BBC 9 o'clock News Memories

I've just been watching some openings from the "fish finger" 9 o'clock news era on YouTube ... brought back some fantastic memories as these were always my favourite titles/sequence.

Just wondered if anybody had memories of this particular 9 News era ?

Also when did Martyn Lewis replace Julia Somerville as the senior presenter ? From what I can gather were they both presenting the programme at the same time for a few months.

Yes, liked that era a lot. Music some of the best ever on BBC News. Note sure when Martyn Lewis took over from Julia. I'd guess it was when she left to join ITN? Which was circa 86, if I'm not mistaken?

The fish fingers had a large pool of presenters: Somerville | Humphrys | Hayton | Harvey | Stuart | Lewis | Thrower | Coverdale | Witchell.

But it was the music and graphics that stood out the most.

The 'fish fingers' era was my favourite graphically and in terms of the music, with the transmitter loook and music that followed it close behind.

Just been doing some digging online and it looks like Julia left sometime around the middle of 1987 ... she was certainly still presenting the 9 in the run up to the '87 election. Looks like Martyn started on the 9 earlier that year so they were presenting it at the same time. He only had a short tenure on the 1 o'clock news.

It bugged me then and it still bugs me now .. while the flying fish fingers is an undoubtedly impressive piece of graphics work, I find it despearate annoying that the 9 o'clock NEWS logo doesn't go the wrong way around when it spins and animates to become essentially a DOG bottom left... (not explaining it terribly well but I'm sure you'll get my drift...)

If we are not including the Red and Cream era. The Lambie-Nairn lightning bolts has to be the one I remember most fondly.

I kind of know what you mean - but equally you don't mirror image your logo - and the rotation was a nicer solution than just a shrink, and rotating through 360 degrees on the animate down would have been odd as well. I think they got away with it.

Love the neat way the titles start as a self key, but give you time to mix full-frame to them before the earth appears. OTT, bombastic and a bit pompous - but very much of its time, and very well done.

Love this era too, but agree the must is a bit OTT (even 'Brass Eye' in parts).

Doesn't stop me still liking it though.

The Fish Fingers sequence isn't one that everyone remembers clearly I've found. Noggin's right, the keying is clever and nicely done - I assume simply keyed because it was prepared over black then mixed through before the Earth image came into shot... Keying the end title after form-up over a wide shot of the studio (or headlines in this case) was pretty common back in this era.

He was actually doing the One O'Clock News and Nine O'Clock News at the same time. John Humphrys left regular newsreading at the end of 1986 to join Today (though he was still a regular stand-in for the next decade or so), and to replace him Martyn Lewis and Nicholas Witchell alternated, while still presenting the One and Six O'Clock News respectively, often they would do both programmes in one day.

Then Julia Somerville left in the summer of 1987, during the election campaign she still did the Nine O'Clock News but also did On The Hustings, the compilation of the day's speeches, which was on BBC2 at midnight and was a crappy job. On YouTube there's a clip of Leonard Parkin's last day when he says that Julia Somerville would be taking over but not yet (presumably she was put on gardening leave) and John Suchet would be presenting in the meantime. Debbie Thrower replaced her on the Nine O'Clock News, and by the autumn of 1987 Lewis was only doing the Nine with Michael Buerk on the One.

Did Martyn and Julia ever present the programme together ?

Probably, Lewis replaced Humphrys, not Somerville.