I always wondered why BBC News 24 was in 16:9 from day one, doesn't really seem to make much sense. It's not like anyone could watch it that way until digital launched nearly a year later, none of the news packages would have been 16:9, or the programmes they showed on the channel, and the regular news bulletins were still in 4:3 for nearly 3 years after the channel launched. I can understand them wanting it 16:9 capable and ready, but it seems to me it would have made more sense to keep it in 4:3 and flick the switch later, possibly the same time the regular bulletins did.
Equally it made no sense building a new 4:3 studio, and given that 16:9 outlets were imminent, it made a lot of sense to build a 16:9 studio and to gain experience running a 16:9 news operation. Yes - you could have built a 16:9 studio then run it 4:3 for a bit - but you'd just be deferring the learning process... Far better to make mistakes when nobody is watching (that was pretty much the mantra for the first year or three of News 24 after all)
ARCing the output to 14L12 was hardly that tricky...
ISTR that the 14L12 feed for analogue cable ceased quite soon after the launch of DSat, DTT (and I think DCab) in Nov 1998 - almost exactly a year after launch, on the same day that News 24 moved from N9 to N8. (That was also the day that the 'National Regional News' opt-out fillers branded UK Today launched)
I can't remember, what filled the gap between Sky Digital (D-Sat) launching on Oct 1, and OnDigital ( DTT) on Nov 15th ? I had Sky Digital from Oct 16th. BBC News 24 was 16F16 by then, but what filled the regional gaps on BBC 1 England 'digital until Nov 15th' ?
AIUI they are still there - just a lot of people had their 'Archive' rights removed when they changed the access levels. Similarly people in BBC Studios who had access to ITV, C4 and C5 stuff on Redux lost that too.
Yep they are still there as I bookmarked some. Can still watch but can't search for them. A few great bits I didn't bookmark and regret now
That would make sense, the previous shot is of some fibre optic cables, and the shot in the screengrab above does look like a server room with network cables. A bit weird to reuse it for UK Today in that case.
Oh, so that suggests it was nothing to do with technology, and was as I expected a forerunner to UK Today. Although that schedule seems to suggest it co-existed at the same time as both UK Today and UK Tonight.
I had always thought 'Interactive' sounded like a programme inviting viewers to get in touch with their views, although with the very small audience in those days, that may have been a bit optimistic!
Another programme that appeared in that montage that I used to enjoy on the early News 24 was 'Chronicles', which I used to record each week from overnight BBC1 around 1998/99 until I had access to the full -time channel. It was presented at one point by Philip Hayton, and then by someone else whose name escapes me. Each edition would have a particular theme, showing reports and items from the BBC news archive revolving around that theme. In those pre-YouTube days it was quite a novelty to see clips of programme like Sixty Minutes and London Plus, complete with the original captions and graphics!
I had always thought 'Interactive' sounded like a programme inviting viewers to get in touch with their views, although with the very small audience in those days, that may have been a bit optimistic!
This reminds me that Krishnan Guru-Murthy tweeted last week of how sure he was that nobody was watching.
And at xmas 1997 I was so confident nobody was watching BBC News 24 (especially bosses) I sang "Don't know why there's no sun up in the sky, stormy weather" into the weather
Oh, so that suggests it was nothing to do with technology, and was as I expected a forerunner to UK Today. Although that schedule seems to suggest it co-existed at the same time as both UK Today and UK Tonight.
Perhaps it was BBC World's counterpart? It sounds like the modern version is Reporters.
