BBC Election 2015

It's good to have Breakfast back in London, even if it is just for the election. I don't think much of the BBC Breakfast title A4 colour print outs tacked on to the back of Charlie and Naga's laptops, though.

When they first went to air this morning the laptops had the Election 2015 signs instead.

Well you can see for yourself right now, BBC Parliament are repeating it today. Looks like the BBC News ticker with the clock will remain on the recording.

Ha ha ha. You could very easily tell those Breakfast colour print outs had been tacked on at the last minute. It looked amateurish.

Still, as I said, nice to have Breakfast back in London for a brief spell.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1IomG6DCuuY

They fooled The Sun during the Autumn Statement

I think the graphics were a bit of a mess. Watching some of the elections from the 80s and 90s they would flash onto the screens "LAB GAIN, CON HOLD etc" as soon as it was obvious who had won the seat. This year they seemed to leave it until after the result was declared after all the votes were read, and even then it was just a subtle change of the aston. Then there was a delay in the total number of seats getting updated.

Rewatching on BBC Parliament, the graphics really are a mess. Rather than creating dedicated graphics for the election results, they've had to try and fit them into the regular BBC News lower thirds, and the result is something that is messy, hard to read at a glance and ultimately ugly. As I said on the night, the Gain/Loss graphic is far too subtle, no urgency like there was in the past. It just looks like a regular headline strap. That's not even mentioning the election show itself, which was all over the place at times. BBC Parliament have just shown the "For God's sake" moment at 4am.

Even ITV, who followed a similar style with a horizontal bar at the bottom, have clearer graphics because there's no ticker. Overall however I think Sky won on the graphics front.

Looking at how the regions did their morning results programmes, I notice that a few regions modified their sets for the occasion.

Look North NE and Cumbria had subtly added an extra wall to their set, at the split between the desk and sofa sides of the studio. They effectively boxed in the sofa side with an extra wall, which featured the same newsroom backdrop (minus frosting) as the rest of the studio, along with those white/grey things that go above and below it. They even managed to light the extra wall quite nicely, with the extra wall's newsroom backdrop noticeably less washed out than the bits of the backdrop seen normally.

Meanwhile, Look East's efforts were perhaps slightly less successful, as they removed all the red set pieces from the studio, which left it looking quite dull. They also took out the desk and added a sofa and a weird coffee table instead, with the coffee table looking like the Sunday Politics desk sprayed silver?

As someone else said earlier this should be an election night that will become a classic and be watched back in 20/30 years time in much the same way we watch the two from 1974 and 1992. I always watch the BBC and did so again this year however there was a lot wrong with the programme this year. First of all there was the problem with the OB’s which meant there was a lot of dead air between Dimbleby throwing to the reporter and/or interviewee and their responses. This seemed to get better as the night progressed but was still a real problem. The graphics were also very ‘buggy’. As has been said they weren’t big enough on screen and on top of that they were very slow appearing, and that was obviously annoying Dimbleby. At times it felt like the early 70’s and the rudimentary computer graphics that they used. Added to this Dimbleby was rude and cut across his fellow presenters many times. I can understand his frustrations but it was a hard watch. For around an hour at 4am things really seemed to go wrong. Few actual results and/or reports shown and the graphics seemed to disappear entirely.

I thought Laura Kuenssberg was excellent and proved she is the real sucessor to Nick Robinson. Her role was clearly to act backup for Nick, with the social media stuff just a cover for that. Nick did very well indeed, though we did miss his usual incisiveness throughout the night. On the plus side this meant the return of Andrew Marr to election night and he was great to listen to. He managed to appear like an oasis of calm in the face of Dimbleby’s meltdown! I am a fan of Andrew Neil. He brought a little bit of Robin Day back to the studio and you can be sure that his encounter with Paddy Ashdown will be replayed for decades to come. I think the BBC really miss a resident psephologist such as Professor Tony King. He was always a great foil for Dimbleby. John Curtice is a star though and his periodic appearances were usually good. I do question having Peter Kellner there though. He was reluctant to admit that the pollsters (including him) were wrong and in my opinion that questions his legitimacy.

Do we need both Jeremy Vine and Emily Matlis? I don’t think so. I questioned Emily’s role previously but I thought she was excellent this time and Jeremy was almost totally redundant. A case of too many cooks. It was a pleasure to see David Butler on Friday morning, there to bid farewell to the end of the era of the Dimblebys. And Friday proved just how effortless and smooth Huw Edwards is.

First time I have ever stayed up all night for an election and am glad.

I don't have any idea of how complex and difficult it is to plan ahead for an Election Night type broadcast but clearly it is an immensely difficult task that really stretches resources. That is a given, and your plans are clearly made given the way you think the night will run. Thus it seems the BBC planned their night on the Labour wipeout in Scotland and the expectation of a hung parliament.

Whilst clearly one of those happened, once it become clear there would be no hung parliament it was like the BBC coverage went in to meltdown. Scotland dominated the early coverage. It felt like there were so few live declarations being aired from England because it was assumed they would not be important. Dimbleby was lost on far too many times. Microphones were accidentally left open far too often. Results flashed up on the tiny ticker graphic with no explanation. There was endless chat between the studio staff but no energy and excitement. The graphics updated to show a predicted Conservative majority but there was no discussion of this for ages, and in fact I think the graphic disappeared. I've just seen it again now at 5.47am - Marr saying that they are now predicting the Tories on 325 yet the graphics are still only saying Con forecast to be largest party. This is a key thing and it is just passing sentence glossed over. Think of in the past when you'd have had a cut away to Piccadilly Circus or whatever at that point. At times it felt there was just no direction and no narrative.

Dimbleby was poor and it is right this was his last election. Once Huw Edwards took over at 7 it was a breath of fresh air. Andrew Neil, Andy Marr, Laura K and Nick Robinson were all fantastic. I question the need for Maitliss, Vine and Rayworth essentially duplicating each other. Emily really was the star of the three and she could easily have done the job on her own. Vine is patronising and the use of overly complex virtual graphics are just getting to be ridiculous. The map in the Broadcasting House piazza served no purpose and could clearly have been done in the virtual studio - in fact in 2010 it was shown by Maitliss on her touch screen so it was nothing new. And who thought in the morning it was a good idea to stick some polaroid type photos on a stick on dump them on the map to show the constituencies they lost - it looked cheap and stupid.

A memorable election certainly and one that will be oft repeated and cited. But not the BBC's finest and worthy of only a 6/10.

Sophie's bit was just a way to get some real people involved, and hence ask them for comments and opinions throughout the night.

The lack of urgency on Gain/losses was an issue for me.

The virtual stepping stones to Number 10 was ok on paper, but then seemed complex as Jeremy spent ages talking about the order the seats were shown in rather than them just being stepping stones. Was redundant once it became known there didn't need to be any coalition to get over the winning line. The fact it was still night time at Number 10 all day was something that looked a bit odd and seemingly was overlooked.