The Newsroom

Brexit Dramarama

UPDATE | Extension to 31st Jan 2020 (November 2018)

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AN
Andrew Founding member
No, minimum disruption for all viewers for a statement of nothingness. For once the BBC did absolutely the right thing.

Regardless of the PM's statement being rather dull, it was still the Prime Minister addressing the nation. To shove it on BBC Two is a touch disrespectful.

TV companies shouldn't drop everything every time the PM snaps her fingers. They got the maximum audience tonight - had they switched the football to BBC2 their viewers wouldn't have had the choice to watch the news after the match.

The only knows stake they made really was staying too long on BBC2 - it should have been kept to just the statement.


I believe your opinion on the PM is clouding your judgement there, she’s still the PM. In any case they aren’t dropping everything as she made the announcement at news time. Let’s just say if tonight was one of those nights where ITV News at Ten isn’t at ten, we wouldn’t have heard the end of it.
Whataday, JamesM0984 and itsrobert gave kudos
IT
itsrobert Founding member
No, minimum disruption for all viewers for a statement of nothingness. For once the BBC did absolutely the right thing.

Regardless of the PM's statement being rather dull, it was still the Prime Minister addressing the nation. To shove it on BBC Two is a touch disrespectful.

TV companies shouldn't drop everything every time the PM snaps her fingers. They got the maximum audience tonight - had they switched the football to BBC2 their viewers wouldn't have had the choice to watch the news after the match.

The only knows stake they made really was staying too long on BBC2 - it should have been kept to just the statement.

The BBC have effectively produced two networked news broadcasts tonight - one on BBC Two at 10pm and one on BBC One. So, why couldn't they have put the football on BBC Two, showed the main Ten on BBC One, including the live PM's statement, then followed the football up with a news special on BBC Two? Surely they could have simulcast the News Channel if they didn't want to produce anything special? That's another way everyone could have got what they wanted and the PM could have been given the chance to reach the BBC One audience live.
BF
BFGArmy
You have to consider too that people in the BBC political team might have some ideas from sources about what the PM might be about to say and this would've affected how they scheduled it. If it had been her stepping down maybe they might have cleared BBC One but that wasn't the case so we'll never know
BK
bkman1990
Putting the football on BBC Two & then Newsnight afterwards would have been more than sufficient for tonight's statement.

Leave the PM for BBC One for the News at Ten to make her statement.
WH
Whataday Founding member
Given all the toing and froing on the BBC tonight, we opted to watch ITV instead. Although News at Ten didn't start bang on 10pm, they just finished the bongs in time for the PM stepping out onto Downing Street. All very smooth, followed by plenty of high quality reports of the day's events and a live discussion with Robert Peston.


ITV News also had a live stream of the podium on its social media which showed about 3 minutes of the door before the PM walked out.
NT
Night Thoughts
So maximum disruption for some irrelevant FA Cup Third Round Replay that could easily have been shifted to BBC Two without anyone bating an eye lid. it’s not as if it’s the World Cup.

No, minimum disruption for all viewers for a statement of nothingness. For once the BBC did absolutely the right thing.

Regardless of the PM's statement being rather dull, it was still the Prime Minister addressing the nation. To shove it on BBC Two is a touch disrespectful.


Given all the toing and froing on the BBC tonight, we opted to watch ITV instead. Although News at Ten didn't start bang on 10pm, they just finished the bongs in time for the PM stepping out onto Downing Street. All very smooth, followed by plenty of high quality reports of the day's events and a live discussion with Robert Peston. The only minor hiccup was losing the link to the reporter in Downing Street but that was after the statement and they quickly recovered.


She's addressing journalists rather than addressing the nation. If she wants to address the nation, she can have a formal ministerial broadcast any time she likes (she'd just have to allow the opposition to hold broadcasts in response).
London Lite and bilky asko gave kudos
DV
dvboy
Great video here of the BBC News at Ten (thirty) on BBC News and three BBC One regions.



CB
ChipperBird
I get the feeling BBC Two were supposed to leave the coverage but due to the statement being quite short and due to it being uneventful and therefore without the need of much comment, Huw wrapped up earlier than expected, and once Clive appeared they were stuck with it. The EPG didn’t change until after this point. The news channel coverage was fairly weak for a BBC Two outing with pre recorded interviews and the like and definitely weak for what some viewers probably thought was the Ten, so I’m not sure it was planned to air to such a wide audience.


To be fair to the Beeb on this one, the last time the Lectern got dragged out, there was a good half hour or so before May actually came out to talk (post evening long cabinet presentation of the WA)

With that in mind, they didn't know for sure if statement would be at appointed time + how long the statement might be, and may of needed Hwu and Laura to stall for time with talk of the days events. She was relatively prompt on this occasion at least. On BBC1 they said things along the lines of "the PM is expected to make a statement around 10pm"

Laura K also tweeted prior that due to the badge use on Lectern - it was known that it wasn't going to be a surprise resign. So on beebs part, not sure what they thought would happen really.

That said there certainly seemed to be slight confusion within the BBC News team on what was happening with BBC2 - I got the impression that Hwu's team fully expected BBC2 to go back to it's normal schedule as he called it a "short news update" - but then switched to in-studio with a presenter who didn't know it was being simulcast with BBC2 - I assume he must of been told at some point as I switched over to the footy instead.

Would of loved to be a fly on the wall of whoever had to quickly act to set everything up though (the gallery? Not sure how it works at the beeb these days) - I'm sure choice words were uttered and Number 10 will be asked to please refrain from using the Lectern for boring repeat statements in future.

In any case the political report teams can probably take a breather now till Monday at least.
JM
JamesM0984
I agree that the decision makers probably had a good idea of what the speech was going to contain, and this will have had a bearing on what ended up happening. You've also got to bear in mind that 95% of May's statements don't exactly contain massive bombshells, and previous form suggests she isn't going of her own accord no matter how many setbacks. For better or worse she is going nowhere - she's a survivor.

Frankly, I'm more pissed off with myself for missing 5 minutes of the footy to watch a "meh" address unto the nation.

The only real mistake was putting Newsnight up against the Ten. They'd have been better to slide the original schedule by 35 minutes to allow for that.
MA
Markymark
So maximum disruption for some irrelevant FA Cup Third Round Replay that could easily have been shifted to BBC Two without anyone bating an eye lid. it’s not as if it’s the World Cup.

No, minimum disruption for all viewers for a statement of nothingness. For once the BBC did absolutely the right thing.


I agree.

A number of points, there was no chance of creating a suitable 60-90 second overlap with BBC 1/2 to transfer the football over, and they were in the middle of penalty shoot out preparations, so they couldn't do a crash out, and a 'see you shortly over on 2'.

That said, I was surprised that (and I speak as a resident of Hampshire) a domestic football match between two ' B Teams' was on BBC 1 primetime in the first place, but hey.

Anyway, out of the four universal access national TV channels the BBC has at its disposal
it still managed to fill 50% of them with Mrs May's address to Mr Corbin (which is really all it was)
SW
Steve Williams
I've noticed a party political broadcast for Labour has appeared in the schedules this evening, with the nations having their own versions for the local Labour parties.

I'm assuming this is an addition to the schedule, which is related to yesterday's result and today's confidence vote.


No, this was scheduled weeks ago and was billed in all the TV guides and EPGs.

Can anyone tell me when the 4th BBC1 Newsflash was as I've only counted 3 (the one after Eastenders yesterday and twice tonight.)


There was one after Holby at 9pm on Tuesday as well.

They're currently scheduled to overlap as well (it's currently scheduled to start at 10:15pm on BBC 1), which I'm guessing will mean separate bulletins from separate studios, unless BBC2 is treated like the news channel, when the BBC1 bulletin starts and joins the same bulletin, and then BBC2 leaves it before the end, but that could be quite messy.

EDIT: The EPG has now been updated to show it starting at 10:30pm on BBC One.


I assumed we'd know by now not to trust the EPG in these circumstances, they are just making it up as they go along. There was obviously no way when they started the extra time that they knew it would definitely be on at 10.15 because they didn't know if there'd be penalties. That was just there as a placeholder.
BM
BM11
Unlike last time The Press seemed sure of the exact time May was going to appear and were confident in tweeting 22.03- which turned out to be correct.

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