A Five News Update

As loyal readers may be aware I contacted Five regarding their senseless dropping of The Shield. I received a less than satisfactory response and sent off another missive. Only to receive a cheeky reply. Below is said reply and my further response. Let's see how long this one goes on for.


Date: 20th September 2004

Dear Tom

Thank you for your further e-mail regarding The Shield.

Please allow us to apologise for the delay in responding, we have had an
unusually large number of e-mails recently which has caused a back-log.

We are sorry that you feel our last response was 'pre-prepared'.
Despite advances in technology, it is still necessary to employ human
beings in the scripting of all Five responses. We will only use a
"standard" response if it exactly answers a viewer's questions. A
standard response ensures total accuracy, and enables us to give a more
comprehensive answer to the particular points made. There is simply no
point in rephrasing the same answer to exactly the same questions as
this would mean that it would take months rather than days to respond to
the large volume of mail that we receive.

We feel that we answered your enquiry with our first response, that The
Shield is taking a break to accommodate some new autumn programmes.

Thank you for your interest in Five.

Yours sincerely


VIEWER ADVISOR


Dear 'VIEWER ADVISOR'

I read with great interest your e-mail suggesting that my assumption that you had merely cut and pasted a pre-prepared response to my query. I had imagined a human being responded to my query as I referred to him by name, Craig. Craig however had referred to me by the name of 'Correspondent,' suggesting that my reply was not individually tailored. At least Craig had the courtesy to put his name to his pre-prepared cut and paste response as now I find myself writing to a 'human being' who goes by the name of VIEWER ADVISOR.

Your previous response did not attempt to address my query, nor did your latest. I realise that you will stubbornly refuse to do so no matter how many times I contact.

Once again you have told me something that I already know. The Shield has been moved to accommodate another programme. I was not contacting you to ask why there was one hour of dead air in its place. I knew there was another programme in its place. I asked why you had saw fit to do this.

If you do feel the need to enter into some sort of pedantic flame war, by all means fire off a response that says more about how you answer your e-mails than it does about how you treat your television programmes and your viewers. Only this time have the decency to put your name on it, eh?

Best Wishes

Tom Brogan