Sonic X viewers in the UK:
As you may be aware a few weeks ago Citv started editing the Sonic X episodes it shows: (these edits started at episode 10: “Fight! Sonic’s Baseball Team”). The edits mean that as much as 2 mins is missing from the episodes (on top of the edits made by 4 kids entertainment). The edits can also be very noticeable as it will suddenly jump from one scene to another. I (and I presume many of you) are concerned about this, so 2 weeks ago I sent an email to Citv asking them not to edit the episodes – and a few days ago I got a reply.
Here is the response I got:
Dear Joseph
Many thanks for your e-mail, we’re delighted to know that you’re such a fan of SONIC X, we are too!
You’re right, we did cut almost 2 minutes out of this episode. This was necessary on that particular day due to airtime restrictions, it’s a situation that does arise from time to time and we have very experienced editors (who are also fans of the show) who do this. After receiving your email a senior editor again looked at the “Fight! Sonic’s Baseball Team” episode and concluded that she was satisfied that the action of the baseball game wasn’t reduced unnecessarily and that what happened to the chaos emerald should still be very clear at the end of the story. As you’re no doubt aware there are often quite sudden jumps in the story and picture throughout this series so I do hope that your experience of this was due to the original storyline rather than any noticeable edits on our part. Please be assured though that we don’t edit unless absolutely necessary and would never allow it to interfere with our viewer’s understanding and enjoyment of an episode.
The use of scroll captions is also something that we use sparingly and sensitively, I’m sorry you find it intrusive. It’s important that viewers know what other shows they can find on CiTV and when it’s something we really want to communicate we do sometimes scroll within programmes. I have however passed your note onto our Head of Production who runs the CiTV studio and we will definitely bear this in mind again when captions are planned.
Many thanks for your interest and viewing, we hope you continue to enjoy CiTV.
All best wishes,
Estelle Hughes
Head of Programming, CiTV
ITV Network Ltd
Well, this response is partly good news as its shows that Citv does listen to viewers comments – they actually got a senior editor to view the edited episode again as a result. Also we now know that emails to Citv can reach people in senior positions as the response was from the Citv, Head of Programming. The bad news is: they are continuing to edit the episodes, and have tried to blame the jumps caused by the edits on the original storyline of the episode, not to mention how laughable the idea that they & their editors are Sonic X fans is.
Although there is only one more episode to be shown in the current run of Sonic X on Citv, it’s still worth asking them not to edit the episodes, not just for this last episode but also for any future episodes they get and for the repeats which are set to start soon.
The email address that I sent my email to is: webmanager@citv.co.uk
I will be writing a second email which I will send directly to the Citv, Head of Programming, and therefore hopefully receive a quicker response.