BBC News nostalgia, including BBC World

BBC Sport are great however.

It’s not absolutely spot on the reflections in the table the background is black

Never seen this one before https://youtu.be/Iq9vY4geyGM?t=977

Opening of Breakfast News during the 1997 Election Campaign. A special opening for the election, with a different font for the title name. Do we know why this happened? I know BN was about to abandon the Virtual look, but seems weird to have brought out a temporary legend for such a short amount of time. I know on the morning after the election, a similar title aired, but with the 1989-93 music, which seemed odder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNHsPhBwOhc

Breakfast News never really suited the computer generated studio design of 1993, and the BBC only realised that after the launch in April 1993. They used 1997 to really change everything about the programme, and they knew by June 1997 we would never hear that wonderful rendition composed by George Fenton, who actually composed the first version of it for the rebooted Breakfast Time in November 1986, so this was a sort of send off for that theme tune.

I've no idea why this popped into my head this evening - but I remembered a news bulletin in the virtual era reporting on someone being seriously ill, the bulletin closing, and then immediately coming back for a newsflash to report their death.

After a bit of digging I think it must have been the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin - which was a Saturday night so would make sense as to why there was no regional news following.

It doesn't look like the bulletin itself has made it onto the web, but this interesting clip has. It starts with a tetchy Jeremy Bowen in a down-the-line studio in Jerusalem, doing interviews with BBC One and World (intercut with a tiny bit of their respective off-airs). He also refers to BBC One coming back immediately.

It would be interesting to see that, if it still exists - my memory is that there wasn't even a trailer and pres went straight to the News Report slide. I wonder at what point the gallery would have decided to do that rather than just stay on air.

(The video then continues with other recordings from satellite from the night, including Keith Graves on Sky News. Jeremy Bowen pops up again near the end in a different DTL position, equally tetchy.)

Slightly amazed to realise that Jeremy Bowen was only 35 in that video.

Could you get away with sideburns like that if you were any older?

The last few minutes of this clip are quite interesting. It shows The World Today from March 1998, after the 1997 rebrand and still in studio N1 before BBC World moved to N9 later in 1998. It's quite rare to see this particular part of the flags era as the clips online always seem to come from 1999. Unfortunately, no titles or stings are shown, but there are some assorted graphics and studio shots. The presenters are Donald MacCormick and (right at the end) Liz Pike.


It really highlights how claustrophobic N1 was onscreen. The move to N9 with a proper newsroom backdrop was such a step forward for BBC World.

Wow. Never seen that before and didn't even know that era even existed.

Be lovely to see more but, as you say, very little exists online of this time.

Always loved the flags but they don't work for me on the virtual era background.

Yeah it was an interim period between the October 1997 rebrand (where they adopted the updated flags motif) and the move from N1 to N9 some time in later 1998. A friend of mine worked on the last bulletin out of N1 (and incidentally the first bulletin in N1 back in 1993) and I think he said it was in about September/October 1998. Most people associate the later flags era with N9 probably because more clips survive online and also they did about 18 months in there before the April 2000 corporate rebrand.

In terms of the last branding in N1, I agree with you. I don't think it works very well with the virtual era design. It looked better on standard news bulletins as they replaced the background with a shot of the newsroom. It didn't look quite as claustrophobic as it seems The World Today did, though. The virtual era N1 worked best with the 1995 designs, in my opinion.

I found BBC News 24 in its early days to be very refreshing. I remember one clip of Gavin Esler and Sarah Montague presenting the breakfast show. Seeing Esler in his shirtsleeves was a revelation.

Here’s some nostalgia on my Comcast cable box (the app has a similar layout to the box)... this dated photo of Mike Embley. According to Getty Images this image appears to have been taken in June 2008.