Returning to Netflix recently after not having viewed there for a while, I was delighted to discover that they have changed their policy on the presentation of end credits. Whereas, previously, the end credit sequence would be squeezed into a box so small as to render it illegible, while the rest of the screen was devoted to encouraging you to watch the next episode or something else, the default position is now to move you directly to the next episode unless you select the “watch credits” option, in which case they are presented full-screen. This is what I would expect and hope for from a subscription service and the previous policy had come as a great disappointment.

Does this really matter? Well, to me it does, yes, and not just because I have always had an interest, both professional and general, in reading the names of those involved in the production I have just seen. Just as a good opening titles sequence sets the mood for what is to follow (and I never fast-forward through it, no matter how many times I may have seen it), so a thoughtfully composed end credits sequence gives us time to reflect on what we have just seen, as well as maybe commenting on it with a well-chosen piece of music (a comparatively recent development, this, though one which can be traced back to Our Friends in the North and beyond).

At the BFI, we collected a lot of programmes for the archive by recording them as they were transmitted, including all the “ephemeral” material around them, so I was particularly concerned about the exact nature of what we had acquired. Looking back at some of these recordings for a conference we held to mark the 25th anniversary of Channel 4 in 2007, I was struck by the funereal pace of many of the end credit sequences in the 1980s. But it was Channel 4 which first essayed the interruption of end credits for promotional purposes in this country, when it used the closing of the arts strand Without Walls to promote the following week’s programme. With the deregulation of commercial television in the early 1990s, came the introduction and rapid adoption of the voice-over promotion during end credits, designed to tell you what is coming up and dissuade you from changing channels, and it was enthusiastically copied by the BBC, who didn’t mind too much if you changed channel, as long as it was to another BBC one.

And it was mostly on the BBC that some shows (it seemed to me) started to fight back against this cultural vandalism. The Fast Show interrupted its end credit sequence with its trademark brief sketches, Tony Garnett’s The Cops used police radio chatter instead of a closing theme tune (difficult to talk over) and the medium-savvy Charlie Brooker directly challenged the BBC to interrupt his closing sequence on one of his “Wipe” shows (which they did, in good humour of course). Over on Channel 4, Chris Morris left the end credits off Jam entirely, replacing them with a web address where he had posted them (jamcredits.com – though you won’t find them there any more, just a commercial for how to build your own website).

By and large, though, programme endings were ruined without discrimination. One that I remember particularly was Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s Extras. Each programme ended with a moment of humiliation for Gervais’ character, Andy Millman, followed by a reflective pause, then the slow introduction to Cat Stevens’ Tea for the Tillerman – a beautiful ending, always ruined by the continuity announcer’s voice-over. Except on one occasion in the second series: the episode featuring a guest appearance by Chris Martin of Coldplay, playing, as was the convention of the show, an exaggerated version of himself as an egotistical control-freak. Instead of Cat Stevens’ recording of “Tillerman” closing the show, we got the same song performed by Martin. So, the joke was that Chris Martin was such an egotist he even insisted on singing the closing song himself. But the joke went even further, because there was no voice over to spoil it. Was the joke that Martin even insisted on singing uninterrupted by continuity? And did Gervais need to negotiate this with the BBC for it to work? Whatever, it only works in the context of every other end credit sequence in the series being interrupted – in other words the joke only works “live”, which makes it really ephemeral!

The “fightback” was short-lived, though. The BBC’s guidelines for the supply of programmes by independent producers soon made it clear that material of editorial significance or any speech should not be included in end credit sequences, a lamentable restriction on creative freedom by a public service broadcaster, and the current guidelines also take account of the most pernicious of the promotional developments: the squeezing of end credit sequences into small boxes in the corner of the screen. Many productions now use credits in larger lettering and still frames (rather than rolling credits) in an attempt to make them seen.

Now, I know that, in terms of credit information, it is all available if I care to look. Embedded metadata on many streaming services, such as Amazon, means that you only need to pause the frame to find out who the actors are or what piece of music is playing and there is plenty of information available on-line. There have been a few recent signs of improvement on broadcast TV, too. The BBC’s channels now allow the credits to occupy more half the screen, while Channel 4 splits it in half and has clearly asked its suppliers to provide programmes with credits which only run on the left side of the frame, so they are designed for this form of presentation rather than lost in the squeeze. ITV and Sky still regularly squeeze the credits into a quarter of the screen, though, and, of course, they all continue to use voice over.

There are also some other ways around the problem for obsessives like me: watching BBC programmes on i-player rather than on transmission is one (in Channel 4’s case it’s best to record, as the compulsory ad breaks on All4 are interminable); and, of course, for the programmes you want to keep, getting them on DVD or Blu-ray, which will give you the “definitive” version. I still cherish the complete experience of watching a programme from the beginning to very end. It was the same when I was a regular cinema-goer. I would never leave until the final credit had rolled, even when they turned on the lights and cleaners asked me to leave because the film “was over”. Oh no, it wasn’t!

Anyway, I can’t bring myself to be too grumpy just now, because CURB IS BACK! – a cause for true rejoicing, even if the end credits are spoiled.

If you have been affected by the issues raised in this blog, get over it!