Anglia/East of England News Discussion

It's possible that BBC East's Politics Show is now recorded (that's now the case with BBC South's at least - I expect there must be a few others). BBC South's is recorded on a Friday afternoon and so as a result the 3pm regional bulletin is coming from Oxford across the whole region. It's possible East are recording Politics Show in Cambridge because they don't split the 3pm bulletin like Oxford/Soton generally do. However that doesn't quite make sense because if there are enough people in Cambridge to crew a Politics Show, there'd be enough people there to make a pan-regional 3pm bulletin, which is clearly a lot less effort!

From memory the Cambridge studio doesn't have manned cameras (if that's the correct term), and so presumably requires fewer people to crew.

Quite correct there, as when Radio and TV for the west opt moved into the same building they talked about the lack of cameras in the building.

Yes, their cameras are all remote-controlled AIUI and moves can even be triggered from the vision mixer when the camera is cut to air.

I believe all the regional BBC Politics Show bits are now recorded on a Friday PM. A fact they've kept well hidden!

I guess this is in part to reduce the cost of the regional opts. How does this work in London? I thought they used City Hall as it's an indy production in London.

They did use City Hall until the end of last year, however in a bid to cut costs they now use the studio of BBC London News & Late Kick Off London & South East at Egton Wing in Broadcasting House.

Always interesting how they match the weather in the Midlands one....

Is the Midlands one still done in the like foyer area? Is there a contribution point there or do they just use the same background on a CSO?

Haven't watched the Midlands Politics Show this series, but it used to be done by the windows looking out onto the canal basin. They had permanently rigged lamps, floor monitors, foldback speakers and (I think) cameras on pedestals (though they may roll one or two additional cameras down from the studio through the newsroom). I have heard that they had to install all of this wiring themselves as unlike Pebble Mill where the whole building had been set up with wallboxes and tielines everywhere, the Mailbox was rather more difficult to get working!

politics show still comes from the presentation area by the windows.

the major difference between sunday afternoon and 4pm on a friday, is there are a lot more people working in the area surrounding the set, although that doesn't seem to have translated into noticable background noise on air.

Another complete split east / west Look East’s tonight. – there were two last week. I am told these are ‘pilots’, but as discussed before, these still seem at a presentation / technical level as both programmes featured Milton Keynes as their lead story, which of course was not relevant to viewers in the east.

So if they can pull it off on this level, how about journalistically? As it seems a waste of resources for two teams of presenters / studios to present 80% of the programme simultaneously.

If they are looking for a male presenter for the a possible complete west edition, Tim Curtis would be a good choice...