The Newsroom

Local Breaking News

Does it happen? (December 2006)

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SM
smgboi
Has anyone ever noticed (other than in NI) local stations doing break-ins? I say other than NI because, with their tense political climate, it can occasionally happen a lot there. However, I haven't noticed it on any of the other regions in Britain - other than the death of Donald Dewar, which is covered as breaking news on Scottish Television some years ago.
BE
Ben Founding member
A few years ago the 999 lines in Hampshire went down and both BBC South and Meridian ran 'newsflashes'. BBC South then had a large caption covering most of the screen for much of the even.
BR
Brekkie
Not heard anything about it for a while and I can only recall it being used once, but there is supposed to be a system now for missing children which involves news flashes on local TV.
GM
GMc
I think stv (Scottish TV) have interupted programming to break the news about the Tayside landslides in 2004, with Shereen Nanjiani fronting the coverage, and I think Shereen actually announced it to the whole ITV Network. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)
MA
mark Founding member
The only time I remember it happening was donkeys' years ago, when Central South flashed the news that Swindon Town had been relegated from the 1st to the 3rd division after an investigation into some kind of dodgy dealings. Bit random, but it's the only one that springs to mind.
MA
Markymark
GMc posted:
I think stv (Scottish TV) have interupted programming to break the news about the Tayside landslides in 2004, with Shereen Nanjiani fronting the coverage, and I think Shereen actually announced it to the whole ITV Network. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)


I'm told that on the night of the Lockerbie crash, Border TV initially ran appeals for blood donors to report in, these of course were in addition to the ITN flashes.
TV
tvmercia Founding member
central did a pan regional news special with bob in birmingham on the good friday flooding in 1998

and in more recent times they had a news special on the day of the london bombing produced at central south.

not quite breaking news though.
BR
Brekkie
I guess the reality is that if something warrant a news report it'll be done by the national team.

There can't be many incidents which would be seen as neccessary to produce a local report for that wouldn't warrant a national report.
GO
gottago
Ben posted:
A few years ago the 999 lines in Hampshire went down and both BBC South and Meridian ran 'newsflashes'. BBC South then had a large caption covering most of the screen for much of the even.
What did it say? Was there an alternative number?
PC
p_c_u_k
Brekkie Boy posted:
I guess the reality is that if something warrant a news report it'll be done by the national team.

There can't be many incidents which would be seen as neccessary to produce a local report for that wouldn't warrant a national report.


Bingo. The only breaking news that would only be of interest to the local area would be massive floods or bad weather conditions. And most local newsrooms (especially in ITV) wouldn't be big enough to get on the air fast enough. In fact, in terms of floods I've known ITV newsrooms unable to get on the air because of them - a minor flaw.

Northern Ireland is of course different (it normally is). In fact, didn't UTV lose their contract to provide news to GMTV for a while after breaking into their programming?
BE
Ben Founding member
gottago posted:
Ben posted:
A few years ago the 999 lines in Hampshire went down and both BBC South and Meridian ran 'newsflashes'. BBC South then had a large caption covering most of the screen for much of the even.
What did it say? Was there an alternative number?


It advised that the lines were down and in an emergency you should go to your local police station and that police were carrying out extra patrols.

As for the style, it was a standard mustard regional caption of the time with a red bar at the top zipping through 'Breaking News/999 Emergency Lines' in the same style as News 24 did at the time.
SC
SCBNI
p_c_u_k posted:
Northern Ireland is of course different (it normally is). In fact, didn't UTV lose their contract to provide news to GMTV for a while after breaking into their programming?


They still don't provide news during GMTV, it is provided by a different company called Macmillan Media and has an entirely different set (if you could call it that - it's a CSO backdrop) and presenters to UTV.

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