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Children's BBC and BBC Ulster

A question regarding local news (October 2018)

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MA
mannewskev
Scotland would occasionally leave Children's BBC mid final link too, so they could show a trail for BBC1/2 Scotland. If Simon Parkin was on, his intonation as he said goodbye to Scottish viewers made it clear he was carrying on, and that we in Scotland were missing out on the last bit of the broom cupboard seen elsewhere.
IN
The Insider
During the broom cupboard years Philip Schofield or whoever would say bye to viewers in northern Ireland because their local bulletin was starting where for the rest of the country CBBC continued. Why was this?

I remember that farewell as a child. The reason was that "Inside Ulster" was their local news programme from 1984-1996 and it aired from 5.35pm until 6.00pm. This was the time slot where Neighbours aired in the rest of the UK. They wanted to start the programme fast, and to try and get a full 25 minute programme slot. UTV was very competitive, with their "Six Tonight" one hour news slot from 6-7pm on Ulster Television at the time. UTV used to beat the BBC every night.


Neighbours would air at 6.30pm, and would be followed by another Inside Ulster update at 6.55pm.

In February 1996, Inside Ulster was axed, and a new programme Newsline 6.30 was created. Their launch was an awful start, for some reason the BBC dumped the usual newsreaders Sean Rafferty, Connor Bradford, Seamus McKee and Wendy Austin, and brought in two reporters - Yvette Shapiro and Jim Dougal. Within weeks the ratings got worse than before, and the older team were reinstated.


As Denton says, this isn’t quite right.

Inside Ulster initially launched at 6.30 in September 1984 on the same day as the Six O’Clock News. But it bombed in the ratings - em, no pun intended - and, in early 1985, moved to 5.40, preceded by Today’s Sport, which was later, and briefly, retitled to something like ”Sportswide,” before Inside Ulster took over the full 5.35-6 slot. This was long before Neighbours even started, so either the 5.35 network programme - such as Fax or Masterteam - or some local thing was shown at 6.35.

Seamus McKee and Wendy Austin never returned to Newsline, but Conor Bradford did, along with Rose Neill.
DE88, denton and MMcG198 gave kudos
JM
JamesM0984
I recall hearing they had a bit of a nightmare with End Credit V/Os on Neighbours as a result of taping the show off the network feed for local playback at 6.35.
SC
Si-Co
I recall hearing they had a bit of a nightmare with End Credit V/Os on Neighbours as a result of taping the show off the network feed for local playback at 6.35.


Depends on what era we are talking about - the end credits normally played out clean on network until at least the mid 90s, possibly later. The issues were more likely to be at the start when it was introduced by the CBBC presenter with Ed the Duck noises etc in the background which often faded into the titles.

Perhaps they could have taped it from the lunchtime feed to avoid this?
RD
rdd Founding member
During the broom cupboard years Philip Schofield or whoever would say bye to viewers in northern Ireland because their local bulletin was starting where for the rest of the country CBBC continued. Why was this?

I remember that farewell as a child. The reason was that "Inside Ulster" was their local news programme from 1984-1996 and it aired from 5.35pm until 6.00pm. This was the time slot where Neighbours aired in the rest of the UK. They wanted to start the programme fast, and to try and get a full 25 minute programme slot. UTV was very competitive, with their "Six Tonight" one hour news slot from 6-7pm on Ulster Television at the time. UTV used to beat the BBC every night.


Neighbours would air at 6.30pm, and would be followed by another Inside Ulster update at 6.55pm.

In February 1996, Inside Ulster was axed, and a new programme Newsline 6.30 was created. Their launch was an awful start, for some reason the BBC dumped the usual newsreaders Sean Rafferty, Connor Bradford, Seamus McKee and Wendy Austin, and brought in two reporters - Yvette Shapiro and Jim Dougal. Within weeks the ratings got worse than before, and the older team were reinstated.


As Denton says, this isn’t quite right.

Inside Ulster initially launched at 6.30 in September 1984 on the same day as the Six O’Clock News. But it bombed in the ratings - em, no pun intended - and, in early 1985, moved to 5.40, preceded by Today’s Sport, which was later, and briefly, retitled to something like ”Sportswide,” before Inside Ulster took over the full 5.35-6 slot. This was long before Neighbours even started, so either the 5.35 network programme - such as Fax or Masterteam - or some local thing was shown at 6.35.

Seamus McKee and Wendy Austin never returned to Newsline, but Conor Bradford did, along with Rose Neill.


When did the more well known team of Donna Traynor and Noel Thompson begin then? ISTR it was early enough that the programme was still using its original opening credits and music (or at the very least the truncated version post-1997).
SP
Steve in Pudsey
Si-Co posted:
I recall hearing they had a bit of a nightmare with End Credit V/Os on Neighbours as a result of taping the show off the network feed for local playback at 6.35.


Depends on what era we are talking about - the end credits normally played out clean on network until at least the mid 90s, possibly later. The issues were more likely to be at the start when it was introduced by the CBBC presenter with Ed the Duck noises etc in the background which often faded into the titles.

Perhaps they could have taped it from the lunchtime feed to avoid this?


I think it's been said (probably by Andi Peters on as a guest on the Chris Moyles show at some point) that there was some kind of staffing issue they prevented that.

He also mentioned that he tried just leaving a pause at the point NI left, so it didn't look like they were missing anything, but that attracted complaints so they went back to saying goodbye.
CO
Colm
rdd posted:
When did the more well known team of Donna Traynor and Noel Thompson begin then? ISTR it was early enough that the programme was still using its original opening credits and music (or at the very least the truncated version post-1997).


They were first paired together towards the end of the Inside Ulster era - perhaps to coincide Lynda Bryans' departure to UTV at the start of 1996. The TV Room had screen grabs of Inside Ulster coming from a makeshift set in the period leading up to the launch of Newsline - with a light gauze reflecting onto the set showing the 1987-1992 logo! - with Donna and Noel as anchors.

btw, Six Tonight only aired for up to half-an-hour, not an hour; to be followed by Blockbusters or separate local programmes at 6.30. I remember a big deal being made of UTV Live at Six being an hour in length in the run-up to the January 1993 launch.
SW
Steve Williams
Actually BBC Wales had to have its local news at 17.35 as well until 1988 because its studio was also used for Welsh version of the new on S4C at 18.30, Thus there needed time to switch around.


Yes, and this caused problems during 1984-85 as in that period the 5.35-6pm slot was a bit fluid on the network, sometimes featuring kids shows - Crackerjack ran until 6pm in the autumn of 1984, and in the New Year Grange Hill was on at 5.35 - but then sometimes featuring adult programmes like The Good Life and Star Trek (at 5.10). So Wales had to rearrange the schedules quite a lot at that time, showing Grange Hill at 6.35, which seems bizarre, or if there was a half hour show they'd have to show a pop video or something at 5.30.

That became less of a problem in the autumn of 1985 when there was always a junction at 5.35 and kids shows officially ended then.
:-(
A former member
Scotland would occasionally leave Children's BBC mid final link too, so they could show a trail for BBC1/2 Scotland. If Simon Parkin was on, his intonation as he said goodbye to Scottish viewers made it clear he was carrying on, and that we in Scotland were missing out on the last bit of the broom cupboard seen elsewhere.


Sometimes there managed to fit in local trial without having to opt out.

SP
Spencer
Scotland would occasionally leave Children's BBC mid final link too, so they could show a trail for BBC1/2 Scotland. If Simon Parkin was on, his intonation as he said goodbye to Scottish viewers made it clear he was carrying on, and that we in Scotland were missing out on the last bit of the broom cupboard seen elsewhere.


Sometimes there managed to fit in local trial without having to opt out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-Hj2klz8DM


Slightly off-topic, but what's all the 'on this channel' business about in the schools debate trail. Was it being simulcast on STV/Grampian or something?
Critique and Steve in Pudsey gave kudos
GE
thegeek Founding member
This was, of course, during the Troubles, so there was plenty of news in that patch.

Thinking about it now, was it really sensible to have NI news following directly on from children's programming? Given the chance of the lead story featuring some death or destruction, it feels like the kind of thing that Ofcom would frown upon these days under the 'protecting under-18s' part of the broadcasting code.
MM
MMcG198
I recall hearing they had a bit of a nightmare with End Credit V/Os on Neighbours as a result of taping the show off the network feed for local playback at 6.35.


I recall an issue in the early days of the then new continuity suite (TV Con) when it went live in 1992. On one occasion, in the 6.30pm - 7pm slot, the desk remained "locked" on the VT machine that was playing out the 1.30pm network recording of Neighbours. The continuity director (think it was John Ashe) didn't seem to be able to cut away from the VT source, so the tape ran right through to the start of the programme that went out at 1.50pm (might've been cricket). Can't remember if we crashed into Inside Ulster Update or back to the live network feed. Equipment failure or human error - don't know.

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