Re: Presenter Weekend Letdown
Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2002 9:11 am
he's probably not in the habit of arguing the non-existence of god with jehovah's witnesses, either.
Hello everyone,
there are a lot of points raised here and I can assure you I'm taking them all on board, but to answer some specifics....
Boy/Girl - Point taken, although we do show more B/G than just Neil Down. Cum Drinking Sluts, UK Student House, Super Stud, AER, Addicted to Butt, Swingers...to name a but a few we've commissioned this year. However, next year will bring more.
Girls - In my opinion our presenters are some of the best girls in the business. OK, they don't necessarily do Boy/Girl, but this isn't because we don't want Boy/Girl presenters, in fact quite the opposite. There has been a big slow down in new girls coming into the business over the last year, and those that do (and do boy/girl) tend to be in and out (if you pardon the pun)within a couple of months. Couple that with girls who just simply haven't got what it takes to be presenters (no offence to anyone, even presenters on regular TV often struggle) and we have a problem. Also the lapdancing take-off over the last few years has prevented many girls from entering our industry as they can make a lot of money and not appear on TV by working in a club. No amount of money (within reason) will bring these girls to the channels as their anonymity is very important to them. As for the older generation of girls, they simply don't do this kind of work any more, certainly not to the strength you guys would expect.
ITC and programme strength - The never-ending debate. As I have mentioned before (and thank you Jason for bringing a sense of reality to the forum) WE CANNOT SHOW FULL STRENGTH HARDCORE! This is not our decision, but the ITC enforcing guidelines from the Home Office. It may seem odd that you can buy R18 videos, and see much more in top-shelf mags these days, but not on TV. This is because TV is seen as an extremely powerful medium by the government, and their number one priority in this area is to protect children. We can (and have) run all the arguments (PIN protection, encryption etc) to try and move in the same direction as other media, but the ITC are standing firm. And to those who say "try and push the boundaries...don't let them push you around...they might not be monitoring the channel", don't you think we would have done if we could? We wouldn't just get fined a few quid for being naughty and get a slapped wrist. The ITC have the power to invoke SERIOUS fines (up to ?1million a DAY!...and no I'm not joking). Very few companies could afford to risk such losses. And before you ask, yes we could say "but that's not fair, our company is deliberately suffering due to other media (including the internet) being able to show much harder material". To which they would no doubt reply "Oh shame, one less channel showing porn...what a pity".
All in all as Jason says it is good value at around ?8 per month. Improvements need to be made, and I am constantly trying to invoke suggestions which appear on this site (although these things take time, schedules are done way in advance). I'm not about to start a TAC/TVX war, but at least we give everyone the opportunity to switch on and off when they want. Subscribe for a month/night/year, whatever suits you, with no connection fee.
Keep the comments coming, they're all appreciated. Finally going back to our presenters not doing Boy/Girl......some of you are about to get excited....stay tuned....and no I'm not talking about Michelle.
Dave Cooke
Head of Prorgamming
The Adult Channel, Spice, and Spice Platinum.
Playboy TV UK Ltd.