BBC News Channel Presentation - 21/03/16 onwards

...and people used to say ITV News was dumbed down. BBC is now what ITV was fifteen years previous.

A light interview in the back half-hour of Afternoon Live is hardly dumbing down.

Yes - but having watched News 24 since 2000, I can say with some certainty that such an "interview" wouldn't have happened in years gone by. It was far more serious back then. But isn't that more of a commentary on modern life than it is BBC News? Practically nothing can be completely serious and high-brow any more. Like it or not, but most TV programmes now cater for the lowest common denominator.

How does a four minute interview with Basil Brush which was sandwiched between serious news stories, sport and business compare with Love Island and Geordie Shore, which is as lowest common denominator as it gets?

The fact he's interviewing a puppet ??? On BBC News. Do you need more evidence? Are you seriously suggesting that 10+ years ago BBC News 24 would have interviewed a puppet? That's dumbing down enough for me from a world-renowned broadcaster like the BBC. But like I say, that's the times we live in for you.

And to be honest, it's pretty obvious what drives stuff like this - it's merely clickbait for social media outlets. It will appeal to people who like that silly sort of stuff. I don't believe for a minute that this interview was done on merit. I guess it succeeded though as we're all talking about it.

I'm not saying I agree one way or another - but I think it's hard to argue that stuff like this is not symptomatic of a general dumbing down of television, regardless of the channel. This interview would have been fine on something like The One Show - but BBC News?

What about the times they had dogs on with the Chyron of Daniel with the title Spaniel?

EDIT: You know what, I'll just link this:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/scottybryan/a-dog-must-be-in-every-interview-bbc?utm_term=.baaNyr5RJw#.eo65602agL

Problems tonight on The Papers. The curved paper graphics were floating on top of the desk (rather than on the side of the desk) and no other graphics were shown.

Would have thought they’d have a back up of using the screen.

There was problems with the graphics yesterday on one of the Papers episodes with Reeta, in which the camera was stuck on the guests for a very long time, causing Reeta to corpse slightly, before the camera just switched to her and no graphics. Was worse for Lukwesa as autocue seemed to be faltering and getting stuck too.

Couple that with the VT playback problems from earlier in the week, and it seems like the heat is breaking elements of the system and preventing things from working properly. Think the News Channel should just go to basic presentation and nothing fancy until the system gets back to normal operations!

The 11.30pm papers tonight is just the old (reliable) format, with no fancy graphics in the studio. Clearly the problem with them can’t be fixed until more time has been dedicated to examining it.