BBC in France

On Fri, 16 Apr 2004 07:38:45 +0200, "Huffin the Puffin"
wrote:


"Simon Gardner" [dot]co[dot]uk skrev i meddelandet
...

I wonder why Tele-Satellite prints the schedule when none of its readers
use them. It's a conundrum all right.


I would like to differ. I live in Scandinavia where you can communicate with
most people in English. Going by bus or shopping in a little supermarket
miles from anywhere - no problems doing that in English. BUT - It is an
entirely different thing to understand for instance "Auf Wiedersehen Pet".
You do need a different fluency in English to do that. A fluency only a
fraction of the population has.

I watched 'Abs Fab' on BBC America and noted a certain confusion
about the words and what they meant from the natives.








Some other programmes with an easier
language like Star Trek would be easier but still predominantly only people
with a higher education would cope without subtitles.

My mother tongue is Danish and I learned English for 7 years in school.
Until I had been married (with a brit) for several years Auf Wiedersehen Pet
was mostly incomprehensible to me.

In Sweden the TV magazines print programmes for certain German channels.
From my experience almost no Swedes understand German though.



Cheers

Puffin


--
Jim Watt
http://www.gibnet.com

Huffin the Puffin wrote:


It is an entirely different thing to understand for instance "Auf
Wiedersehen Pet". You do need a different fluency in English to do that. A
fluency only a fraction of the population has. Some other programmes with
an easier language like Star Trek would be easier but still predominantly
only people with a higher education would cope without subtitles.

Absolutely, this is precisely why virtually nobody in France (outside the
ex-pat community) would go to the trouble of installing a satellite dish
just to get the BBC.

I have lived in France for thirteen years, I speak fluent French but I still
find following French television hard work.

Just because you may have met a waiter in Paris who knows what 'A pint of
lager mate' means doesn't mean everyone in France is capable of following
English TV.

Huffin the Puffin wrote:


It is an entirely different thing to understand for instance "Auf
Wiedersehen Pet". You do need a different fluency in English to do that. A
fluency only a fraction of the population has. Some other programmes with
an easier language like Star Trek would be easier but still predominantly
only people with a higher education would cope without subtitles.

Absolutely, this is precisely why virtually nobody in France (outside the
ex-pat community) would go to the trouble of installing a satellite dish
just to get the BBC.

I have lived in France for thirteen years, I speak fluent French but I still
find following French television hard work.

Just because you may have met a waiter in Paris who knows what 'A pint of
lager mate' means doesn't mean everyone in France is capable of following
English TV.

On Fri, 16 Apr 2004 07:38:45 +0200, "Huffin the Puffin" wrote:

You do need a different fluency in English to do that. A fluency only a
fraction of the population has. Some other programmes with an easier
language like Star Trek would be easier but still predominantly only people
with a higher education would cope without subtitles.

Having the subtitles is education in & of itself & helps you learn the language.
They often seem to have French language programmes on TV5 with French subtitles
or maybe that's only when they have really incomprehensible colonial accents:-?
Having said that they do broadcast the news from Quebec without subtitles & that
accent takes some getting used to:-)

--
Nigel Barker
Live from the sunny Cote d'Azur

On Fri, 16 Apr 2004 07:38:45 +0200, "Huffin the Puffin" wrote:

You do need a different fluency in English to do that. A fluency only a
fraction of the population has. Some other programmes with an easier
language like Star Trek would be easier but still predominantly only people
with a higher education would cope without subtitles.

Having the subtitles is education in & of itself & helps you learn the language.
They often seem to have French language programmes on TV5 with French subtitles
or maybe that's only when they have really incomprehensible colonial accents:-?
Having said that they do broadcast the news from Quebec without subtitles & that
accent takes some getting used to:-)

--
Nigel Barker
Live from the sunny Cote d'Azur

In article ,
rnet writes
In article ,
"Steve Terry" wrote:

You mean you've only just noticed Greg Dikes plan to go clear
on Astra 2, was actually to teach Johnny Foreigner to speak
English :-)

I am and always have been in favour of the BBC becoming a
pan-European broadcaster: Nation shall speak unto nation.
However it appears - from what I've seen - that amongst British
taxpayers, I may be in a minority. But at least the BBC is now
broadcasting to half the EU.

There's the BBC's World Service radio, which comes in a
European version, and is funded by the Foreign Office. You may
have in mind television. But not /everything/ that the BBC
broadcasts should be shared with the rest of Europe or the world.
Good heavens, some of it's in /Welsh./ ;-)

That domestic BBC television broadcasting includes imported
programmes for which the BBC has only limited broadcast rights
has already been asserted (in uk.media.radio.bbc-r4 at least,
goodness knows why), although I was one of those unaware of
the apparent existence of BBC domestic television service as an
element in some other European countries' pay-TV packages,
and under the impression that the previous situation, that the rest
of Europe could watch BBC only by putting up big domestic
aerials, but didn't otherwise have to pay for it, is still the case -
which, we've now been told, it isn't.

A wholesale BBC invasion of Europe on television might be
undertaken under the aegis of the Foreign Office, but amidst
present events it's unclear that that audience would want to hear
much of what Britain has to say.

Robert Carnegie at home, at large

In article ,
rnet writes
In article ,
"Steve Terry" wrote:

You mean you've only just noticed Greg Dikes plan to go clear
on Astra 2, was actually to teach Johnny Foreigner to speak
English :-)

I am and always have been in favour of the BBC becoming a
pan-European broadcaster: Nation shall speak unto nation.
However it appears - from what I've seen - that amongst British
taxpayers, I may be in a minority. But at least the BBC is now
broadcasting to half the EU.

There's the BBC's World Service radio, which comes in a
European version, and is funded by the Foreign Office. You may
have in mind television. But not /everything/ that the BBC
broadcasts should be shared with the rest of Europe or the world.
Good heavens, some of it's in /Welsh./ ;-)

That domestic BBC television broadcasting includes imported
programmes for which the BBC has only limited broadcast rights
has already been asserted (in uk.media.radio.bbc-r4 at least,
goodness knows why), although I was one of those unaware of
the apparent existence of BBC domestic television service as an
element in some other European countries' pay-TV packages,
and under the impression that the previous situation, that the rest
of Europe could watch BBC only by putting up big domestic
aerials, but didn't otherwise have to pay for it, is still the case -
which, we've now been told, it isn't.

A wholesale BBC invasion of Europe on television might be
undertaken under the aegis of the Foreign Office, but amidst
present events it's unclear that that audience would want to hear
much of what Britain has to say.

Robert Carnegie at home, at large

In article ,
"J.Tull" wrote:

Simon Gardner wrote:



It's not been easily available in France for very long.

It's still not easily available. you need a satellite receiver and dish
pointed at Astra 2.

We obviously have completely different perceptions of what amounts to
"easily abvailable". I guess the editor of Tele Satellite disagrees with
you too.

In article ,
"J.Tull" wrote:

Simon Gardner wrote:



It's not been easily available in France for very long.

It's still not easily available. you need a satellite receiver and dish
pointed at Astra 2.

We obviously have completely different perceptions of what amounts to
"easily abvailable". I guess the editor of Tele Satellite disagrees with
you too.

In article ,
Robert Carnegie wrote:

I am and always have been in favour of the BBC becoming a
pan-European broadcaster: Nation shall speak unto nation.
However it appears - from what I've seen - that amongst British
taxpayers, I may be in a minority. But at least the BBC is now
broadcasting to half the EU.

You may
have in mind television. But not /everything/ that the BBC
broadcasts should be shared with the rest of Europe

Yes it should. That's exactly what I just said.

or the world.
Good heavens, some of it's in /Welsh./ ;-)

Even the Welsh [which of course it is]. I can certainly easily get Basque
and Catalan TV etc if I want.

That domestic BBC television broadcasting includes imported
programmes for which the BBC has only limited broadcast rights
has already been asserted

Indeed. And so the BBC Governors told me on numerous occasions when I
questioned the apparent lunacy of encrypting BBC News 21 [financial lunacy
as well as cultural lunacy] - which they did until very recently.

(in uk.media.radio.bbc-r4 at least,
goodness knows why), although I was one of those unaware of
the apparent existence of BBC domestic television service as an
element in some other European countries' pay-TV packages,

Indeed. There semmed to be a surprising amount of denial of what one had
assumed was a well known fact.

It even got to the stage where one particularly otiose and ignorant
headbanger was told it by three different people and still he remained in
voluble denial. (He knows who he is.)

and under the impression that the previous situation, that the rest
of Europe could watch BBC only by putting up big domestic
aerials, but didn't otherwise have to pay for it, is still the case -
which, we've now been told, it isn't.

It certainly isn't. A small supermarket dish and the cheapest of digital
receivers will see you all right for BBC TV programmes over much of W
Europe. I won't bore you with the list again
http://users.powernet.co.uk/hack/astra/. And that's apart from Belgian,
Netherlands and Irish domestic cable networks.

A wholesale BBC invasion of Europe on television might be
undertaken under the aegis of the Foreign Office, but amidst
present events it's unclear that that audience would want to hear
much of what Britain has to say.

Nobody is forced to listen/watch. OTOH some BBC programmes pop up all over
the place on some EU countries' domestic terrestrial broadcasts - obviously
in that case, paid for. So there must be an audience of some kind?