topic Re: Programme descriptions in Guide are woeful in TV

Programme descriptions in Guide are woeful

gbtbag — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 15:47:23 GMT

I’ve had BT for years and am now stuck with EE.

Its onscreen guide to programmes and episode breakdowns is just dreadful.

Some don’t include episode numbers and titles. Here’s the description for every episode of “The Sopranos”, regardless of the title:

“James Gandolfini stars in this acclaimed series about a mob boss whose professional and private strains land him in therapy.”

it lists the season number and the episode title but not the number.

Absolutely hopeless. I’ve used Sky and Virgin before and both have better channel guides. Even the guide in Talk Talk, the worst provider on the planet,

How do we complain to EE about this?

Re: Programme descriptions in Guide are woeful

Northerner — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 16:27:44 GMT

Hi @gbtbag

I believe the OS is provided by Youview which unlike Sky or Virgin is open source software and as such will be limited.

Complain to Youview.

Thanks

Re: Programme descriptions in Guide are woeful

zulu17 — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 21:15:08 GMT

@Northerner Actualy Youview ceased supporting individual users in mid 2023. From them onwards

Support for BT and TalkTalk devices will be provided by the respective trading brands.

So problems and complaints wrt to the EETV EPG would under that agreement between BT Group and Youview be appropriate to EE.

Re: Programme descriptions in Guide are woeful

zulu17 — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 21:40:49 GMT

In simple terms

The channel guide/EPG is as comprehensive as the data that populates it. So if the data provider for EETV is not supplying episode number and in some cases neither series number nor episode number then you will not see it. Equally if the data provider for the EETV channel provides the same general description rather than an episode specific description that is what you see.

As @gbtbag points out other EPGs on other devices do provide more comprehensive episode specific description.so that does suggest that the information is available. just not reaching the EETV EPG for its user.s I believe some channels in the EETV guide do routinely and consistently provide the episode numbers and descriptions that @gbtbag expects so that does suggest that the issue is with the process and suppliers used by EETV. So some of their providers seem to be doing it well and others are providing more basic data.

Re: Programme descriptions in Guide are woeful

DarrenDev — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 21:41:56 GMT

I've just checked the data (we use YouView to provide the TV guide data for the EE TV mobile apps) and it appears YouView are displaying the "short description" in the TV guide info screens - for The Sopranos, that field is rubbish. In the mobile apps, we chose to display the long descriptions, which includes more detail. Episode numbers aren't available in the source data though, which would suggest it's missing in the data that Sky are publishing.

I'll try to get an answer about why the short description is being used, but I can't promise anything.

Re: Programme descriptions in Guide are woeful

zulu17 — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 22:51:00 GMT

@DarrenDev fyi a couple of images from EETV app for the same programme on sky Arts which is available as FreetoAir and as a NOW Entertainment channel.

The FreetoAir Ip channel has series and episode , the Now ip channel doesn't.

Re: Programme descriptions in Guide are woeful

DarrenDev — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 10:00:16 GMT

@zulu17 the data published for the DTT channels goes via a different route, in a different format. The (S4, ep6) has been added to the end of the only synopsis that is published on DTT, and there are no additional fields available to specify series/episode in a user-meaningful way.

For IP channels, the data is all separated out into different fields. Unfortunately it isn't done in a consistent manner by the different TV providers, so although I can manually see the series number in the data, it's not in a field that identifies it as such. The episode number isn't present in this data at all.

Re: Programme descriptions in Guide are woeful

zulu17 — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 10:50:32 GMT

@DarrenDev Interestingly the NOW MTV channel 351 does seem to provide the series and episode data which is visible in EETV EPG on both app and box.

Re: Programme descriptions in Guide are woeful

zulu17 — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 11:51:52 GMT

@DarrenDev I believe historically(2023) when there was discussion on the differeing descriptions between the app and TV box for progrmming this was the explanation. No idea whether anything has changed win the intervening period with the evolution of EETV boxes and apps.

When channels publish their TV guide info, they provide a short description, medium description, and long description. That part of the UI is configured to show the medium description, which is truncated at 205 characters. You can view the full description using the BT TV app, or the BT Player web site. (august 2023)

Re: Programme descriptions in Guide are woeful

DarrenDev — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 12:05:56 GMT

Was it me who wrote that? It looks like my style.

Looking at The Sopranos raw data (which also doesn't supply series number in a useful way, and doesn't have episode number), the value that is shown on YouView is the "medium" description, not the short one as previously mentioned. The 3 options that could have been shown are:

shortSynopsis: "Drama series about a Mafia family. Paulie and Christopher endure a hellish journey..."

mediumSynopsis: "James Gandolfini stars in this acclaimed series about a mob boss whose professional and private strains land him in therapy."

longSynopsis: "Drama series about an American Mafia family. Paulie and Christopher endure a nightmarish journey through the wilds of South Jersey. Meadow harbours suspicions about Jackie Jr. Tony finds family demands are jeopardising a new friendship"

So for this asset, the medium one happens to be the only one that isn't actually useful.

Re: Programme descriptions in Guide are woeful

gbtbag — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 23:08:22 GMT

Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply to my post. I will contact YouView because it seems that they are the culprit.

It isn't just episode numbers that are missing. The YouView listings for lots of films no longer give the year, director or stars. It's pathetic.