Whenever the news is full of terrorism stuff, I think back to the days when I played out BBC Three, and checking endless episodes of Family Guy.

“There’s a stabbing in this one.”
“Right, I’ll call the scheduler.”

I know I've said this one before, but it's worth repeating:

Family Guy had the odd effect of making youth channel BBC Three the BBC channel with the most 4:3 material broadcast in any given week.

I loved working on BBC Three. It could get really fiddly at times - every kind of pres element was thrown at the channel - but when it worked, it felt really smooth.

I especially liked the menus with the *huge* pictures, used in place of idents.

Family Guy did have my pet hate, though: end credits which changed caption so fast that it was very difficult to cleanly get the squeeze in without the caption changing at the same time.

I sometimes wonder if I'm the only person in the world who cares about that, though...

BBC Three had some interesting little presentational tics. It would constantly put end credit squeezes on films, which very rarely happens on One and Two.

There were also hashtag graphics, which you had to manually place so they didn't obscure anything else.

TV is ludicrously poorer for losing 60 Seconds.

That show was an amazing training ground. I'd listen in over talkback, as the director spent the evening coaching a brand new presenter through the bulletins. The BBC at its best, and deserved far more recognition for it.

60 Seconds was a perfect training ground in so many ways.

There was a variety of stories, so the presenter had practice at many different tones. The show was short enough to be manageable for newbies, but taught presenters to be great at timing and deal with director counts.

And 60 Seconds was also great for new presenters because they were going out on a channel that actually had people *watching*, not on something obscure with barely any viewers.

Wonder what Studio F is used for at NBH these days...

I never felt BBC Three got the goodbye as a linear channel that it deserved.

Whenever something is reborn, people are terrified of goodbyes. They think it undermines the new thing. But the new thing will fail or succeed on its own terms. And I think goodbyes mean something.

Sure, the channel dug out the odd show that hadn't been seen for a while. And there were a few goodbye messages from celebs broadcast in its final days.

I think it deserved more than that. A documentary would have been something.

See also: BBC Two's Learning Zone. That never got a proper goodbye either, although the last night did have some long idents and lovely announcements.

But it wasn't quite allowed to say goodbye. And it deserved that.

Same goes for BBC One's Circles idents. They were on air for ten years. But they never got the send-off they deserved.

At least BBC Two got to say goodbye to the 2s last year.

I try very, very hard to practice what I preach here. A site I co-wrote, Noise to Signal, managed to say goodbye correctly: http://www.noisetosignal.org/2009/12/the-best-of-nts.html

I *hate* things just tailing off, or disappearing. I find it faintly disrespectful. Everything needs a punctuation point.