..Won't Miss BBC3?

Young people and celebrities alike have joined forces over the internet in a bid to save BBC3.The BBC are planning on axing youth channel BBC3 in 2015, making it an online-only channel, in a bid to save the corporation £100million a year. Yet despite the public outroar against Tony Hall, Director-General of the BBC, I’m still so on the fence over the whole situation that I’ve started getting splinters on my bottom.

The multi-award-winning channel, which has given us the likes of Gavin and Stacey and Little Britain over the years, is set to close next year if the decision is approved by the BBC Trust. Over the last few days, over 120,000 signatures have been collected in the online petition against the cuts, with the likes of Nick Grimshaw and Russell Kane urging their Twitter followers to do the same and force the Trust to decline the proposal.

It seems to me that Grimshaw and Kane are so set against the move because it will reduce their bulging pay packets from the corporation: both head shows on the channel and have criticised the culling of such a culturally-driven channel. But their argument that new talent will not have a platform in the future is completely invalid in my opinion. New shows will still receive funding and be broadcast on the online version of the channel, which, to me, will get just as many views from students like us as well as others in the 16-30 age bracket.

Think about it. The majority of student accommodations don’t offer a TV and Freeview (and even if they do, we can’t afford the TV licence), and we’re always too busy drinking/napping/procrastinating online to watch shows when they’re actually broadcast. iPlayer allows us to watch the stuff worth watching at our convenience already, so the new plan doesn’t even really change anything.

But let’s be honest, is there really that much worth watching on BBC3 nowadays? It’s become a channel of re-runs and less than impressive comedy. Dare I mention Bluestone 42, featuring Brian from My Parents Are Aliens? What were you thinking Brian?! In it’s heyday, BBC3 was the source of the best comedy around, acting as a testing-ground for shows destined for primetime BBC1 or BBC2. It was even quite good at drama, being the first home of Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood.

I still watch BBC3, don’t get me wrong. But this is predominantly at 3am, drunkenly lolling on the sofa goggling Don’t Tell The Bride or Snog, Marry, Avoid whilst still reminiscing about the takeaway I’d just had at Salt ‘n’ Pepper. But when it’s gone, I can just pick up the remote and go to Dave and watch the brilliant crap on there instead.

So my point is, are people actually that bothered about #SaveBBC3, or is it just a case of jumping on the bandwagon to look like you know and care about what’s going on in the news today? I’m not majorly fussed, if it goes it doesn’t really go anyway. We live in the 21^st century, not the Dark Ages. It’s not a cull of youth expression and entertainment, it’s just a reinvention of it which, when you think about it, suits our needs more. So really, we maybe should be thanking Tony Hall for making BBC3 so modern and techy-whizzy.


*initially written to be published in The Courier.