This is from "The Guardian". By Mark Lawson.

TV matters: Orchestral overkill

A new series about urban history and architecture seems likely to encourage many viewers to join in on one of the most common topics of complaint on the Radio Times letters page and audience feedback programmes. Nicholas Crane's Town (BBC2), which reaches its second episode tonight, is another intelligent series from the presenter of Coast and Great British Journeys, but my enjoyment was lessened by the nagging feeling that the transmission was suffering interference from the Proms on BBC4.

As Crane enters Scarborough, there's a burst of Scarborough Fair in the background; when he goes into a church, sacred choral music soars. Every piece to camera and voiceover has its instrumental underlining. The programme is almost underscored. An aerial shot brings leaping strings, startling anecdotes from the past get banging brass.

The technical term for this is "giving it a bit of a lift". But Crane's sentences don't need such patronising help and it interferes with the sense of what he is saying, either because the viewer is distracted or is trying to identify the tune or – an extra irritation in over-composed programmes – trying to predict when the producer will dip the music under the words.

When I talked to Crane for Radio 4's Front Row, he was diplomatic, but expressed regret that the audience doesn't get to hear more of the natural noises of the towns, which are captured by highly skilled recordists and could be used to create a more imaginative and surprising soundtrack.

Perhaps this experiment should be attempted in Crane's next series. It is possible this debate has been hijacked by the (appropriately) noisy minority who object to documentary's orchestral trappings and that the rest of the audience finds the music a useful tool in accessing the right emotion at the right point. But, so far, the background tinklers have not made their case that factual viewing is improved by such music, so it's only right to try a few series without to see if ratings and appreciation levels plummet.

Source:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/aug/03/tv-matters-orchestral-overkil...

This is from the latest 'on-line' version of "Prospero", reporting on the recent "Annual visitors’ conference".

Sounds like…

........Thereafter followed one of the liveliest sessions of the conference, when Clare Sillery, Executive Producer, BBC Vision, explained what the BBC had been doing about the contentious (as recent letters pages in Prospero can attest) problem of sound levels.

She reported back on the Vision audibility project, which has been 18 months in the making and involved a number of internal and external bodies, including the RNID. The study aimed to looked at the variety of issues that give rise to viewer complaints about TV sound.

The survey comprised three elements:
• the BBC Pulse Panel (20,000 people surveyed in February and August 2010, who noted problems with audibility over a week)
• A parallel study of 500 viewers aged 65+ by VLV (Voice of the Listener and Viewer)
• An RNID study of 500 people
Clare said: ‘Twelve thousand viewers in the Pulse Panel completed the survey, giving us 290,000 responses to programmes.
‘Ninety per cent of respondents had no problems, but around eight per cent reported some level of difficulty with audibility. This
level of difficulty was repeated in the VLV survey. Most of the complaints related to background noise and accents.’

In the RNID survey, the main issue causing problems was background music, followed by noise, diction and tone.
One of the actions arising from the project has been to make executive producers responsible for the audio mix. They have to sign off the audio, and if the programme generates complaints they [the producers] have to pay for the remix out of their own budgets. Clare hoped that this would be enough of an incentive for audio to be afforded greater importance in the editing suite.


Source:-
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/mypension/en/prospero_oct_2011.pdf

It still amazes me that after all this BBC bluster about 'looking into it' and publishing 'guidelines' there are still so many complaints about intrusive music in quite recently made programmes (see last weeks Sunday Times Culture managzine). Perhaps those of us who still find all this b/g music so infuriating are supposed to take the DG's advice in another place and 'go elsewhere'?

Er, are we missing the salient point? The bright young things who put so many of these capers together are products of so-called 'universities' offering 'media studies' courses, run by people who've never been in the business and never learned the grammar of television let alone sound!
DISCUSS!!
Regards to all. David Shute

From The EBU:-

In August 2010, the EBU published its Loudness Recommendation EBU R128.

It tells how broadcasters can measure and normalise audio using Loudness meters instead of Peak Meters (PPMs) only, as is common practice nowadays.

More here.




An EBU Newsletter today (23rd August) says:-


As of this week the programmes of all French-speaking national broadcasters in Belgium (RTBF, RTL-TVI and BeTV) are normalized according to EBU R 128 , the world-class Loudness Recommendation created by the EBU PLOUD Group.

RTBF is a pioneer on the loudness subject  and has been closely following the work of the EBU PLOUD group. Early tests with R 128 in mid 2011 had already convinced the broadcaster that viewer complaints could be reduced to zero.


From end of this month the main German and Austrian broadccasters will switch to R 128 too; the launch is planned during the IFA in Berlin.


The whole newsletter may be found here

Canada acts:-

http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/info_sht/g3.htm


"........Effective September 1, 2012, Canadian broadcasters and television service providers (e.g., cable, satellite, and IPTV providers) must follow international standards[1] for measuring and controlling digital television signals, and must ensure that TV commercials are broadcast at a similar volume to programs. .........."

Whatever the law, and the accountants say, the only way pf properly controlling 'loudness' is using the human ear! Unfortunately they were removed from Central control areas years ago!

According to "PSN Europe".


Quantel is the latest in a growing list of video system manufacturer to integrate loudness technology into its products, supporting Nugen Audio metering on its broadcast editors