BBC News nostalgia, including BBC World

Interesting one here, from the day of the famous reports from Ethiopia that inspired Band Aid, Live Aid et all https://www.tvark.org/?page=media&mediaid=129272

Witchell is seen presenting the "other headlines", which I've never seen in another clip from that era. Was this down to the scale of the Top story or just a trial in the early days of the bulletin and they were still experimenting?

Just as an aside, isn’t it odd how we always refer to Witchell and Sissons by their surnames only? We’ve generally always done it here since the dawn of time. I’ve no idea why that came about. But we have.

On the other hand, we always referred to Tim Willcox only as “Tim”. As though there was never another Tim to differentiate him from.

Perhaps we were overrun by Peters and Nicholases at one stage and decided to go the other way. Lol.

If I’m not mistaken, James, the early rendition of that Six period always had the two presenters sharing the headlines. Eventually, they reverted to only the main presenter reading the headlines, mostly OOV.

I don't think it was especially unusual, certainly at the time - you'll have seen on the Election 97 repeat the other day that they would regularly include a summary of quotes from the previous hour or so. Presumably it was considered a more elegant way of doing the closing headlines than just reading them all out again.

As you say, the Six was the replacement for Nationwide and Sixty Minutes, and so they did try and make it seem like more than just a bog-standard news bulletin, as you can see the billing for the first one goes on for ages - https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/bbcone/london/1984-09-03#at-18.00

Up until then at teatime you had the news on its own, a straight bulletin, and then news analysis in Nationwide and Sixty Minutes, not only separate in the schedules but physically separate too with the news from the news department in TV Centre and the other bit from current affairs in Lime Grove. As The Last Days Of The Beeb by Michael Leapman points out, after Sixty Minutes had been a complete disaster, radical surgery was required, so we ended up with the Six but current affairs would still be making a contribution to it with short films and the like. So I think they particularly went out of their way to emphasise that the Six wouldn't just be a straight news bulletin for half an hour, partly because there'd previously been a bit of light and shade at teatime and they didn't want the audience to be switched off by just relentless news, and also partly to keep current affairs involved (though very much the junior partner after the failure of Sixty Minutes).

As Leapman points out, current affairs lobbied hard to keep Sixty Minutes going, not neccessarily because they thought it was any good, but because it was their biggest show. It's interesting to read about the failure of Sixty Minutes, one reason why it was launched in the first place was because they thought the combination of national news followed by regional news followed by news analysis with Nationwide was a weird one, and the two national bits should be together, but in the end Sixty Minutes had exactly the same schedule because the regions demanded to go at 6pm as it was the "best" slot, and putting the two national bits together would have meant it either starting much earlier or going on much later. So they ended up making all kinds of compromises to placate three different departments - news, current affairs and regions - so it looked a right mess. And after Sixty Minutes ended, the Beeb management were able to say it was all very well demanding to go on the "best" slot and news and current affairs having exactly equal airtime but the ratings were plummeting so radical change was required.



Yes, although it was a bit of a waste of time - Trevor would always portentiously introduce it as "some of the images of the day", when in reality it was just a few disconnected clips from the various reports with the credits running over them. There were very rarely any really memorable or compelling images, so it was just a dull end credit sequence.



They didn't, actually - for the first six months the Six lasted half an hour, with the regional news at 6.30 and the following programme beginning at the inconvenient time of 6.55 - https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/bbcone/london/1984-09-03#at-18.00

When Wogan and 'stEnders began in February 1985, that stupid 6.55 junction went for a burton and the Six was extended to 6.35, with the regional news running up until seven. Presumably they didn't think the regions were able to fill an entire half hour (and I suppose in 1985 some of the regions would still be using film so they might indeed be struggling to get enough). It wasn't until October 1988, the same day the Nine was revamped, that the regional news lasted the full half hour and the Six went back down to thirty minutes.

Also by that point the current affairs department was being wound down and merged into news, so the requirement for a specific contribution by current affairs into the Six was no longer there.

I think it was so they could fit the three sections in with it still being a single set. Although that set had three sections the "soft set" was never used at the same time, there was always a break when they swung the cameras round. The weather set meanwhile was never actually seen in situ. Of course the left pod ended up being a bit of a waste and was reduced to "use to mask changeovers".

Another point is that those schedule changes coincided with the movement of the weather forecast. For the first six months it was before the news at 5.58, so the Six O'Clock News actually ran for a full half hour. Then in February 1985 the weather moved to follow the news, so in practice the news only gained an extra couple of minutes or so. In October 1988 it moved again, to follow the regional news just before 7.00. This was not a popular move, and so returned to its previous slot at the start of 1989, only this time slightly earlier with the 6.30 junction remaining intact.

I'd forgotten about the weather being before it, as has been mentioned here before that's something that they do on the radio but it's very rare that it happens on the telly. Of course, in the 1999 revamp they moved the weather back to follow the regional news again, that being the period when they went back to the national news at 6.55 for the headlines. That lasted a bit longer, but they also had a briefer forecast at the end of the Six which was probably enough for most people.

Does anyone know if any other BBC region aside from Northern Ireland aired their regional news at 5.35pm in 1984 onward era?

Inside Ulster was eventually set at 5.35pm from 1985 I think, something to do with the competition over on Ulster Television who would usually have a one hour local news at 6pm most weeknights.

This meant Neighbours was always moved to 6.30pm and a short Inside Ulster update would air before Wogan etc to fill the gap.

1996 when Newsline 6.30 launched was when BBC Northern Ireland decided to join the rest of the UK for their regional news.

Yes, BBC Wales also initially did the regional news at 5.35, but that was because they shared a studio with S4C news which was on at seven, so they needed time to turn it around. In the first year of the Six, all kinds of things went before the news - shows like Grange Hill and Crackerjack ran until six, and Star Trek would be on at 5.10, so BBC Wales had to do a lot of rescheduling and show all kinds of fillers. I assume that was partly the reason why CBBC was bolted to a 5.35 end time in the autumn of 1985. Wales Today stayed at 5.35 until I think 1988, and then somehow the issue with S4C resolved itself and it moved to half six.

Northern Ireland was actually initially at 6.35 with all the others, but in the BBC Handbook 1986 it says the ratings absolutely plummeted in that slot so they moved it to 5.35 when it didn't go head to head with UTV. They carried on with that until, as you say, 1996, hence Andy Crane saying goodbye to Northern Ireland. There's a great interview on the Broom Cupboard website where Andi Peters says he stopped saying goodbye to Northern Ireland and just left a pause for them to opt out, but they got so many complaints he had to start saying it again. Must have been bloody awkward if the Six was extended and the regional news in the rest of the UK was truncated.

One reason why Sixty Minutes was so short-lived was because Scotland wanted to opt out of everything apart from the news and do their own show, and they had to convince them to at least take it for three months and then they'd have a think about it. And when the three months were up Scotland came back to them, and they were told there was no need to bother anymore, as they'd already decided to axe it.

Just checked on YouTube to see if there are any complete examples of the Six O'Clock News from before 1988, and found this from 1987:


The news starts at 2:24 in the video, and runs for almost exactly 32 minutes. The weather is then exactly 2 minutes long. The video cuts off during the trailer, but that more or less gets us up to 6.35 for the start of the regional news.

My recollection of the 1984-85 period was that there was no trailer between the news and regional news - the Six O'Clock News would end and it was straight into the BBC1 symbol and London Plus - the BBC1 globe nicely morphing into the globe at the start of the title sequence.

I've never seen that quarter past sting before during the Six of that era. Also Witchell misquoting Princess Diana at the end there!

Yes, it involved Neighbours being shown at 5:35 on that day meaning people would miss it and Inside Ulster was shown at 6:40 or whenever.

I remember the quotes and “That was the Six O’Clock News” lasted up until the Virtual look in 1993. They often did have a light-hearted one on the end I seem to remember. In the first episode I find it difficult to believe that it is a direct quote of the Discovery astronaughts. Do Americans even use the word “loo”?

When the Six started finishing at 6:30 there was an “Inside Ulster Update” at 6:55 to fill the gap between Neighbours and Wogan or whatever. This later had sign language. The signing moved to the regional afternoon news on BBC 2 once Newsline 6:30 started and then later it appeared at the end of the lunchtime Newsline where it remains to this day. Do any other nations or regions have regular signing?

It should be noted that NI Sign Language (a dialect of BSL) is not used by all of NI’s deaf community. Those in more rural areas tend to use Irish Sign Language which is also used elsewhere in Ireland. I don’t think the split follows the “sectarian divide”, however, it is more of a geographic thing. COVID-19 news conferences in NI have both NISL and ISL signers to cater for all deaf people there.

A rare clip of Witchell presenting a BBC News bulletin in 2000: