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The BBC’s iPlayer website will be revamped today, innitially in beta. The full launch of the new look, and more dynamic iPlayer site will be in a couple of weeks time; bug fixes and errors will no doubt play a major part of the iPlayer site over the next few weeks.

The BBC officially launched the iPlayer late in 2007, on Christmas day in fact. It was an instant hit with Internet audiences and produced record Internet TV ratings.

The current design, however, is very static and not very dynamic at all. The point of the new iPlayer is to make it more accessible, while keeping its sleek, unique look.

The iPlayer is also smarter; There’s a new widget that remembers the last programme you watched. It stores it on the home page ready for you to watch it again, should you be interrupted. Not only that, but it introduces a ’series link’-esque widget that shows you the next episode of your most watched programmes when they become available.

According to the BBC, the most important part of this redesign was to fully-integrate the radio programming with the television programming, which now makes the iPlayer more than just an average online VOD service.

Also introduced in the new iPlayer website is the ability to check whether or not a programme is scheduled to appear in iPlayer or not, just in case you don’t want to watch on television, hoping to catch it on iPlayer later. This seems like a fairly expected extension of the quietly-launched ‘Programmes‘ service, providing schedule and programme information online.

There’s also an RSS feed waiting for people to use. The BBC seems to have noticed that an RSS feed, one of the most important Web tools to date, was missing from the iPlayer website so they’ve gone and thrown one into every page, for good measure.

The video playback window is now a lot bigger (640px) with a YouTube-style ‘related videos’ bit appended to the bottom. The video and radio quality are a lot finer now and, as such, they fit in well with what is a well-rounded video and radio playback service.

The look and feel isn’t bad, either. They’ve kept the unique black and pink design, but made it slightly more sleek and reflective; very Web2.0. The navigation could do with some work, though, as it’s a bit clunky and the gradient is a little 90s-style, but it’s not so bad that it stands out.

I have to say I love the use of pink and black. They are not two colours one would immediately think of splicing together for fear of being a little garish, but they make the iPlayer very recognisable without being loud. It looks simple and suave and it isn’t in your face. And it isn’t generic, either, something almost all BBC websites suffer from, most notably BBC One, BBC Two and BBC Four’s websites.

The new site now appears within the confines of the new BBC websites template. I was worried about this when I heard it would be redesigned, as I’m not a fan of this template. Upon seeing the design, however, I’m okay with it. It fits into the template well and they haven’t repeated the silly double masthead that currently appears on BBC News.

Overall, I love the new look, and the integration of radio into the iPlayer makes catching up with BBC programmes a breeze. Not bad for such a young website, no?

To look at more screen shots before the launch, head to the BBC Editors’ blog article, by Anthony Rose, where he describes the new technology behind the new iPlayer, and how it has grown over the last year to become a dynamic and robust Internet TV platform.

So, as Tom posted earlier, Heinz have decided to withdraw a television advert that got 200 Britons all worked up.

In an innocent portrayal of what appears to be family life, the advertising agency responsible for Heinz’s television commercials have really got the country talking. But why?

Tom blogged about how he was upset that such an ad can provoke such a negative reaction, and even more upset that Heinz decided to pull it because of nothing more than cowardice. While I agree that this is upsetting and somewhat disturbing, that’s not what’s got me upset.

The advert isn’t tasteless and there is nothing at all sexual about it, yet it has caused an outcry amongst the two-hundred-odd people who complained to the Advertising Standards Authority. But I call into question whether or not the people behind this advert, Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, intended for the advert to be such a talking point.

We all know that adverts are made to remember, but when the creators of such adverts take advantage of the insecurities, and indeed bigotry of the country, it becomes another matter entirely.

Now I’m not saying the creators of this particular advert intended to go that far. But I can’t help thinking that this ad was designed to cause a stir, and I might even go so far as to say that they planned to pull the advert all along. After all, there’s no such thing as bad press, right?

My personal opinion upon seeing this advert for the first time was something along the lines of ‘Oh. That’s different’. And then I watched the next ad. Simple as that. But then I read that hundreds of people complained about it because, as Tom pointed out, it featured what appeared to be a family with two male heads of the house.

Complainants have said the advert is “offensive” and that it is “inappropriate to see two men kissing”. Indeed the advert was given the classification ‘ex-kids’, meaning it cannot be shown during childrens television, not because of the kiss between daddy and daddy, but because of the high salt and sugar content of the product being advertised. Anybody for a big shot of irony?

Sadly, in a country where the media and entertainment industry are probably second only to that of the Netherlands in terms of liberal attitudes and openness, there is still one sore point: homosexuality.

Only recently London Underground ruled against showing poster ads for the Gay Times on the Tube because of its gay content. Well, they didn’t say that, obviously, but when you see guns and hetero-overly-sexual imagery portrayed on every other poster across the Underground, it does smack of homophobia just a bit.

Personally, though, I am not as upset that Heinz decided to pull the ad as I am about how big a deal everybody is making of it. It reminds me of Brokeback Mountain and how it is hailed in “gay cinema” as being a milestone in acceptance and liberalisation. Get a grip! The film is good, I give it that, but it is just a film. It has no emperial status over other films in its class, just because it is about two gay men.

Again, it is the advertisers who are pushing the brand of Heinz and they know exactly how to manipulate the audience. It would have been easy to create an ad featuring a standard nuclear family and, in a way, I commend the advertiser for swaying from the norm. But to be honest, this advert smacks of gimmickery and is standing apart from the other contemporary ads because of that; the brand itself doesn’t even get a look in. Isn’t that the first sign of a failed ad campaign?

This isn’t the first TV ad featuring a gay couple, though, and I’m almost certain it won’t be the last. See some of the other TV ads featuring some sort of gay reference, some banned, some allowed to play out without incident, after the jump.

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By Tom Loze-Thwaite

I was sitting in bed with a cup of tea this evening, getting my daily fix of current events from the BBC and The Guardian, when an all-too-familiar column title caught my eye. Maybe I’m a sceptic, or a pessimist, but these days whenever I see the words ‘gay’ and ‘advert’ in the same sentence, I know what to expect when I read on.

I might be forgiven, as a forward-thinking, liberal, metropolitan (and not to mention gay) Londoner, for assuming that the once-endemic panic that ensued whenever two men were seen kissing on TV had long since died out. After all, it was way back in the dark ages (well okay, 1982) that Britain’s public had their first taste of soap homosexuality, courtesy of Brookside character Gordon Collins. And, then, in 1989, the unwilling masses were subjected to a shock baptism into the world of gay soap themes when the BBC allowed Eastenders to write the nation’s first open-mouthed gay kiss into the storyline, in all its ghastly glory.

As could be expected for the time, the outcry was enormous. The tabloids had a field day, running headlines such as ‘EastBenders’ and branding the programme as being ‘filth’ and ‘a public disgrace’. A few conservative MPs even called for the entire show to be banned, obviously fearing that this new direction could lead to a epidemic of sexual immorality and hedonism across the nation. Of course, the BBC paid no heed, and the (thankfully) open-minded board at Ofcom waved away the complains, much to the chagrin of many right-wing politicians and christian groups.

Now it seems like an age since the days when the media would get all jittery over a bit of queerness on the TV - and rightly so, as attitudes have changed vastly in the years hence. These days, shows are clamouring to get a gay angle on their storylines, and once-controversial themes are even making their way into shows aimed at teenagers, such as E4’s ‘Skins’.

So why all these complaints about Heinz’s advert?

Well, for a start I guess you need to look at how the advert plays out. Its fairly innocuous - a burly New-Yorker is shown preparing sandwiches for his kids as they leave for school, and his partner gives him a quick kiss on the lips before leaving for work. Okay, so, forgive me if I’m missing something here, but this is hardly the lubed-up, sweaty sex scene I expected to raise so many complaints (over 200 so far). Surely we can put up with a teeny-weeny peck at the end of an advert?

Well actually, no. The problem is, these guys are portrayed as having kids. And although we’re well acclimatised to a few man to man pecks on the cheek here and there, suggesting to the general population that same-sex couples having kids is a ‘normal’ situation is definitely not something that’s going to wash.

According to the Advertising Standards Authority, many of the complaints were from parents who were concerned about their kids watching the advert. The content is apparently ‘unsuitable for children’ and was even reported by some to be ‘offensive’. Well, I’m sorry, but if you’re worried about your kids being exposed to homosexuality then you haven’t got the right idea.

Okay, so explaining to a five year-old why daddy one is kissing daddy two may not be the simplest thing to do, but we’re living in a modern world here. Parents have to accept, like it or not, that homosexuality has to be an integral part of sex education (both at home and in school) in order for tomorrow’s teenagers to grow up and be prepared for what adolescence is about to throw at them. As Stonewall have recently campaigned, ‘Some people are gay - get over it.’

Pretending that homosexuality is a topic which can be segregated from ‘normal’ education has been perfectly acceptable in the past - the controversial piece of governmental legislation known as Section 28 haunted school teachers for years, legally obstructing them from teaching children about homosexuality in an objective and unbiased way. But that’s ancient history, and while the ghosts of Section 28 still linger in some classrooms, many schools are integrating lessons on same-sex relationships into their Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) lessons.

So, while I fully respect the right of parents to object to their children being shown this sort of content on TV, what I don’t respect is Heinz’s decision to pull the ad. How many adverts containing scenes of heterosexual couples kissing are shown every day? Literally hundreds. And lets face it, I don’t really want to see 85 year-olds Enid and Archie smooching away without their false teeth in some advertisement for a retirement plan, but I’m not about to object to it. Fortunately, the ASA itself is upholding none of the complaints, since it treats such content equally whether it shows a heterosexual couple or a gay couple.

At the end of the day, its not a huge deal if one company pulls one advert because of a few complaints. And its not even as if the ASA forced them to pull it because they judged the content to be objectionable. But it does serve as a gentle reminder that even today, with all our freedoms and rights and opportunities, there are still barriers to be pushed aside when it comes to general attitudes towards homosexuality. We’ve come a long way since that first snog on Eastenders, but we’ve got a bit of work to do yet.

Author: Tom Loze-Thwaite
SCIENCE EDITOR

Related articles on leebaillie.co.uk: HEINZ ARE ONE SANDWICH SHORT OF A PICNIC

London mayor Boris Johnson has publicly blamed video games for violence amongst Britain’s young people. What a fool.

Writing in The London Paper, the Mayor said

We must show young people that knives are not cool, and for that we need positive role models.I want to counteract the damaging influences drug-addled celebrities and violent video games and the lure of the life in the gang by providing opportunities.

Lets take a look at Grand Theft Auto. It is probably the epitome of violence in video games and has been since the first one. In GTA IV, you have to drive on the left as the game is set in Liberty City, which is based on New York. Do those who play the game in Britain drive on the wrong side of the street because of it? I think not.

It started with films. Then it moved to television, then rock ‘n’ roll and now it’s video games. Politicians seem to be completely unhappy until they have used a part of the mass media or entertainment businesses as a scapegoat for the problems society has as a whole.

Young people in London are just disenfranchised from the rest of the country and indeed the world. They turn to crime partly because they have nothing important to occupy their time, and they feel victimised and they lack the moral guidance and support they so strongly need. Politics is an exclusive club for those at war and those in business. What part of that can a young person be a part of?

It’s no wonder knife crime is going up massively amongst young people.They are demonised by the media, just like black people were in the sixties and seventies. Broadcast news’ desperate attempts to capture ratings is having a massive impact on young people and, sadly, they know it, but are doing nothing to counter it.

Computer games and the entertainment industry don’t have half as much of a negative impact on society, and young people in particular, as politicians and the news media do.

I think Boris may have asked one of his advisers what part of the entertainment industry is making the news right now. Said adviser would have thought about GTA IV and Amy Winehouse. The result is Bumbling Boris blaming celebrities and video game violence amongst our troubled youth.

Maybe Boris needs to get a grip on reality and do something about it, rather than just talk about, chastising all the young people to make the old people of London feel vindicated in the knowledge that they were right about young people all along when they are just plain wrong.

All Boris will end up doing is widening the gap between young people and the rest of the country, pushing them away from those who can pacify the violence and kerb the advancing knife crime ‘crisis’.

Why-oh-why do the BBC continue to mess around with the timeslot for Doctor Who?

It has actually made me quite angry, as I keep missing the programme when it is broadcast on a Saturday evening.

Earlier today I was sitting in Starbucks with friends. Realising the time was getting on a bit, I decided it was time to leave, partly because I knew Doctor Who was on. I made it home literally minutes before seven only to realise Who had been on for twenty minutes already!

I hadn’t forgotten the announcement after last week’s episode, it simply didn’t compute until it was too late. So now I have to wait until tomorrow to see this week’s episode of Doctor Who.

Why do they do it? It’s infuriating that they shift it about every week. What is wrong with the seven o’clock timeslot? Why show it early when they know it looses viewers at such times of the early evening.

They did similar things with Torchwood’s last series. It was supposed to be broadcast on BBC Two since they poached it from BBC Three after series one. But mid-season they decided to drop the repeat on BBC Three and instead broadcast it in BBC Three first. So there I was watching the BBC Three repeats (they were broadcast at a more managable time for me), only to realise that it suddenly skipped an episode. So I had to use the rubbish quality BBC iPlayer.

Back to Who: I know it’s a family show, and they will undoubtedly justify their ridiculous ratification of the Doctor Who timeslot by simply saying “it’s still accessible to kids, and that’s what matters most”.

It was no doubt a whole afternoon of sports (how very diverse~) that caused me to miss my favourite television programme of the moment.

I don’t watch a lot of TV, but the TV I do watch, I’d quite like to watch in some sort of uniform routine.

That’s my rant over, but was it so pointless? I don’t know.

You may have noticed the subtle change to the BBC News website this week.

Addressing concerns about the double masthead, they’ve removed the ‘BBC’ from BBC News so that now it just reads ‘News’ on the main masthead.

Don’t worry, though, that pointless black masthead still has an ubermassive BBC logo just above it.

I suppose it’s a good thing that you don’t see the BBC logo twice right next to each other. Though, wouldn’t it have made more sense to ditch the universal top banner in favour of keeping the ‘BBC News’ tag there?

After all, they’ve just spent loads of money trying to strengthen and unify the BBC News brand.

It’s a step forward in terms of aesthetics of the website. But it’s a step backwards in terms of the BBC News brand as a whole.

I wanted to create a vibrant and clean CSS template and came up with I’m Clean & Crisp.

It’s a green and blue template, it’s bright and I think I’ve managed to keep it clean, too. Like some of my other templates, it’s definitely simple and doesn’t require a lot of code on the XHTML page or the Style Sheet. That should mean that it’s a fast-loading template.

I’ll look into developing this one further, including a three column version as well as a more structured version.

Remember, please leave a comment with your thoughts. I’d appreciate it greatly.

LIVE PREVIEW or just DOWNLOAD NOW.

I decided to spend an hour today fixing up a CSS template I did a couple of months ago, entitled Wordsworth. The template is Wordsworth 2 and, as the title alludes to, it is built for displaying text and images only.

There are no fancy sidebars and there’s not a lot of interesting style to it, the only thing it has in its favour is the fact that it’s clean and simple, easy to use and read and can be amended and developed to fit almost any requirement. It’s almost Web 2.0, but not quite.

Like its predecessor, Wordsworth 2 would be ideal for a basic photo gallery or an encyclopaedia or journal-type Web site. But the uses possibilities are endless.

There’s a new cool blue header and footer and I’ve dropped the colour tone a notch or two, mostly for the sake of accessibility and usability. The following is a list of all the changes I’ve made to Wordsworth 2:

• Easier to edit using the ‘Design’ mode in Dreamweaver.
• Slightly reduced width (for usability).
• Toned-down colours for the header and body type (for accessibility and usability)
• Added the ability to easily scale down / up the width
• Fixed the issues with Internet Explorer 7
• Added additional tag support (such as ‘acronym’ and other classes)
• Made the footer consistent with the body type and header
• Changed the typeface (for usability)
• Made the CSS and XHTML valid according to W3C standards
• And one or two other style tweaks just to make it slightly easier to read the text. It is a text-based layout after all!

If you download this template, please consider leaving me a comment telling me what you think. It’s that which helps me develop and which encourages me to continue to offer you fine people free CSS templates!

Happy downloading.

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Yesterday, BBC News launched its new on-screen identity to a mixed reaction from Internet blog commenters. I have commented myself on the BBC Editors’ Blogs. The remark was subsequently featured in the follow-up post by the editor, but I have seen something which sums up my opinion of the recent changes more perfectly than I could have put it. I’ll post the entire comment here, in the hope that I don’t get told off by the original poster or even the BBC for some sort of Copyright breach…

Vinskapur [Comments on Changes, at 10:46 am on 22 Apr 2008] wrote:

You’ve managed to address at least one of the concerns expressed in the comments to your previous post, but to me the most glaring setback in this revamp concerns the on-screen graphics. I would like to echo comments #28, #52 and especially #135 from your previous post and explain my reasoning.

When Lambie-Nairn earned tens of millions for introducing Gill Sans to the BBC logotype more than ten years ago, it took a while to get used to but quickly established the brand as one that is instantly recognisable across the world. The News 24 graphics steadily evolved over the years to where its previous incarnation was my absolute favourite of them all, as it was entirely subtle and unintrusive - the graphics were clean and crisp, and visual elements slid on/off-screen or faded in and out without causing a distraction. Most of all, the use of Helvetica in the ticker and various astons made text very readable and easy on the eyes.

So my problem with the new graphics is three-fold, as it goes against everything the previous graphics stood for, and not in a good way. The incredibly high-contrast solid colour scheme - black on white, white on dark gray, sharp border edges - is incredibly jarring and distracting, and looks like no thought had been put into it whatsoever.

This is compounded by the new transitions, which appear on screen wiping left to right instead of fading in and out. This is not so noticeable during stories on the News Channel where the big white bar stays on-screen while story one-liners are wiped in and out, but every time one of the white bars appears during “BBC News Reporting Scotland” I find my eyes have to refocus to adjust to the screen brightness, which causes me great discomfort as the programme uses no other on-screen astons. I’m not so much a fan of Sky News, but its wipe implementation is a lot less distracting as it fades the bar in first, then uses a vertical line to wipe-in the text.

Most glaring of all is the wholesale re-adoption of Gill Sans across all on-screen text, which I object to strongly. While Gill Sans still works as the BBC’s logotype, my eyes glaze over every time I’m faced with reading long strings of text formatted in this font, as it just isn’t readable enough to be used in any serious context. This is the clearest example of one step forward, three steps back as it relates to the visual identity of BBC News.

These three crucial elements of visual design - colour scheme, transitions and type choice - had already been virtually perfected in News 24’s last incarnation, and have been supplanted by a vastly inferior stepchild that appears to have been designed as an afterthought, perhaps because most of the money was spent on those nausea-inducing title sequences. You can keep those, even your bland new studio, but I can’t tolerate watching BBC News for any length of time if the graphics aren’t visually appealing and there when I need to refer to them, instead of in my face whether I like it or not.

I would politely suggest the BBC obtains a refund from Lambie-Nairn for the few quid they spent designing the on-screen graphics, and use the money to reinstate the previous ones.

Will the BBC take note? Probably not. But hey, we can all put up a good fight.