Does anyone know how long the B.B.C. 24h News channel has been showing “Ad Breaks “on the quarter hour mark?

When I say Ad Break I mean, fairly recent footage of old bad news. Then to top it off, just like the current prime time news shows, they finish with a good news story - about Harry Potter, F.F.S. JUST LET ME WATCH THE CURRENT NEWS, I digress.

So how longs that being going on then, is it just after midnight or, all through?

T.B.H. if they want to have a break between a half hour show, I’d rather they just put the old Test Card back up (you know, the kid & the doll), jeez most of the people reading this haven’t got a clue what I’m on about!

Whereas those people cannot comprehend how bad Telly was back in the day, I know, just a picture on a card!

That’s all that was to watch for a fair bit of the day. But I’d still rather stare at the clown / noughts & crosses board / girl for a minute than be fed old bad news, as if the current stuffs not bad enough!

To go off on a tangent, myself and a group of friends were chatting last weekend about why nobody tells jokes anymore, why entertainment has become a dumbed down series of talent shows for the masses, why there is a shortage of side splitting comedians, why there is a lack of great situation comedy, (when I say great I'm not just talking about a few laughs here and there, I'm talking about proper scriptwriting, genuinely funny lines, truly talented actors, social commentary etc.). Then it dawned on us... The news has become entertainment, politics has become the sit-coms, social media has become the social commentary. All backed up by the countless shows that regurgitate last week's news only with forced laughs for effect; Have I Got News For You, Mock the Week, The Last Leg et al.

In the end we couldn't come to a conclusion on the state of entertainment/comedy, the gin was free flowing and it was getting late, we could only surmise that it fell somewhere between Brexit, Donald Trump, Sky News, Twitter, the Daily Mail, the Royal Family, and Armageddon 2.0.

Yep, everywhere you look it's just regurgitated stuff, but I thought the news was the last bastion.

I was being a tad disingenuous to the B.B.C. regarding showing just old bad news, they actually showed the moon landing clip, which still fills me with awe & slight scepticism. But by showing "old school" misery are they saying "here's how it used to be, but it's not that bad now", well, I'd say it definately is.

Bad news is sexy - good news is frivolous fun; so if they want to hold the attention between actual news, they'll show old bad news - complete with a reporter standing there speculating about just how bad it actually is/was.

I tend to avoid BBC news these days - Channel 4 seems to be about the only decent source of unbiased reporting, the rest I get from various internet sources; broadcast and print media in this country is in a parlous state, thanks largely to the majority of it being owned by a small cadre of billionaire moguls with a shameless right wing agenda.