The dead celebs gag is to keep the lawyers happy too. The same probably goes for the news but they record the studio bits so far in advance it's difficult for it to be topical.
And is topicality such a good thing on a show that is available only via an on-demand service?
My own stance is what is needed is nothing short of a physical inspection of the attic at the Maidstone Studios to confirm whether any tapes from the TVS archive reside there and which programmes.
Though remember (as has been said many times) the physical location and the ownership are two different things. Though of course knowing one helps to find the other
Precisely.
Physical ownership of 1" (or other TX format) tapes doesn't give you the ownership of the content of the tapes, any more than owning a Rolling Stones album gives you ownership of their songs...
There are obviously numerous issues - which have been discussed ad nauseam :
1. Where does the content reside physically if it still exists? (i.e. where are the 2", 1", Beta SP tapes)
2. Who owns the content on these tapes? (i.e. who owns the intellectual property)
3. Who requires rights payments for continued commercial exploitation of the content on the tapes? (i.e. who has copies of the contractual obligations entered into on original production or re-negotiated after original production for future sale). Any TV show with music, actors, presenters, writers, directors (in some cases), stills, archive etc. will need this information before the content can be commercially exploited in any way other than fair dealing.
Actually SVT were charged with the responsibility to bring down the cost of hosting the contest by the ebu who were worried that it was becoming too big a burden on host broadcasters. NRK famously dropped the World Cup to be able to afford to host. Malmo in particular was seen as a much smaller, yet still very successfully staged contest. Not sure how Stockholm compared in terms of cost, but the show is smaller in scale than it was.
I believe Stockholm is quoted as the cheapest contest of recent times (if you weight for inflation etc.)
EDIT: Ridiculously I actually ended up getting a ticket - but only after giving up entirely and randomly checking the website a few minutes ago at 2:15am! No queue at all and straight to payment - now I have to work out how the hell to get to Kiev!
BA have direct flights to Kiev from Heathrow I believe.
ISTR that in 2005, when they last hosted the ESC, they had to add temporary baggage screening facilities at Kiev airport to cope with demand, and flights were booked so quickly people had to stay on either side of their planned stay in order to get flights.
Hmm - I think terrestrial TV Is with us for a while yet. It's still the most popular TV platform in the UK (particularly when it comes to second TVs), and iPlayer-style viewing is still a small minority of TV viewing. (If you drill down the stats for iPlayer etc. you find out just how dominant linear TV - and linear TV PVR - viewing is)
Sure - paid streaming services like Netflix and Amazon have a place - but I don't see them displacing broadcast TV just yet.
Given that, in Europe, 500/600MHz frequencies look to be being protected, I think the march for mobile broadband may have slightly abated.
If anything I can see pay-TV shifting away from satellite towards IP delivery - mainly because Pay-TV has no requirement to guarantee universal access in the way broadcasters like the BBC do.
Is it in HD then on BT? Considering their Olympic rights too it is time they make the Eurosport Player or equivalent streams available on all platforms which could in theory distribute it including BTTV, SkyQ and actually DTT via the connected channels.
I wouldn't read anything in to Eurosport moving up a quality notch in the BTTV multicast service, which is effectively a private multicast service that sends streams to the exchange over an internal BT-owned backbone, and then out over BT fibre IP+VDSL connections. This multicast solution is best thought of as 'IP Cable'. It's not internet streaming.
This is a VERY different tech solution to the unicast streaming service used by Smart TVs, Freeview IPTV, tablets, mobiles etc. that go over the public internet.
If you've ever noticed 'Contingency Producer' on the end of UK TV show credits... This is why they exist... (They do a lot more - but it's their job to think through all eventualities that could impact a live TV show - from tied results, to phone system failure, to the studio being evacuated half way through a show etc.)
It might be the picture angle, but it looks a lot smaller than the Osterley gallery.
When you automate you reduce the number of people required significantly...
Also - many operations are now chosing to have more production staff in the newsroom on talkback, rather than in the gallery.
TV2 in Denmark have a gallery with just two people in it (and can drop down to one if need be). The playout system is entirely Mosart, with a couple of large portrait touch screens for control. There is no control surface for the vision mixer, though there is a sound desk (but sound is largely automated), and an EVS LSM controller for fast-turnaround or delay purposes.
All of the production journalists who might be in a gallery in the UK are based in the newsroom (which also has a newsroom studio) and communicate with presenters and director(s) over talkback, or walk in to the studio during reports to brief talent.
Any word on what system they're turning to for automation?
Think I read that they were going to be using Ross's Overdrive system.
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I do like those 21:9 monitors - of course I would have one in portrait mode and the other in landscape.
And the other day I was going to ask why galleries are typically dark with minimal lighting and now I see the glare lighting places on the screens.
Minimises reflections and glare, and concentrates everyone a bit. You will have working/operational lights (usually strip lights with adjustable shutters to control the width of the light) above desks to provide task lighting. In some places these are called script lights (though in News paper scripts are rare, and so the name makes less sense in that environment)
I know of at least one US broadcaster in the 80s who used UV light for this - with script paper that glowed well - to effectively run galleries even more darkly. Was very odd to see.
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The height of monitor wall doesn't look to ergonomic for those in the front row. Hopefully there will be small preview/program monitors for the vision mixer and the director.
If there is a VM...
Personally I think source monitor height is as important, if not more so, than PGM/PVW monitors these days - particularly with automation.
Monitor stack design is trickier to get right with multiviewer walls - as you can't always arrange monitors optimally (and ignoring the delay and resolution reduction issues and moire/aliasing that many introduce)
Traditionally you'd have camera previews underneath PGM/PVW, and " VT" replays and OS sources above, with other sources either side. If you want full quality monitors for PGM/PVW, this can make arranging a multiviewer trickier. Some places use a hybrid approach - with cameras and PGM/PVW on individual monitors, and multiviewers just for "VT" and OS previews. There is sense in this - as you need to be able to evaluate camera quality more than VT - and so having decent resolution HD monitoring (rather than sub-SD shrunk pictures) is a good idea.
Just because it isn't 'European', doesn't mean it's American.
No - but the overblown nature and heavy use in the US does make them feel 'American'
Similarly Australia's historic use of 'Eyewitness' branding screams US-influenced.
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The voice of God has been a thing in Australia going back decades.
Yes - both the BBC and ITN have used it too - but in a lower key way - and I'd also suggest it was a US influence on UK news that we've ditched largely.
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Hardly an Americanism. In fact lots of your observations are historically quite 'normal' for Australian TV; perhaps their origins are from American TV, but to me American TV takes these things to an extreme whilst Australian bulletins tend to remain dialled back a bit.
Yep - because they've been used for a while doesn't mean they aren't still US-influenced I'd argue. The Aussie stuff I see feels very 'US commercial' in tone.
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The only thing I can agree is the transition swooshes are quite American, although Sky News UK have also used them.
Yep - and I'd argue Sky was influenced by the US in adopting them.
Also - if it is a gallery for a 'satellite' studio - like Millbank or their Business studio - it won't need as much space as it will house fewer tech and production staff.
Looks a bit of a mish-mash to me. 3D bevelled metallic logos flying around screams US news from a while back, as does the portentious voice of god over the wide shot. That all feels a bit dated. Music also feels quite US, with the cliched repeated strings underscore. Whooshey 3D headline transitions also feel very US.
The lower thirds are flat and feel more contemporary, and the main presenter mid-shot+screen looks a bit like a lot of US bulletins.
Script style feels very US too.
Studio design feels less US-centric - and more European - though the desk is a bit cluttered in design terms.