television screen

Description

Back in 2003 before the premium rate phone scams had been discovered by the popular press and every cheap programme had an SMS shortcode rather than a Twitter account, Friendly TV was the future of television. Their output consisted mainly of Babecast style shows, without the babe element. Viewers were invited to text or sometimes phone in to the programmes on subjects relating to current affairs, celebrity gossip and answers to automated quizzes. After a while of broadcasting both editorially and technically terrible programmes, the channel moved to the adult section of the EPG and more or less invented the Babecast format. In a way, they really were the future of television. This video depicts an incident in May 2003 when former QVC presenter Paul Lavers and his co-presenter, Karen Witchalls were fronting the morning show. The show mainly consisted of items based on that days newspapers. A newspaper mentioned Nicole Kidman, so the show decided to run a text poll with a Nicole Kidman related question. This seems to have been their only funding as they did not run adverts at this time even though they still had breaks. Breaks which consited of the studio camera zooming in to a television screen in the studio that was displaying details of the poll (excluding the cost of the text message you may notice). It appears they couldn't put the graphics directly to air. This wasn't their only technical short-coming that day. Instead of turning the presenter's microphones down when they went to the break, it sounds like someone turns the microphones up. We hear everything the presenters and the studio crew say during the break. Embarrassing at best, this video at worse. Victor Lewis Smith wrote a rather scathing review of this episode so at least they know they had two viewers that day. I have also included a clip of the presenters making a reference to the incident which had happened earlier in the week. Enjoy.