> Of Ezra Steinberg > >I find this news about the BBC both puzzling and discouraging. >Can our UK correspondents (Chris, et al.) chime in here?
I have the following comments: 1. I don't know. 2. The BBC is a large organisation with lots of departments (e.g. Regions, World Service) and lots of individuals. The BBC World Service Radio is more metric than the TV. 3. Journalists may do conversions to suit UK civilian use of non-metric. Metres may be left as metres or quoted as yards, kilometres may be converted to miles). Low temperatures are almost always Celsius, high temperatures may be either. 4. Many UK journalists receive their reports from US sources (military or otherwise). As you may know, some are travelling with US military. 5. The BBC has an export TV channel. This appears to be less metric than the BBC transmissions within the UK. I have always assumed that it is catering to the US market. 6. Articles on the BBC website appear to be much better at using metric even if in parallel non-metric. 7. Written words are much more likely to be metric than spoken words. This applies even to ordinary UK individuals. I think this is a general characteristic of people in transition. 8. I think that Sky News is less metric than the BBC. -- Terry Simpson Human Factors Consultant [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.connected-systems.com Phone: +44 7850 511794
