Its complete ****e. I am 99.9% sure that sky will relaunch in October. Unless some freek accident happens or something, It will relaunch sometime in "mid-october"
Let's see..... I did attribute the rumour to someone else so if it's untrue, I can wash my hands of it and pretend I never said it. Hmmmmm, maybe my journalistic skills have been influenced by the Sky News ethic.....!
Not if the rumour I heard is true. Most stuff I put on here is extremely well sourced. As for this one, it's from a named source that is usually reliable, and it's that......
..... the relaunch won't be until November now. Someone at Sky HQ left a back door to the new complex open one evening, and some scoundrel came in and nicked a load of the kit. And it's set them back weeks.
True? Dunno. Surely an outfit as wonderful as Sky wouldn't let something like that happen to them......
Mr Sopel won't be going on any long trips whilst the Politics Show is on air. A senior and very good correspondent has been sent just for News 24, in addition to BBC Washington's finest, but no presenters..... yet.
The final decision on the scale of the "send" to a story rests higher than dedicated News 24 editors at the moment (it might change). At present, I suspect the BBC TV News management are (professionally) hoping this hits as a category 3, maybe 2 hurricane - whilst Sky have got ready for a Category 5...... Let's see who has windblown egg on their faces....!
Yes. It is a coincidence that it's just before Sky's relaunch. September's always good for a launch - after everyone's back from the summer. The decision to do this programme was taken months ago - then it was case of sorting out the funding and the (limited) staffing. Notice I said "details" of Sky's relaunch - as in what show was going where, not that they were making changes. And two weeks before? Forgive my ignorance, but has the date officially been announced yet? And how would the BBC know with certainty in advance? And then create a new programme from scratch just to get a spoiler in two weeks beforehand? It doesn't work like that.
It's wrong to assume that any move News 24 makes is a response to something that Sky has done or will do. There's a real culture there of deliberately not doing something that Sky are doing; if similar things happen, it's usually because there are only so many ways of doing TV news. In the past, Sky usually innovated more in rolling news, but that's not the case so much these days (possibly famous last words before their relaunch!). The feeling at News 24 at the moment is one of confidence - it's beating Sky very comfortably in the ratings, and Sky are betting the ranch on a mightily expensive relaunch to try and get their old lead back.
I've no doubt their new product will be slick, but presentation and visual style (dated though their current set is) isn't Sky's real weakness. With a few exceptions, their journalism is nowhere near the same class as the BBC's - their packages are often poor and their lives can be stale. If you've got Sky+, do a compare and contrast on the way News24 and Sky handle the top story of the day. Eight times out of ten Sky will probably be flashier, but you'll learn more about the story from News 24. Sky is losing some of its edge in dealing with a breaking story, and their threshold for accuracy seemed to collapse during the London bombings period - and that's probably had consequences for the way viewers see their integrity. They're up against it now - and they're going to fight back by partially moving "upmarket" towards BBC territory. Interesting times.....!
Sound desk was b*ggered. A temporary fix was put in place that didn't really work. N24 was on standby to take over from about 0720, but in the end wasn't needed. Deputy heads won't roll......
I think they could use the right hand area a lot more imaginatively.
For example they should use it for breaking news: the presenter at the desk could, at the end of a report or whatever, say, "Over to Jane for some breaking news..." (breaking news sting and over to the RH area); the presenter standing up would give it more urgency; they could have a breaking news animated graphic on the screen, and later a correspondant at the scene if possible; then they could say, "More as we get it, but for now, back to Jon..."
Obviously this wouldn't be suitable all the time, but for reasonably large breaking stories would be very effective.
No it wouldn't - move cameras, get a presenter to unplug, walk, plug in again, navigate through another computer, then do the big urgent breaking news??? not practical at all. And breaking news is best handled by two presenters - one talks whilst the other one reads/is told more on the story. It wouldn't work if they were in two separate places.
A big mess up into News 24 Sunday on BBC One just now. We had the full end titles for Breakfast (the end shot had finished animating), then a promo for BBC Two Comedy then we had a promo for How To Rule The Country (?). During this promo however we could hear the music of the BBC One Ident Skateboarders for about 15 seconds before returning to the sound for the rest of the promo. After this we cut straight to N24 Sunday (running a little later than the top of the hour) where we heard the opening drum beat of the titles before cutting onto BBC World. Then after about a minute or so of BBC World N24 Sunday came back. Now the N24 tower has appeared on BBC One as well.
I wonder how all of this was caused?
Did the same happen on News 24?
Problems in Pres - they picked up the wrong output at 0900, realised their mistake, cut to N24 output - but picked the wrong line out of the N24 gallery so had the version with the tower.
I presume John Simpson's role would be more of a strategic one rather than a day to day running of the department, but I think to say he was just 'nominally' head of WAU is slightly unfair.
I'd have thought that the Director of News would have occasional meetings with each of the big editors, the World Affairs Editor, Political Editor, Home Editor, Diplomatic Editor, Economics & Business Editors etc to discuss how things had gone, and to decide on policies for the future, they may even look at known events that were on their radar screens and maybe talk about themes such as the BBC China week etc.
What I'd like to know is who is who's boss. Is Simpson Brian Hanrahan's boss? Diplomacy is World Affairs and so you could say he is an underling of the WA Editor. Do the Economic & Business Editors come under the managment of the Political Editor or the Home Editor or are the independant? How do the editors of the 1/6/10, BN, Newsnight, N24 etc fit into the scheme?
Anyone post an organisation chart? It's OUR BBC - we should be told!!!
An organisation chart????? like such a thing exists!
The various on-screen "editors" don't actually have any role in deciding coverage - it's purely a title one notch above "correspondent/chief correspondent". They do tend to pick and choose which stories they do themselves, but that's a perk of the job.
The real "editorial" power is spread around. Programme editors of the programmes (1/6/10/NN) tend to have the final say in what goes into their programmes, although they're occasionally overriden from above.
The full explanation of who decides what in the BBC would require a dissertation - and even then, you wouldn't get to the bottom of it. Basically, "core" coverage of a story is run by Newsgathering. Programmes will pay extra to send their "own" people out there. So on - for example - the tsunami, Andrew Harding and Rachel Harvey in Aceh would have been paid for by Newsgathering - there to serve the whole BBC - whilst Ben Brown was there for the Ten, Other outlets got to run his pieces, but the Ten commissioned them and had first bite at them on air.
Travel - very rarely anything other than economy (unless economy's full and it's desperate). A lavish foreign trip for a reporter/producer/cameraman-editor will be budgeted at about £10,000, with 3x economy flights accounting for £1500 - 2000. The business equivalent would be about £9000.... so nothing left for anything else. That said, these days, they're a bit more flexible on flights. If you're flying long haul, maybe overnight, to a big breaking story, and when you get there you'll be working 16 hour days for a week in **** conditions, then flying cattle isn't going to start you off on the right foot. So business can sometimes be had. It's rare though.
So, other than the Double weather on BBC One, and the dodgy headlines and presenter at 01:00 on News 24, are we saying that so far, 1 hour and 20 mins into this strike, there have been no major failures or anything directly blamed on the Strike Action (other than a histerical news pres on Five Live and a rubbish soprts pre-record)??
Seems like it, but as many people have been saying it is when they have new news in the morning that problems might occur. But, they will probably stick all day with 1 presenter on News 24 and World doing the top half hour, with very few lives and have pre-recorded programmes on the bottom half hour. So it may all be very low key.
Everything on air at the moment is old - yesterday's news. That's normal for overnights. The effects of the strike will start to show when stories aren't updated, new pictures don't get on air and things start slipping. Then when the "new" news day starts at 0500, how much or how little gets on that's fresh. I understand there's only about four or five minutes of new material ready to go in the morning - so how much can those in there pull together overnight. They have to generate new material as they won't spend tomorrow putting out today's news.
I did hear that satellite bookings have already started for the few events they have satellite vans at tomorrow - so they're paying for satellite time from before the start of the strike until the end of the strike - that's thousands of pounds of money they're paying out in case they couldn't get there rtequests in and working during the nighth. However, they'll be saving plenty of money on wages....!
The word from inside is that everything was very civilised at the start of the strike, with warm chats between the outgoing team and the strikebreakers. The people walking out worked right up to the 0001 start of the strike, helping out until the last second. All very civilised! Apparently those on the picket lines are allowed to go into TV Centre to use the Foyer restaurant (if you've ever been to a BBC recording, it's the bar area where audiences are held) - so skinny lattes will be available.....