Dear Terry, Thanks for these remarks. They put my experience into a wider context.
>From my observations and from your comments it is fairly clear that either, the BBC does not have any policy on metrication or that their policy is widely ignored within the BBC organisation. By the way, I suspect that the BBC cricket commentators use of colonial measures is more about pandering to a deeply conservative cricket administration than to an American market. Cheers, Pat Naughtin LCAMS Geelong, Australia on 2003-03-24 22.59, Terry Simpson at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> 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 > > >
