BBC Channel Islands

On Saturday 16 October it was ten years since the first Channel Islands BBC News opt.

Here is a quick video looking back over the past decade
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPb9RDqiHjQ

It may be 10 years before the 1830 sub-opt out of Spotlight (and higher production values were brought to the bulletins), but wasn't there a very basic in-vision opt-out after the Nine O'Clock News from the garage next to the transmitter for quite a while before this?

There was a read with still images before that but this was the first time a proper television opt was introduced with moving pictures.

A proper television opt???

The BBC Channel Islands News, as it was originally known, first launched back around the late 1980s /early 1990s, when a shed at Fremont Point transmitting station was converted in a self-op studio. The bulletin aired after the BBC Nine O'Clock News, and would be presented by whoever was the duty Newscaster for BBC Radio Jersey that night.

I'm sure the studio appeared in an old edition of See For Yourself, which I did have on VHS, but I can't remember if I still have it. I'll go hunting for it. But it was a proper television opt.

Back in the 1980s, the self-op studios that were in common use in BBC regional studios, only had the facility to add still pictures from a still store. Does that mean that all the regional opt outs you used to see in Breakfast Time and Breakfast News in the 80s and early 90s, were not proper television opts?

Spotlight Channel Islands came into being on 16th October 2000, and appeared on digital satellite from 22nd September 2003, but the original BBC Channel Islands News bulletin after the Nine O'Clock News was way before either of those.

I'm not sure quite at which stage in its history this happened, but I met an engineer from BBC Jersey who said that it wasn't uncommon for the lock on the gate at Fremont Point to jam, and it wouldn't be too unusual for the journalist to have to clamber over it before reading their bulletin...

Possibly related to the fact Fremont Point was an IBA/NTL owned site, and the Beeb were just tenants there ?

Perhaps Channel TV requested to have the locks changed

Is there any particular reason why the Nine O'Clock News opt-out didn't last?

I vaguely remember the BBC opt for the Channel islands having the early 90s Spotlight branding at some point, and then the later branding too before Spotlight switched to the corporate branding. I think it may even have had that brilliant piece of orchestral music that Spotlight used in the late 90s accompanying it. Though that might be my memory playing tricks on me. The bulletin itself definitely did have nothing but still pictures as has been described though at that point...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixSha9fDnSk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDNOF5FJ9PU

Brilliant clips thank you. No pictures at all in either of those apart from the weather! AFAIK there was no talkback link from NC1 to Jersey so they used to dial in to a TBU at Television Centre specifically to hear the count in and out of the opt. No doubt certain senior managers used it to hear what was going on during majorbreakdowns too!

God that brings back memories. How was that background generated? Or was it actually just a painted background? Can't really tell with the YouTube quality.

That looks scary! It appears that they took the vision (but not the sound) of the BBC Plymouth BBC South West Ident and opening titles, and opted out before Plymouth mixed through to their presenter, but ran their own audio.

Seat of the pants stuff - but a really neat solution to a studio with no VT?