The Newsroom

Election Night Results 2019: Presentation and Coverage

(December 2019)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
MF
Matthew_Fieldhouse
Noticed on my BBC One HD recording on Friday morning that when the regions did their opt-out at 6.30, HD had another pointless news bulletin with Louise Minchin, with no warning to switch to the SD variant in England.

Probably for the benefit of viewers on World News rather than just those on BBC One HD
RK
Rkolsen
JAS84 posted:
Jonwo posted:
I've never seen the point of the Alternative Election coverage on Channel 4, surely it'd be better just to do a Channel 4 News election coverage,
What would be the point of that? ITV and Channel 4 both use ITN, so it'd be a strain on their resources and they'd be almost identical just with a different set of presenters. Unnecessary duplication.



It was either going to be Alternative coverage, or normal programming. The problem is, the producers apparently hired talent based on a Labour win - and their material became unusable when it was clear that the Tories would win as soon as the exit poll was revealed. In hindsight, they should've aired regular programmes instead.


Sounds like the 2016 Election where in the US they had a primetime extended version of The View on A&E and CBS put The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on Showtime. Both were scheduled with liberal guests and jokes and bits. But as the night went on the show just became depressing to watch and you could see the depression on the host / guests faces.
MA
Markymark
Noticed on my BBC One HD recording on Friday morning that when the regions did their opt-out at 6.30, HD had another pointless news bulletin with Louise Minchin, with no warning to switch to the SD variant in England.

Probably for the benefit of viewers on World News rather than just those on BBC One HD


What did the News Channel show, London News or LM's bulletin?
LL
London Lite Founding member
Noticed on my BBC One HD recording on Friday morning that when the regions did their opt-out at 6.30, HD had another pointless news bulletin with Louise Minchin, with no warning to switch to the SD variant in England.

Probably for the benefit of viewers on World News rather than just those on BBC One HD


World opted out with Victoria Fritz from C. The NC took Louise.
LL
London Lite Founding member


watchingtv and Rkolsen gave kudos
CH
chris




How is “reach” calculated?
SE
Square Eyes Founding member
The BARB definition of 'reach' is number of viewers that watched at least 3 consecutive minutes of a programme. It is less meaningful than the average audience figure.
TR
trance
Huw Edwards has penned a piece on the BBC, elections and impartiality on LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ge19-from-presenters-chair-huw-edwards

Some great photos of the election set looking fantastic taken by Jeff Overs in the article, including this one:
*
TR
trivialmatters
BBC Scotland - Election 2019 Opening and Exit Poll
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9ZLzjsF4IA


Wow, this looks so much more modern and slick than what was produced in London.

Obviously money is tight but with a bit of creative thinking and a lick of paint, the London Newsroom could be transformed to be more adaptable. It always looks so drab and cluttered on air. Sad
BR
Brekkie
The BARB definition of 'reach' is number of viewers that watched at least 3 consecutive minutes of a programme. It is less meaningful than the average audience figure.

Though in this case given the lengthy broadcast it is a better indicator than the average, though of course all are meaningless unless the stats are there for each broadcaster.


Would be interesting to know what time people went to bed - the exit poll left little doubt how the night would pan out so I imagine the overnight figures would be lower than the last 3 elections.

I did almost turn off at 10.01pm but hung around till about 12.30am. I then watched nothing on Friday - even felt it was too soon to see The Last Leg talk about it. Very Happy
EL
elmarko
That Huw Edwards piece makes so many assumptions and simplifications.

The old "if both sides hate us then we're doing ok" gambit is not intellectually rigorous enough to make conclusions from.
WI
william Founding member
msim posted:

Sophie Raworth's bit was near pointless, all what seemed to be taken from it, was that there used to be a load of red here, and now there isn't. It was a gimmick that was basically irrelevant.

Its also debatable how much we get from Vine's stuff these days, the whole 'flag stones to number 10' business where there is often so much info, you can barely see it.


This is actually the problem. There is simply too much gimmickry for the graphics to be of actual use. It feels really like those whole segments are there just to distract whilst guests change or a bathroom break rather than a genuine effort to properly inform. They've used that same pavement up Downing Street for the past two or three elections and it just doesn't work! You can't read the text, then you might have a close up of the idiot Vine bouncing around vaguely pointing at something on the floor whilst spewing a load of words so not only do you need to focus on what he may or may not be pointing at, but then you have to listen hard to what his awful vocal delivery. Overly complex swingometers introduced hours in to the coverage with an explanation of swing despite dozens and dozens of declaration results showing a swing graphic. That wall of constituencies that took about four different swipes movements to get through. People like Chakrabati who just cannot do the job of speaking whilst operating the touchscreen in complete contrast to Christian Fraser in the afternoon who could use it effortlessly.

How can it be that programmes such as 1992 and 1997 had that great mix of informative, yet simple graphics mixed with yes a bit of light humour when required? We had nothing like that famous 1997 flyover showing Tory safe seats crumbling to Labour for example which would really have shown the scale of defeat of Labour heartlands last night. Yes thats a clear gimmick but it totally made sense and most importantly conveyed some complex data in a simple but memorable manner. A squiggly pavement of hexagons or endless flipper graphics just aren't as effective.


I've said (mostly to myself in my head) for a decade or so now, that the Vine offerings are really nothing compared to what Peter Snow and his team put together. If you consider all the interesting metaphors Snow used: "how many heaves", the "battleground" (to which you refer), the landslide, the tide guage thing, wheeling a set of steps up to the screen (can't quite remember what that was supposed to show but I do remember that many people - including ordinary viewers - got very excited about it) - and all of that was actually without the need for a self-contained VR set. (The house of commons was superimposed on a table in front of him.)

It, was, frankly, a lot easier for Snow to just gesture at things on the screen - screen not big enough? Make it bigger, wider, as they did. The swingometer is arguably more fun when it's partly a physical prop flown in from the ceiling.

Also, note they no longer use the swingometer to show predictions - possibly they think it's been superceded by the seat number predictions from Ipsos-Mori and John Curtice (saw him give a lecture in person recently - really fun and interesting).

Note the Downing Street setup couldn't cope with the small number of seats Labour won - Vine was clearly stuck at the edge of the studio unable to go any further.

I'm wondering if all this is budget - they simply can't justify the money for anything elaborate, but it'd be too embarrasing to scrap it completely - so instead they've done the bare minimal number of 'scenes', possibly a bit of dumbing down too / not wanting to overwhelm the audience.

There is stuff I admire about the Vine graphics - but it's mostly the background design - e.g. there's a very realistic reflective effect off the doors/windows of Downing Street as the camera moves around, the garden area of Downing Street over to the right is nicely done, along with the gates and the London Eye, and of course there's the sound design of for example, the Big Ben set, with some reverb and the clock ticking in the background, but in terms of adding value, the Vine graphics do nothing for me.

And another thing… was this year the first time the live constituency result astons have been dropped on BBC? (i.e. hold or gain, with animation for the latter) - they might have done so in 2017, but I can't find a recording of the full broadcast right now.

Disliked the VR above the real set, like many others. Did think the rest of the graphics looked beautiful, partly due to the new typeface. Sky's graphics I found a bit cluttered/inconsistent in places, though they managed to make quite a bland corporate HQ (well that's how I consider it the rest of the year) look very vibrant - mostly simply down to adding so much colour everywhere.) Have now caught up with all BBC overnight, time to watch ITV next…
bitxoin, msim and thegeek gave kudos

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