Jason Levine – Healing People Daily with the Power of Digital Video & Audio

If you're singing along with the title of this Blog, then chances are you're a fan of Austin Powers (and as such, you remember the band 'Ming Tea' performing "On The BBC" from the original AP movie, 1997!)

But that's not what this about. To put it simply...the BBC rocks. Here is an organization, that for decades has truly defined broadcast standards and has consistently conformed to a strict level of quality production...both on radio and in television. If you were a fan of the old 70s/early 80s music show "The Old Grey Whistle Test" (now available as Collections on DVD, brilliantly preserved), then you know what I'm talking about. It's always been about quality: quality performances, quality choices of entertainers, quality recording and quality output.

And it extends to many areas of broadcast (including the obvious, news and sport), though admittedly, I'm most fond of their collection of archival materials from the 60s and 70s. The Beatles Live @ The BBC, The Who BBC Sessions, Led Zeppelin and Cream BBC Sessions...all masterful performances, all of them well-recorded (even the early mono stuff is damned impressive) and all of them representing (momentary) snapshots in time that simply don't exist anywhere else (and fortunately, were preserved for posterity. Good forward thinking, that was!)

In fact, I think it's a pretty safe bet to say that aside from Swedish Radio/SVT in Stockholm, the BBC has probably the largest 'existing' library of archival music and media materials ever captured to tape, disc, cylinder, or whatever. And certainly, their archives are legendary. But so are the people who were part of those archives...not just performers, but the presenters. Whispering Bob Harris (the master of Whistle Test), Richard Williams (the sous-chef of Whistle Test, but equally as powerful, and ever passionate), Brian Matthew (Saturday Club and early Top of the Pops), Andy Kershaw, the list goes on and on. These characters were not mere voices doing intros and outros...but they were scholarly masters of the art they promoted. Masters! And they moved me, man!! Not mere cue-card/teleprompter reading robots (like the kinds we see strewn across the networks today)---but the kinds of characters who took the time to know 'everything' about 'everyone' (in their field), and displayed that knowledge with every word, every subtle nuance of an introduction, and in every after-thought of a post-performance showcase.

Oh, and don't even get me started on BBC Television Programmes. Can you say, The Office? The Young Ones? Coupling? Absolutely Fabulous? Extras? Fawlty Towers? Monty Python, for goodness sake? I mean, COME ON! These are shows that changed the face of television. Really. Some perhaps more than others...but still....it just really speaks to standards, and very high ones indeed.

So, why am I talking so much about this? Well, for one, I've been to the BBC many times. I've even conducted training classes at one of their former training centers, DigiLab, educating their various media/broadcast/producer/journalist types on re-versioning workflows for preserving archives, and even remastering and reversioning mono and old stereo material for 5.1 surround. Also, any time I pick up a new DVD, something from the 'archive' series, and it's got that familiar logo (branding is everything, isn't it?) I'm at ease knowing that it's going to look and sound great --- and like a child at Christmas, I can't wait to watch, listen, read, and become completely immersed in the whole thing, from start to finish, without interruption. That sounds like an addictive personality...well, if I'm addicted to fantastically mesmerizing and moving content, then so be it!

In any case, when I think about the Beeb, I'm reminded that in this day and age of mass content creation, where quantity has a tendency to trump quality, there's still an organization alive that holds 'all' facets of quality reproduction to very high standards. And that's a fab, fab thing.

BBC5! BBC6! BBC7! BBC-heaven! (BBC, peace)