Does the Politics Show not use the MHS gallery though?
No - I don't think so. AIUI the GLA OB goes is self-contained (on-site captions and VT) and feeds straight in to The Politics Show main gallery and is cut up by them to network during the opt.
Only if the network feed is NOT the London OB would there be a requirement for MHS to be staffed to opt-out - which might happen if the main show is from a regional studio or OB and that region's regional opt also comes from the same facilities.
Does the Politics Show not use the MHS gallery though?
It's always been an OB and it's not been a BBC London production for many years
Is there a particular reason why London and East Mids aren't internal productions?
I'm not sure but it's to do with the percentage of regional productions which have to be independent. East Midlands and London have seen fit to give Politics Show to the indies, other regions choose to give one-offs and the irregular regional programmes to indies to produce (stuff like the railway programme last year whatever that was called...). Is Super League Show an independent production? Sure, it uses Leeds's studio/gallery but that doesn't make it an in-house production...
Slightly off topic, but when BBC WM moved from Pebble Mill to the Mailbox on a Sunday, the other regional stations(Stoke, Shropshire & Hereford & Worcester) could not transmit the regional news bulletins that day, that normally came from Birmingham to those stations.
Would I be correct in thinking that Stoke, Shrops, H & W would've still been linking to a feed at Pebble Mill which had been switched off, as WM were no longer there & no one had done any tweaking / testing to make sure the feeds were working correctly?
Slightly off topic, but when BBC WM moved from Pebble Mill to the Mailbox on a Sunday, the other regional stations(Stoke, Shropshire & Hereford & Worcester) could not transmit the regional news bulletins that day, that normally came from Birmingham to those stations.
Would I be correct in thinking that Stoke, Shrops, H & W would've still been linking to a feed at Pebble Mill which had been switched off, as WM were no longer there & no one had done any tweaking / testing to make sure the feeds were working correctly?
That sounds perfectly plausible. I assume alternative arrangements to take the bulletins from somewhere else like Coventry were put in place? Or did they all do their own bulletins?
Slightly off topic, but when BBC WM moved from Pebble Mill to the Mailbox on a Sunday, the other regional stations(Stoke, Shropshire & Hereford & Worcester) could not transmit the regional news bulletins that day, that normally came from Birmingham to those stations.
Would I be correct in thinking that Stoke, Shrops, H & W would've still been linking to a feed at Pebble Mill which had been switched off, as WM were no longer there & no one had done any tweaking / testing to make sure the feeds were working correctly?
That sounds perfectly plausible. I assume alternative arrangements to take the bulletins from somewhere else like Coventry were put in place? Or did they all do their own bulletins?
Slightly off topic, but when BBC WM moved from Pebble Mill to the Mailbox on a Sunday, the other regional stations(Stoke, Shropshire & Hereford & Worcester) could not transmit the regional news bulletins that day, that normally came from Birmingham to those stations.
Would I be correct in thinking that Stoke, Shrops, H & W would've still been linking to a feed at Pebble Mill which had been switched off, as WM were no longer there & no one had done any tweaking / testing to make sure the feeds were working correctly?
That sounds perfectly plausible. I assume alternative arrangements to take the bulletins from somewhere else like Coventry were put in place? Or did they all do their own bulletins?
No they missed them out! They did the link as usual, then dead air, realised what was happening & cut back to the music. In fact they did this for every bulletin & apologised every time!
Dunno if they realised or if any 'anoraks' out there told them anyway? Do BBC staff take any notice of 'anoraks' or does 'Auntie' know best?
It was all fixed for the following week by the way.
Had Wm split away with the weekday 'Late Show' by then?
MHS certainly opt for the 1300, 1315 and 2200 headlines/promos sequences because the news channel transmit a Sport headlines sequence during those regional slots. The other opts, as you say, are all networked as the sustaining feed.
Possibly, I always assumed that BBC London was the sustaining feed and the sport was put out on on News 24 seperately. I've never seen what happens when the headline opt fails though so it's difficult to tell
At 1300 & 2200 when the opt fails you get the sports headlines from the News Channel, and if the 1315 opt fails then its biz headlines from the News Channel.
When these opts first began happening when the nationals and news channel moved in together it used to fail or go wrong all the time.
Lately what tends to go wrong is no headline bed, wrong headline bed, or a messy crash back into the titles.
There is also not much consistency as to the approach, at 1300 & 1315 no thunderclap is used (and often the wrong bed is used) At 2200 they use a thunderclap and bed.
No they missed them out! They did the link as usual, then dead air, realised what was happening & cut back to the music. In fact they did this for every bulletin & apologised every time!
Dunno if they realised or if any 'anoraks' out there told them anyway?
If they noticed the silence and went back to music then why would they need anyone to tell them?
Possibly, I always assumed that BBC London was the sustaining feed and the sport was put out on on News 24 seperately. I've never seen what happens when the headline opt fails though so it's difficult to tell
When the network bulletins always originated from a different studio to the News Channel that was the case. News 24's gallery effectively operated as a second presentation area during the bulletins, so the network gallery could cut up the BBC London regional headlines/promos (and keep a nice clean sound bed underneath the London headlines and promos) whilst News 24 opted out like every other region. This meant BBC London was on the network, and thus the sustaining, feed which the other regions opted out of.
Now that the One O'Clock News and Ten O'Clock News are originated in the News Channel gallery there is no separate area to do the News Channel sport and business headlines that replace the regional headlines/promos on the News Channel. As a result BBC London have to opt-out for these as their headlines/promos are no longer on the network / sustaining feed, and the News Channel stuff would go out if they didn't. (This is why they don't sound as good as they used to - not helped by BBC London, unlike almost every other region apart from Jersey, not having a network feed in their gallery so having to do a sound soft cut on the opt-point with no soft-opting and manual sound fading possible)
The Six O'Clock News comes from a different studio to the News Channel, so in theory the News Channel COULD opt-out for the Six headlines/promos and BBC London could be on the network/sustaining feed - I don't know if they do this or are consistent across all three bulletins.
BBC London is shown on the Six during heads and promos. For the one and ten, MHS opt.
In the good old days, all regions soft-opted, taking Network through their vision and sound mixers at an appropriate point, cutting away when told to. Sound could do a nice cross-fade during combined headline sequences and if necessary the vision mixer could opt to fade to black or try a sneaky mix (though you always ran the risk of clipping something intended for London on the way.) Going widescreen made that whole process hugely complicated and it's still not fully sorted out. There are still distinctly different arrangements for the distribuition of digital and analogue versions of the networks, though AFAIK there are hardly ever any differences anymore between the analogue and digital variants of each network. At one point, the BBC tried different trails, even entirely separate continuity. Now the only differences are aspect ratios I think.
Anyway, back to the regions. Some regions don't soft-opt these days, some still do. BBC South 'arm' their vision mixers so that they go in-circuit at the moment they cut away from Network on their vision mixers. It's partly because the Net1 distribution fed to the galleries is still the 4:3 analogue network distribution, so cannot be put to air through the gallery without being ARCd to 14:9 Pillarbox to go through the vision mixer and to digital,
and
ARCd again to analogue to 14:9 Letterbox on 4:3 raster. Hugely complicated and timing remains a thorny issue - sometimes you get bouncing aspect ratios, different on analogue and digital, different between South and Oxford sub-regions. Not very satisfactory and it means that sound mixes can be very hit and miss. The sound desk isn't live until the vision mixer has cut away from network. Any cross fade that the sound mixer does after the vision mixer has cut back to network is only heard in the gallery - on air it can sound very different.
However, I understand Hull and Leeds DO soft-opt despite only having analogue Net1 feeds. You see Digital streams bump to 14:9 pillarbox in the run-up to opts and go decidely soft in the process. Birmingham manage perfectly seamless opts on digital so it's clearly possible somehow.
No they missed them out! They did the link as usual, then dead air, realised what was happening & cut back to the music. In fact they did this for every bulletin & apologised every time!
Dunno if they realised or if any 'anoraks' out there told them anyway?
If they noticed the silence and went back to music then why would they need anyone to tell them?
I would've thought the more enlightened among the listenership would've mentioned something along the lines of 'Do you lot know that WM has moved studios, if you're wondering why you can't get the news up?' to the presenter?
I've mentioned to the relavant WM Early Show presenter on several occasions that they were not going out on DAB, but only on FM, by text.
(Mind you Mollie Green's only interested in her bloody chickens & members of her personal fan club texting in(Yes I do mean Don in Edgbaston!), than reading texts out from loyal listeners. I've got more sense out of Daz Hale, even if he's a Wolves fan!)
