noggin's posts, page 111

The Late Late Gay Byrne Irish Television Thread

Important to point out that Strictly doesn't come from the BBC Elstree site. The BBC Elstree site has one large general purpose studio, Studio D, and the EastEnders and Holby production facilities. That site has decent connectivity, as used for BBC Election shows and Children in Need, and a degree of resilient power on-site.

Strictly instead comes from part of the George Lucas stage at the Elstree Film and TV Studios over the road from BBC Elstree (Technically I believe it's described as George Lucas 2). It IS confusing that BBC Studioworks operate from two separate sites in Borehamwood - but it is important not to confuse them.

When Strictly first moved from TV Centre to Elstree Film and TV, the connectivity from the BBC Studioworks operation at Elstree Film and TV to the BBC Elstree Studios site, and the local power facilities, were not deemed resilient enough for a BBC One prime time live show, so additional generator power and, I believe, satellite reserve circuits, were installed until more permanent resilient facilities were available (I believe there is now connectivity from Elstree Film and TV to both BBC Elstree and BT via separate diverse routes).

Channel 4

It's very unlikely to be contractual. Even the BBC Studioworks credit is unlikely to be a contractual requirement.

"Television Centre, White City" may get an additional credit if the people running the wider site have been particularly helpful - say with exterior items, site security, co-operating with wider site-related stuff etc.

Any on-screen mentions of it, or exterior shots, are purely there from an editorial point of view, to give the show a sense of place etc. (And arguably trading on the heritage of the site as 'the home of British TV')

International News Presentation: Past and Present

Do you mean a new studio (i.e. they have moved where they do the news from), or just a new set in the same studio (i.e. they've changed the decor but are still broadcasting from the same studio)?

YouTube Gold

Wogan used to come from the BBC TV Theatre, which the BBC left in 1991. I wonder if this is one of the last shows to come from there. Would explain the staging. It's very 'TV Theatre Wogan'...

From memory the TV Theatre stage was extended over the existing orchestra pit to make more 'studio floor' space - so that would explain how they could overhang...

Good Morning Britain

On Wed 23rd Lorraine got 0.9m / 20.6% share. It seems to be consistently in the 0.8m area at the moment - slightly higher absolute audience levels than GMB usually, but lower share, presumably because Breakfast has built.

BBC News Channel Presentation - 21/03/16 onwards

At one point it was in Skype's Ts and Cs that you had to credit them if you used their technology (which they provided for no cost) for broadcast use. If you wanted to use Skype and stay legal (though whether the Ts and Cs were ever tested in court...) you had to credit. (I'm sure lots didn't)

It's a bit tricky to compare a paid-for commercial telephony provider that interoperates on an international telecoms standard with a freely provided proprietary video calling platform.

However, now Skype is part of Microsoft and has replaced their Lync corporate VOIP system, it may well be corporate licensing deals have changed. Skype have accepted broadcast on-air use of their platform implicitlyby buying Cat and Mouse (who at that time largely specialised in game show systems but had developed a very effective Skype system for broadcast use) and launched the SkypeTX system for on-air.

Good Morning Britain

Context :

Wed 23rd Jan overnights
BBC Breakfast 0600-0915 40.2% share 1.5m
GMB 0600-0830 22.9% share 0.8m

That's a very good overnight for ITV Breakfast in the GMB format, but still a long way away from BBC Breakfast.

Over the last week or so GMB has been 0.6-0.8m, Breakfast 1.3-1.5m.

However, spin it another way and if you want to hit an 0600-0830 audience with advertising, GMB is the largest commercial audience available by some considerable margin at that time of day.

Big Brother UK

A lot of the regular crew on Big Brother also work on other shows made at Elstree though. A lot of London studio crew now have Elstree, rather than TVC or TLS, as one of their most regular venues (not just for big Brother but for all the stuff in Elstree Film Stages 8 and 9, George Lucas and BBC Elstree D)

Making a regular Elstree journey more tolerable by relocating within the South East (where you can still also work at Maidstone Studios, TV Centre, Pinewood, Shepperton and all the other OB- and Fly-Pack shows that are made in the London area) is very different to expecting crew to move to a totally different part of the country just for Big Brother. If you don't expect them to relocate, then you will be picking up their travel and overnights. That will increase your crew costs pretty significantly. The same will be true for production team costs.

BBC News Channel Presentation - 21/03/16 onwards

I think people are missing the point here. In previous years this coverage would have been audio-only on a mobile phone.

Big Brother UK

And then you have to pay the overnights and travel costs to get crew to and from site... In England most live crew are still based in London, with a smaller concentration around Salford (though 'London' crew still shuttle up to Salford for some shows)

National Television Awards 2019

Wasn't the whole point-of-difference for the NTAs that they were awards chosen by the public? Otherwise they are just a copy of the BAFTA TV or RTS awards? (The latter seldom talked about outside the industry)

BBC Two 2018 Revamp

Yep - that seems to be a standard variation - but I think all the fonts in that font-change animation are Reith variants.

I spotted the Icons trailer using a non-standard typeface, and it stuck out to me. I'm pretty certain that the branding aim was for them to be Reith. My guess is it was a mistake or the usual After Effects template was, for some reason, not used in the edit.