to IHT by Peggy after we'd been banging on for weeks about the weirdness of the SL of Jack selling off his businesses. They didn't come up with that on their own.
And the farmer we had for a while who was running a local microdairy contributed to the Grange Farm dairy SL - Ed & Mike were doing a lot of things to publicise the dairy that the farmer had said he had done for his business. -
Message 15
Posted by Bette (U2222559) on Tuesday, 29th March 2011
So, they should appoint someone to monitor this MB to save the nuggets of real information and ideas to pass on?
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Message 16
Posted by carrick-bend (U2288869) on Wednesday, 30th March 2011
About a year or more ago, Keri asked, on the Equestrian Thread, in TVH, if anyone who had knowledge of a particular aspect would E-mail him, as the SWs wanted to write about it.
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Message 17
Posted by cath (U2234232) on Wednesday, 30th March 2011
>So, they should appoint someone to monitor this MB to save the nuggets of real information and ideas to pass on?<
I thought that's what what Tayler does, Bette (and Keri before her). -
Message 18
Posted by Lady Macbeϯh - not without mustard (U550479) on Thursday, 31st March 2011
A: Message boards no. It is widely known and studies have confirmed that message boards tent to attract negative comments because it is 'cooler' to be negative than positive.Â
Are we 'cool', then? Whoopee!
It may be worth pointing out that Kenton was supposed to be a short term character and it was his popularity with listeners which meant he was retained as a regular character. This came from the mouth of the horse named K Davies, SW of this ML.
I wonder whether we can persuade Chris the Fish to compile a graph of -ive vs +ive comments in DTA? -
Message 19
Posted by Leaping Badger (U3587940) on Thursday, 31st March 2011
Also Greg was written out because he was so unpopular with listeners, as Keri told us. Don't know how much of this feedback came from the message board, but he said it was certainly a factor.
I wouldn't want them to base their drama on popular demand, but I do think it's a bit ripe to pretend they value feedback and then blithely ignore it when it's given.
'Ö' -
Message 20
Posted by carrick-bend (U2288869) on Friday, 1st April 2011
How does your sensible and responsive post, yesterday, on a thread in DTA criticising the "Grundy observance of Lent" SL Yes, I have passed on comments from the message board about the Lent storyline,
°Õ²¹²â±ô±ð°ùÌý
square with VWs comment about never using the views on MBs, please?
It seems a shame for you to be passing on information that everyone knows won't be thought about. -
Message 21
Posted by Sallyruth (U14589711) on Friday, 1st April 2011
I thought she said she occasionally looked at the messageboards?
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Message 22
Posted by Lady Macbeϯh - not without mustard (U550479) on Friday, 1st April 2011
I thought she said she occasionally looked at the messageboards?Â
Well, we need our occasional blessings, after all.
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