9/11 Anniversary Coverage

Yes, up until 6pm the BBC relied heavily on its News 24 presenters, none of whom were really well known to the masses. We all know that John Nicholson and Valerie Sanderson were on duty when the news broke, and after that I recall Peter Dobbie and Jane Hill before the Six O'Clock News. Peter Dobbie was eventually kicked off in favour of Gavin Esler who, as the head N24 presenter, was more senior but still not terribly well-known to most viewers. Huw Edwards did the Six and then carried on on News 24 alongside Jane Hill and eventually there was a special programme with David Dimbleby. I didn't see any of ITV's coverage live that day but from what I gather they had the big guns ready to go straight away whereas it took the BBC hours to get a recognisable presenter on BBC1.

Aha! Did they simulcast for that? I was in the USA when that happened so I didn't see the BBC. I wonder if that was the first time it ever happened then? It can't have happened too frequently before 2000, as I can still vividly recall News Reports with the BBC1 presenter which happen very seldom these days. News Reports... how incredibly retro

Yes but whether it was BBC1 on News 24 or the other way round, I can't remember. I was in the foyer of Pebble Mill at the time and remember both BBC 1 and News 24 screens showing the same pictures.
edit: http://sotcaa.net/history/sotcaa2000/forum/forumarchive01/forum0785.html http://www.tvforum.co.uk/forums/post130603#post130603 http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showpost.php?p=48254001&postcount=13

So I think we can be pretty certain that was the first time. The next one after Sept 11 was presumably the death of Princess Margaret on 9/2/2002.

Ah yes, Jill Dando. That was in about April 1999 wasn't it? Like you I can remember coming home from school but all I remember is the Six O'Clock News from that evening.

Thinking back like this - it strikes me how important an event had to be before BBC1 and News 24 would simulcast. How times change - now we get News Specials about snow!

I think the big talk shows were off air and due to return on the Monday afterwards anyway, possibly due to the Labor Day break. The Daily Show returned the same night but with highlights as there was very little to make fun of.

The monologues at the beginning of both shows are very moving:
Letterman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As6fZtz5oC4
The Daily Show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb3gInJAY6g

Perhaps it was the 6.

Interestingly, talking about Concorde, the first passenger flight (all passengers were BA staff) following the 2000 crash took place on 11 Sept 2001.

I knew I'd read somewhere about the Sky News ticker and I've found it, dug this up from the depths of TV Newsroom:


That was posted on the 3rd of October 2003, so I guess it didn't become permanent till a while after 9/11

I thought you were right on this at first, but something didn't quite sit right there. The continuous-use ticker was certainly introduced in 2003 when the Tower arrived on the scene, but I'm pretty sure that a ticker was introduced earlier than that.

There was a period of time between the original cream and purple supers:
http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/news/bbcnews24/bbcnews24_images/1999/news24_1999_gfx_d.jpg

...and when the Tower arrived:
http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/news/bbcnews24/bbcnews24_images/2003/bbcnews24_maxine2005b.jpg

...during which BBC News got a bit too excited with introducing whooshy whizz-bang graphics everywhere, and started tweaking everything on an almost monthly basis. It was during this period that the classic, restrained cream/purple supers were replaced with a full lower-third super that looked wretched, wasted an unforgivable amount of space, and also used the god-awful Gill Sans Extra Bold font, which should never, ever be used.

I'm almost certain that during the same period, a ticker was introduced and used very occasionally - almost exclusively showing information that was of no use to anybody. It was full-width, and would slide up from the bottom of the screen; I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think it either 'squashed' the picture above it to accommodate it, or simply bumped the picture up a bit, but I don't think it was a simple overlay.

I realise that this isn't the place for mocks, but as this is more of a recreation than a fantasy graphic, I hope members and moderators will allow this exception; I'm pretty sure it looked something like this:



...and yes, that is three completely different shades of red - great design there. The ticker would intrusively bump up, show some superfluous piece of information - like 'HARDtalk will now be shown tonight at 11:30' or 'find out more at www.bbc.co.uk/bbcnews24 ' - and then it would swiftly p!ss off again, having enlightened and interested nobody.

Or maybe I've gone completely mad and imagined the whole thing. Let's not rule anything out here.


Top two images from the always magnificent TV Ark.

Oh god I remember those horrible astons. They were utterly terrible in every possible way. IIRC wasn't this at around the same time as the ghastly version of N6 with the laminate flooring?

Thinking back, didn't they animate on in a utterly horrid way too? Like the red bit sliding sideways and the black bit coming up from the bottom?

EDIT: Have been trying to find footage myself and it seems to be a very tricky section of BBC News history to find. There is however this



Did BBC World have a more subdued version of the astons?

That's a nice photo of the World set, BBC LDN could you give me a link for a full photo, without the mock graphics.

All 3 of the big news channels (ITV News Channel was about at the time too) added a ticker around the start of the Iraq war. I seem to remember it coming and going from News 24 and Sky thereafter but it did become a permanent fixture on ITV.