BBC News nostalgia, including BBC World

It says she was there presenting the Six O'Clock News. Huw Edwards's video from 2000 (link at bottom) shows the presenter of the Six will be in all day preparing so it would make sense for Sophie to have nipped in at short notice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9pDi6CdR0k

Agreed. She was in the building because she was doing the Six that evening. She's even quoted as saying it was all a bit of a shock.

I'll have to give up looking for that clip, I'm driving myself insane.

Here's a brilliant blooper from the fish finger era! Julia seems to have had enough! The BBC has never had much luck with automated cameras!

I doubt they were automated cameras back then. Remote controlled, yes but not automated

I'm not sure, although they seemed to manage to build new sets in a weekend back then. Maybe they just had very simplistic bulletins the weekend before the relaunch?

The move to N6 happened some time from summer 1998 onwards. They built a smaller version of the virtual set in there. I'm sure noggin corroborated this a while back in another thread. Probably the easiest way to see the difference is in these screenshots, the first from May 1998 when they were still in N2; the second from N6 in March 1999:





Note that it's subtly different - lighting, chairs, equipment etc. They did a very good job at matching N2!

Just going on what's written in the description, but yeah I can't imagine either back then to be honest.

Going back to the virtual era, it was very rare we'd see the desk in its totality, but this certainly shows it was quite considerable in size.



Even wider shot below.

Here you go, Pete. I've managed to find the thread where this was discussed last September: https://www.tvforum.co.uk/forums/post1186473#post-1186473

I don't think we reached a conclusion about the transition from the old to new sets in May 1999. But noggin confirms that the last stage of the 'virtual era' did, indeed, come from N6 from 1998 onwards.

It must have been pretty large as I'm sure it used to accommodate at least 4 presenters/guests. I recall seeing an amusing example where the main presenter was interviewing a guest to his/her right just before the end of the programme. As the bulletin ended with the wide shot, the massive coat of arms covered up the guest completely. But the presenter turned and talked to them during the closing music. So, to the viewer, it looked like the presenter was talking to the coat of arms! I wish I could find that example again but it would be a needle in a haystack job.

Was the World set identical to the National set in the virtual era?

Just found this clip of the One in N24 set.


And Huw on the One in 99!

I've just spoken to a friend who worked on BBC News programmes in the period before and after the 1993 rebranding exercise and his recollection of the situation before 1993 is as follows:

One/Newsround: N2
Six: N1
Nine/Daytime Summaries: N2 gallery + Newsroom set
Breakfast News/Newsnight/On The Record/Breakfast with Frost: TC2

In terms of World Service Television News, he reckons before it became a 24-hour a day channel, there used to be a single bulletin each day from N1. Once it became 24-hours it then came from the N3 gallery and a tiny studio on the 7th floor of the Spur. Then WSTV relaunched in October 1993 and moved into N1.

From April 1993, Breakfast News and the One/Six/Nine all came from N2. Newsround moved into TC2. I think the next move came when the TC2 programmes moved to TC7 in 1997. Breakfast News joined them in TC7, moving out of N2. Then News 24 launched in N9, followed by more studio shuffles in 1998. The One/Six/Nine moved to N6 in 1998, News 24 moved to N8 and World moved out of N1 and into N9 (vacated by News 24). That left the main news studios as N6, N8, N9 and TC7 by the turn of 1999.

Just a caveat that this is all to the best of my friend's knowledge. Obviously we're talking about 20-30 years ago, so there might be some inaccuracies. But he did work on all the programmes mentioned in the 1990s.