But, you know, Sky News used to get a lot of flak for using large text on their graphics when, at the time, News 24's was still small. You see where I'm coming from with the "News 24 are doing it so it MUST be right" comment?
Yes, it is true there are a lot on here who fawn endlessly in hope that some day they'll be reading the news against the 99-03 Headline Bed V2 but there are still some of us with more then a couple of brain cells who would say that the main problem with Sky's old graphics set was when they changed from the mediocre red/blue set to the full blown red/white (all the time) set.
Do you also think that newspapers using large font sizes for their headlines insult their readers' intelligence, and that all their text should be less than, say, 14 point? When I read a newspaper I scan through first of all looking for headlines that I'm interested in. If the font sizes were all small I wouldn't be able to do that.
But there aren't a selection of stories on News 24 at the same time to choose between, there's just one. That argument doesn't really apply here.
Yes it does - I use the big text on N24 the same way that I use headlines in a newspaper, not to select which story to watch/read, but to decide whether or not to watch/read a story.
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I often have News 24 on in the background while I am working on my laptop, reading, listening to music etc. I can glimpse up from across the room and read News 24's headline and if it interests me I can watch. I couldn't do this if you had your way.
My way? What... make the text smaller? It would still be there, just not so in-your-bloody-face.
Yes, your way....making the text harder to read. It would be smaller and there'd be more of it. I want a quick big headline.
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Likewise various offices up and down the country have rolling news on in the background, and the large font size makes it possible for them to see what's going on with a glance.
I think you're confusing News 24 with Sky News
No, I'm giving a good reason why N24 use big graphics. The only reason you've given for them to not use them is because they supposedly insult people's intelligence - a reason that no-one here so far has accepted.
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Finally, it's actually become part of News 24's character, something that makes it different from most other news channels.
Even though the idea of in-your-face graphics was a blatent copy of Sky News? What I'm saying *is* to make it different from other channels by reducing the text size.
Now you're confusing big graphics with 'in your face' graphics. Sky's graphics are in your face, and still harder to read than N24's. News 24 were the first to use such large fonts as headline banners.
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News 24 don't have to rely on catching people's attention, people will always turn to BBC News, they should be providing suitable analysis with appropriate graphics and *in my opinion* the current ones are not really appropriate. Even something like what they have on BBC World, when the headline is half the size of normal, would look better and much neater.
They can provide a high quality news service with suitable analysis and at the same time have big graphics, they aren't mutually exclusive!
Here we come to the crunch - you think they're inappropriate, but can't give a reason why, and I think they are appropriate, and have given reasons.
That, to me, is incredibly patronising. "COOKERY LESSONS" in huge letters? What is the need? In a strange sort-of way, I'm actually complimenting the channel here, I think that they should have something neater than what they have because it would suit the quality of the channel better.
After watching N24 for the first time since the graphics update: I prefer the 'new' white ticker; it makes the on-screen look much more modern and unique.
However, I fail to understand why the tower has been changed so that the 'BBC News 24' is more condensed, and why the globe now spins in a staggered motion? The text used on headline straps and astons also has much less impact on me now than before, which can never be a good thing for a rolling news channel, and it also looks very cheap and 'standard'.
Anyway, N24 is currently rolling online - is it always shown without any onscreen graphics?
Good grief - how dreadful does that look! How embarrassing. How difficult can it be to get this right??
I do agree that the white ticker is VERY distracting. Your eyes are drawn to the blasted thing. The use of black and white in this way is also very out-of-place with the rest of the graphics colour scheme.
I wonder if whoever's responsible for such tweaking is using a 4:3 monitor, with the 16:9 graphics stretched anomorphically so they look tall. In this case, the [B][B][C] NEWS 24 lettering as it stands today would probably look right... but just not when shown in the correct aspect ratio.
I think you may have hit the nail on the head here - I've just set my digibox to 16F12, and it appears fine.
How it's got this far without anyone noticing is beyond me, though.
Just out of intrest is there any news on the weekend lineup? As has already been discussed Maxine is going back to weekends, but do we know what slot she will be presenting. There is not really a slot available, unless she is going to be the evening presenter and Joanna goes to BBC London to displace Emily. Although this is just speculation. It would be good if the BBC introduce double headed bulletins during the day at the weekend, they must have enough presenters. Although i realise that this is costly, especially as the BBC is trying to cut costs, but this could be really effective for the channel, allowing more analysis. They could also cut some of the programmeing back at the weekends, so that there is more time for analysis, instead of just having 15 minutes of news, followed by sport, weather and then a programme. Most of the time leading to 45 minutes of fluff.
Weekend much the same as now, with Maxine doing the Sunday 1300-1700 shift.
Gees they have made a total mess of the Tower now, we can only presume that there is no test environment to test tweaks rather there are using the live system as the test system if you see what I mean.
I can't honestly think how such a graphics howler can make it on air!
