The Newsroom

Special Reports

(October 2012)

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DK
DanielK
Every major news broadcast in the USA have dedicated 'Special Reporf' graphic and music.

Here are the top 3 examples-

NBC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x59cELagZ0U
ABC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZj8ijRCH-M
CBS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmh91vIAviE

Does the UK have anything like this or do we just cut in or fade in from black with the presenter saying why they've cut in?
IS
Inspector Sands
I can't remember the last time that there was a proper old school 'newsflash' interrupting programmes over here - probably the Queen Mother's death or 7/7 which was a while ago in TV terms. It's very different in the US where they are breaking into hundreds of stations with, at times, no common junctions or programming.

Stings like that aren't really as necessary here as we have continuity announcers, I assume that like the CBS example they all have a countdown attached to cue in the affiliates, again something not necessary here
MW
Mike W
I can't remember the last time that there was a proper old school 'newsflash' interrupting programmes over here - probably the Queen Mother's death or 7/7 which was a while ago in TV terms. It's very different in the US where they are breaking into hundreds of stations with, at times, no common junctions or programming.

Stings like that aren't really as necessary here as we have continuity announcers, I assume that like the CBS example they all have a countdown attached to cue in the affiliates, again something not necessary here


Countdown is for affiliates not on the East feed, the east coast gets an audible coded recall signal to change the playout source, much like the EBS

The CBS graphics have been 'tweaked' and are all red: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgcuL3coc8E

And we do, it's called switching to the news channel with a caption on BBC One that reads 'news report'
BE
Ben Founding member
This is probably the nearest we've ever got to the US way of doing things.

IT
itsrobert Founding member
I'm sure there was also an ITV newsflash when Michael Jackson died in 2009. I was watching ITV during the late evening and I swear I remember Alastair Stewart interrupting programming to bring us the news.

I'm also fairly sure there was a BBC news report (i.e. dipping into the BBC News channel as Mike W said) on BBC One some time in the past year, but I can't remember the news story. I think it was during evening programmes anyway.
MW
Mike W
I'm sure there was also an ITV newsflash when Michael Jackson died in 2009. I was watching ITV during the late evening and I swear I remember Alastair Stewart interrupting programming to bring us the news.

I'm also fairly sure there was a BBC news report (i.e. dipping into the BBC News channel as Mike W said) on BBC One some time in the past year, but I can't remember the news story. I think it was during evening programmes anyway.


Indeed, I remember the newsflash on ITV, it was in the current look - it wasn't so much an interruption rather an ident in the adbreak and the short bulletin titles!
IT
itsrobert Founding member
Indeed, I remember the newsflash on ITV, it was in the current look - it wasn't so much an interruption rather an ident in the adbreak and the short bulletin titles!

Glad to hear I'm not going crazy Smile

Of course, now that DSO is complete, will news reports be needed, especially on the BBC? I appreciate ITV et al will still need them but in future it would make more sense for the BBC to flash up a caption on its channels to flag up serious breaking news (such as another 9/11) and point viewers to the BBC News channel. Am I right to assume that everyone in the UK now has access to it?
RO
rob Founding member

Indeed, I remember the newsflash on ITV, it was in the current look - it wasn't so much an interruption rather an ident in the adbreak and the short bulletin titles!


No it wasn't... it was in the previous look.

http://www.tv-live.org.uk/wp/media/mj/3.jpg
GH
George Hill
Indeed, I remember the newsflash on ITV, it was in the current look - it wasn't so much an interruption rather an ident in the adbreak and the short bulletin titles!

Glad to hear I'm not going crazy Smile

Of course, now that DSO is complete, will news reports be needed, especially on the BBC? I appreciate ITV et al will still need them but in future it would make more sense for the BBC to flash up a caption on its channels to flag up serious breaking news (such as another 9/11) and point viewers to the BBC News channel. Am I right to assume that everyone in the UK now has access to it?


I think for the MOST serious cases there is still a need to deliver breaking news on BBC One, interupting programmes. By doing this it emphasises the seriousness of the story, and definitely reaches more people than a switch to the news channel caption would. However, now there is this option of saying turn over to the news channel for more..., it provides a middle category for stories which are not the most serious, but are still very important.
IT
itsrobert Founding member
I think for the MOST serious cases there is still a need to deliver breaking news on BBC One, interupting programmes. By doing this it emphasises the seriousness of the story, and definitely reaches more people than a switch to the news channel caption would. However, now there is this option of saying turn over to the news channel for more..., it provides a middle category for stories which are not the most serious, but are still very important.

I agree. Obviously for Royal obits it would in all likelihood become BBC Television from London again, which is absolutely right. But pointing to the news channel on BBC One could be useful for stories of slightly lesser magnitude, like you say. I guess the trouble is where would they draw the line? They couldn't be flashing up captions on BBC One every other day.
DT
DTV
These days on BBC One they have News Summaries quite frequently - at least two in the morning between Breakfast and Na1 and ones at 3PM, 8PM and 9PM so now they no longer need news reports on BBC One for medium Importance Stories.
GM
Gary McEwan
Wasn't STV the first station to break the story about the Speaker of the House, Michael Martin resigning?

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