The Newsroom

BBC News 24

(January 2007)

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GI
gilsta
Has anyone considered the technical implications of running the projector cubes for a good 18 hours a day, 7 days a week until (conceivably) 2012? I sincerely doubt they are that reliable. The grey floor will take a battering as well.

I hope there are going to be major changes to the N6 set to accomodate News 24 on a practical and aesthetic level. The set is far too empty for a 24 hour news channel and a more animated backdrop would be needed, perhaps taking some inspiration from Sky. I would expect some kind of actual presentation area (not just floor space in front of a screen) that was welcoming to interviews and a CSO screen that could be switched to during the 1 or 10 and for rehearsels for national bulletins. Otherwise BBC News could easily go down the pan.

Unless the long term plan is to get rid of News 24.
MU
mullet
I wonder what will happen to the 'back' half hours after the main bulletins. For the One and the Six it would be neatest for the presenter to stay on, and would fit in with the idea of bulletin presenters doing more work on News 24. It wouldn't be essential though, as it can be handled by a change in presentation area/formal handover and a change in studio respectively to continue as now. I can't really see George Alagiah doing Entertainment 24, anyway.

The problem is with the Ten's headlines update after the regional news. It would be messy and disruptive to the current line-up to have this on News 24. My preferred solution would be to drop it, and also have the Ten presenter stay on to present the rest of the news hour, which has always seemed disjointed with the change in studios and presenters.
BR
Brekkie
mullet posted:
The problem is with the Ten's headlines update after the regional news. It would be messy and disruptive to the current line-up to have this on News 24. My preferred solution would be to drop it, and also have the Ten presenter stay on to present the rest of the news hour, which has always seemed disjointed with the change in studios and presenters.


Now we have the simulcasts on News 24 I think the One/Six/Ten essentially have to be standalone bulletins once again and forget about the regional headlines or summary after the local news, allowing the bulletin to be self-contained and especially have it's own closing sequence.

They can still plug what is coming up on News 24 and say the regional news follows on BBC1, but should then end the programme properly rather than telling News 24 viewers to switch to News 24 while "here on BBC1" it's the local news.
NG
noggin Founding member
gilsta posted:
Has anyone considered the technical implications of running the projector cubes for a good 18 hours a day, 7 days a week until (conceivably) 2012? I sincerely doubt they are that reliable. The grey floor will take a battering as well.


Al Jazeera have identical projector cubes in all of their centres - and I suspect Doha run their cubes pretty hard as well (though they can change bulbs during downtime)

The Barco projectors have the "dual bulb" system - where if one bulb fails another kicks in (there are different ways of doing this at different cost levels) - and the engineers are warned to replace the failed bulb.
TW
Tom W
But surely, the newswall on Sky must get overheat & thats on 24 hours a day!
SN
SN2005
Thom Woodworth posted:
But surely, the newswall on Sky must get hot & thats on 24 hours a day!


Different technology, sky's is LED.
LO
LONDON
gilsta posted:
Has anyone considered the technical implications of running the projector cubes for a good 18 hours a day, 7 days a week until (conceivably) 2012? I sincerely doubt they are that reliable. The grey floor will take a battering as well.

I hope there are going to be major changes to the N6 set to accomodate News 24 on a practical and aesthetic level. The set is far too empty for a 24 hour news channel and a more animated backdrop would be needed, perhaps taking some inspiration from Sky. I would expect some kind of actual presentation area (not just floor space in front of a screen) that was welcoming to interviews and a CSO screen that could be switched to during the 1 or 10 and for rehearsels for national bulletins. Otherwise BBC News could easily go down the pan.

Unless the long term plan is to get rid of News 24.


But the system runs 24 hours a day, because if they turned it off it is likely that more problems would occur. Therefore there is always some sort of background projected onto the wall in N6 and TC7.
JP
Joe Public
kitt22 posted:
chris posted:
Charlie Wells posted:
r2ro posted:
With the suggested move, the main problem I can see is that there is no provision for N24 to opt-out of the nationals, which I think should be done if there's any significant news occurring around the time of the nationals.

I guess they'll say something along the lines of...
"In a moment viewers on BBC1 get the news from where they live, whilst the news continues on News 24. But first its time for the weather with [insert name]"
...for it to work smoothly I think the weather would need to be done 'out of the newsroom'. Then at the end of the weather on BBC1 they could hand over to the regions whilst News 24 could use a sting (or similar) to rejoin the studio.


I think a 2nd set will desperately needed for this to work so that for one they can opt-out for Breaking News, and two they can do a tidy changeover of presenters at 1 and 10.


Come on now. How many times have N24 opted out of 1, 6 or 10 in the last year? Maybe 5, 10 times? It is not a really serious issue. They can still put a BREAKING NEWS strap on the N24 feed.


I would say that N24 opts out of the 1 on average once a week.
SE
seamus
gilsta posted:
Has anyone considered the technical implications of running the projector cubes for a good 18 hours a day, 7 days a week until (conceivably) 2012? I sincerely doubt they are that reliable. The grey floor will take a battering as well.

I hope there are going to be major changes to the N6 set to accomodate News 24 on a practical and aesthetic level. The set is far too empty for a 24 hour news channel and a more animated backdrop would be needed, perhaps taking some inspiration from Sky. I would expect some kind of actual presentation area (not just floor space in front of a screen) that was welcoming to interviews and a CSO screen that could be switched to during the 1 or 10 and for rehearsels for national bulletins. Otherwise BBC News could easily go down the pan.

Unless the long term plan is to get rid of News 24.


The best option I think would be to create a smaller space in TC7/ N6 for Nationals, since we really don't need the standup area any more.:

http://tvnewsroom.co.uk/images/georgealagiah/georgealagiah07.jpg
http://tvnewsroom.co.uk/images/bbcnews/misc/relaunch/six11.jpg
GI
gilsta
I was thinking along the same lines Seamus, if you look at the desk in N6 even its a suitable size for a single presenter but does not provide good angles for interviews. News 24 would really need a larger desk, capable of comfortably housing two presenters and two guests and providing decent camera angles - so that would have to be placed in the middle of the floor. Then you need to fill the rest of the floor up (assuming they keep the same basic design) with perhaps a smaller desk for summaries and some kind of presentation area.

For the nationals you would then have the option of the oversized desk (which can look quite effective in front of the right background) or just wheeling the main desk off and using the summary area in say the left hand corner, with a larger presentation area.

On the subject of the screens, I'm still not convinced after several months of abuse that they will look anywere near as good as they do now, unless N24 regularly decamps to TC7 over the weekends.
JO
Joe
gilsta posted:
I was thinking along the same lines Seamus, if you look at the desk in N6 even its a suitable size for a single presenter but does not provide good angles for interviews. News 24 would really need a larger desk, capable of comfortably housing two presenters and two guests and providing decent camera angles - so that would have to be placed in the middle of the floor. Then you need to fill the rest of the floor up (assuming they keep the same basic design) with perhaps a smaller desk for summaries and some kind of presentation area.

For the nationals you would then have the option of the oversized desk (which can look quite effective in front of the right background) or just wheeling the main desk off and using the summary area in say the left hand corner, with a larger presentation area.

On the subject of the screens, I'm still not convinced after several months of abuse that they will look anywere near as good as they do now, unless N24 regularly decamps to TC7 over the weekends.


But TC7 has the screens as wel - so what would that do?
GI
gilsta
Jugalug posted:
gilsta posted:
I was thinking along the same lines Seamus, if you look at the desk in N6 even its a suitable size for a single presenter but does not provide good angles for interviews. News 24 would really need a larger desk, capable of comfortably housing two presenters and two guests and providing decent camera angles - so that would have to be placed in the middle of the floor. Then you need to fill the rest of the floor up (assuming they keep the same basic design) with perhaps a smaller desk for summaries and some kind of presentation area.

For the nationals you would then have the option of the oversized desk (which can look quite effective in front of the right background) or just wheeling the main desk off and using the summary area in say the left hand corner, with a larger presentation area.

On the subject of the screens, I'm still not convinced after several months of abuse that they will look anywere near as good as they do now, unless N24 regularly decamps to TC7 over the weekends.


But TC7 has the screens as wel - so what would that do?


Give them 48 hours to run repair and maintenance work in N6?

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