| # | Name | Position, Company | Comments |
|---|
| 151 | Grant McKee | Freelance exec | It should barely need to be said that there a thousand other ways the BBC could better save the money involved; that Storyville should be enhanced not stripped bare; that this is what public service broadcasting is all about. |
| 152 | Ross Whitaker | Producer/Director, Street Films Ireland | Storyville is a trailblazer, more of a vision of the future than the past. The recent upsurge in creative documentaries in the cinema and at festivals shows that there is a market for real films of feature length and it is vital that Storyville continues to be a central force in the development of these remarkable films. |
| 153 | Dr Tim Hall | Senior lecturer in International Politics, University of East London | Storyville is quite simply the best documentary series on British television - as good as anything in the past 25 years. The slashing of it's budget by bbc bean-counters is all too predictable and sad. Some people in the bbc should wake up to the fact that *the very point of their jobs* is to protect and nuture creative spaces like this. Its absolutely mind-numbing that this is even being contemplated. |
| 154 | Charlie Radclyffe | Retired | |
| 155 | David Gurman | Editor, The Rider's Digest | I think it is outrageous that at a time when TV programming seems to be heading for the lowest common denominator and the BBC is paying ridiculous money to "stars" like Jonathon Ross, that they shold be considering cutting funding to one of the few areas in which they are currently still able to set a positive example. |
| 156 | David | Cumming | I really despair. Quality programming is being shunted to the nether regions of the digital listings to make way for Pay As You View rubbish like DanceX and Baby Ballroom.
I remember being bored to death as a child at the mundane, serious stuff that I would now love to watch as an adult. As it is, if I can't vote for the outcome of something I start getting shakes and twitches! |
| 157 | Maureen Judge | Makin' Movies Inc. | |
| 158 | Lukasz | Entrepreneur | |
| 159 | Dr Henry Potts | Lecturer, UCL | |
| 160 | Bernd Wilting | managing director, taglicht media GmbH | |
| 161 | S Michniewicz | Book designer | As if we don't have enough rubbish on our televisions, how can the BBC seriously cut the funding of the one area they are streets ahead of the competition? |
| 162 | rebecca lloyd-evans | producer, RISE films | |
| 163 | Tom Herington | Assistant Editor | |
| 164 | Helena Appio | Creative Executive, Shine | |
| 165 | Anonymous | Anonymous | |
| 166 | C. Cay Wesnigk | CCW Film | fog in the channel, continent isolated! |
| 167 | Stuart Bamforth | Director (freelance) | Despite being a BAFTA-winning director, it is already almost impossible to get any of my single-doc ideas commissioned. Without Storyville, i might as well give up completely (and sign up for the next soul-sapping series of Big Brother!) |
| 168 | Robert Adams | Independent film-maker | |
| 169 | robin benger | cogent/benger Productions | stay the hand
Storyville's important and valuable. |
| 170 | Ben Lewis | Bergmann Pictures Ltd | The BBC needs to work out new ways of promoting and distributing its best programmes, of which Storyville is the prime example, instead of lazily blaming low ratings on subject matter and film-maker. |
| 171 | James Leigh | Freelance Shooting Director | Storyville is one of the countries best documentary strands bringing real life to the screens in an unparallelled way. It would be a disgrace for it's budget to be slashed by so much. |
| 172 | Kathrine Bancroft | Associate Producer, Bergmann Pictures | I am currently hard at work on a Storyville and concur with everything that has been said on this petition already. Much was made at this years BAFTA's about the need for and importance of single documentaries and for the Beeb to consider slashing its Storyville output seems to make no sense at all. People want singles, people want to make them...its not rocket science. |
| 173 | Fiona O'Doherty | Producer, Ben Lewis.tv | 'to view the lives of those around us for the likes of which will never be seen again'. Storyville, gives the public the opportunity to share some of the worlds most hidden stories. Without which these films simply won't get made. Is this Public Service ? making quality programming unobtainable for all? |
| 174 | Alison Parker | Staff Nurse, GRI | |
| 175 | Brian Woods | True Vision | British Television rightly has a reputation for producing the best documentaries in the world. At a time when ITV has given up making serious doucmentary, and Channel Four is increasingly focussing on Factual Entertainment, it is downright irresponsible for the BBC to be undermining one of the only remaining outlets for quality international docs. |
| 176 | Robin Gutch | Joint MD, Warp X Ltd | Storyville is a beacon of creative integrity at a time when confidence in 'truth' on television is in crisis. The strand exemplifies many aspects of the BBC's stated commitment to public value in return for the licence fee. Once cut back the next stage of 'debate' will be that the strand is slipping from audience recognition, to justify death by a thousand cuts. The decision seems to lose a lot for audiences and film makers for relatively little financial gain. |
| 177 | Max Baring | Series Producer and Director | If not Storyville then where? |
| 178 | Kashfi Halford | film maker | I think storyville is one of the last remaining strands for independent documentary, and it would be a tragedy and mistake to stop it. |
| 179 | Faye Hamilton | Researcher, Blast Films | |
| 180 | Murray Kelso | Freelance writer | |
| 181 | Sonja Henrici | Producer, Scottish Documentary Institute | Storyville is at the centre of creative documentary commissioning in the UK, and hence crucial for British documentary filmmakers - and audiences alike. Save Storyville! |
| 182 | Daniel Pageon | Director Actors World Production Limited | BBC documentaries are admired all over the world and we have made a number of foreign versions of them, it would be a great loss to the BBC in particular and Great Britain as whole. |
| 183 | Abigail | student | Storyville produces brilliant and important documentaries which you do not find anywhere else on British television. The budget to make these films must not be cut, it would be a crime to do this. |
| 184 | john owen | director | I have worked in TV in India for ten years. People all over Asia hold the BBC and the documentary strands they broadcast with such high regard because the multi channel environment,lead by News Corps Star TV, is about as dumbed down as you can get. Dont let it go. The world is watching, it really is. |
| 185 | Romey Macdonald | Runner, Technicolor | |
| 186 | Anonymous | Anonymous | |
| 187 | Susannah Herbert | Sunday Times | Storyville makes great documentaries. Don't kill it. |
| 188 | Arun Kumar | Film Director, Soma Films Ltd | I hope the BBC reconsider this decision as Storyville is the jewel in the crown of their documentary output. It will be a great shame and terrible for viewers if the proposed cuts go ahead. I especially feel for Nic Fraser who has put so much into making Storyville a strand for director led films. |
| 189 | Francesca Gavin | writer | |
| 190 | Maja Borg | Film maker | |
| 191 | Daniel Pemberton | Composer | British TV can be an amazing. Unfortunately it is getting increasingly less and less so. The only time i have bothered to complain to the BBC was when i saw the Storyville Chavez: Inside The Coup. This was one of the most amazing documentaries I think i've ever seen and i caught it completely by chance. It was on BBC4 at 11.30pm. The night before i had seen some goddamn awful Alan Yentob film on how Briitsh sitcoms were 'making it' because one of the American studios had bought Coupling. Wow. It was a rubbish documentary, yet heavily advertised, trailed and put on BBC1 at a decent hour. The Storyville film was not. I was so angry that i only came across this film by chance, and a very slim one at that too. I luckily videoed it by mistake and that tape is one of my most cherished possesions. It has travelled through lots of people's hands and influenced and affected everyone who saw it. Can anyone say the same thing about that Imagine episode? Or most other things on the beeb at the moment? Long live Storyville! |
| 192 | Craig | Director, Light Bulb Festival 08 | |
| 193 | mike chamberlain | MD | It would be tragic if Britain was to lose its premiere creative documentary slot; Storyville. Combining as it does the best in world documentary with the best in British documentary, it is unique and quite beautiful. Not only that, but by finding funds from around the world to back all its documentary hunches it is extremely good value for money for the BBC. Very cheap, with being cheap at all.
The strand is known around the world for its strength of purpose and vision and it is a flagship both for the BBC and for exciting, innovative and meaningful documentaries the world over.
Please don't let the bean-counters close the last door on creative documentary in Britain. |
| 194 | Jenny Hanson | Sprouted Wolf Productions | I look forward to the great work of Storyville - so please keep it alive. |
| 195 | Karl Liegis | Assistant Director | I find it absurd that a programe that continues to justify the existence of documentaries. From travelling the globe for stories, to observing subjects for serious periods of time Storyville is a quality project that will undoubtedly suffer from such dramatic cuts...it would take me about 30 seconds to think of a better cause for the cuts. |
| 196 | Vicky Mohieddeen | Freelance Director/ Editor | |
| 197 | Jo Ann Kaplan | Director/Editor, Editing Tutor NFTS | Just another nail in the coffin of one that's already well-nailed. |
| 198 | Jules Cornell | Film Editor | With TV becoming increasingly generic and anonymous, Storyville remains one of the last hiding places of original thinking. It presents films of syle and substance. Nick Fraser gives film makers the freedom to tell their story, their way which is rare enough in commissioners these days. When we all look back in 30 years time at the best films of the decade, I'd wager many of them would be from this vitally important strand. Dump the cash guzzling, celebrity obsessed nonsense and make inspiring films. |
| 199 | Duncan Rennie | Actor / Film-maker | |
| 200 | Anonymous | Anonymous | |