The Newsroom

BBC News Channel Presentation - 21/03/16 onwards

Split from BBC News Channel General Discussion (March 2016)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
MA
Markymark
Worzel posted:
From someone who's worked in radio for 13 years the training I was given from day one was not to allow any silence and keep talking or play a tune. Easy if you're on a music station like Heart, not so easy if you're trying to handle a Breaking News situation on 5 Live.

I've done both music and speech based radio, the former is much easier than the latter.


Well, the two best DJs in the 45 years or so I've been a radio listener, (Roger Scott and Terry Wogan, both sadly
departed now) both said during their careers; paraphrasing, 'if you've got nothing intelligent or meaningful to stay, then say nothing'.

They had very different styles of course. Take a listen to some of Roger Scott's Capital Radio shows, there was plenty of flow, but little to no prattle. I agree speech radio is very difficult. Pete Murray once said moving to LBC and 100% speech after so long having records to fall back on on his Radio 2 show was the most difficult part of his broadcasting career by a long way.
SP
Steve in Pudsey
James O'Brien on LBC is very good at pausing in his monologues at poignant moments. Letting things breathe and giving you chance to take his point on board before he continues.
NYTV, London Lite and deejay gave kudos
WO
Worzel
Markymark posted:
Worzel posted:
From someone who's worked in radio for 13 years the training I was given from day one was not to allow any silence and keep talking or play a tune. Easy if you're on a music station like Heart, not so easy if you're trying to handle a Breaking News situation on 5 Live.

I've done both music and speech based radio, the former is much easier than the latter.


Well, the two best DJs in the 45 years or so I've been a radio listener, (Roger Scott and Terry Wogan, both sadly
departed now) both said during their careers; paraphrasing, 'if you've got nothing intelligent or meaningful to stay, then say nothing'.

They had very different styles of course. Take a listen to some of Roger Scott's Capital Radio shows, there was plenty of flow, but little to no prattle. I agree speech radio is very difficult. Pete Murray once said moving to LBC and 100% speech after so long having records to fall back on on his Radio 2 show was the most difficult part of his broadcasting career by a long way.


And of course Terry Wogan was famous for talking for over an hour when a radio studio broke down around him (I believe in the 90s).
SP
Steve in Pudsey
Toby Foster on Radio Sheffield did something very similar recently when the backup arrangements during a power cut didn't go according to plan and the mics were the only thing that he could get on air.
CI
cityprod
Markymark posted:
Worzel posted:
From someone who's worked in radio for 13 years the training I was given from day one was not to allow any silence and keep talking or play a tune. Easy if you're on a music station like Heart, not so easy if you're trying to handle a Breaking News situation on 5 Live.

I've done both music and speech based radio, the former is much easier than the latter.


Well, the two best DJs in the 45 years or so I've been a radio listener, (Roger Scott and Terry Wogan, both sadly
departed now) both said during their careers; paraphrasing, 'if you've got nothing intelligent or meaningful to stay, then say nothing'.


If talk radio actually applied that standard, then it would be silent most of the time, if not all the time.
CI
cityprod
Markymark posted:
cityprod posted:
davidhorman posted:

I think you're talking nonsense again. What do they do, light up the Radio 4 switchboard if Nicholas Parsons pauses for comedic effect on Just a Minute ?


Of course, you don't have to take my word for it, here's a blog entry from someone who used to work in the radio business.

https://bluejayblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/dead-air/


Someone who used to work in American radio as far as I can tell; right well, there we are then,... Why should we pay any attention to his ramblings ?


Because radio is radio whether it's in the USA, Canada, the Uk, Ireland, France, Germany, Japan, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, India, Swaziland, or anywhere else. It's the same medium the world over. You don't believe that? Try listening to stations in other countries, maybe then, you might understand that radio is it's own universal language.


Quote:
He doesn't seem to understand that radio is not exclusively restricted to back to back records, linked seamlessly by inane and meaningless chatter, (although there is a undeniably a significant market for that, even I consume it at times). It can be far more conversational and thoughtful ( rather like the 'real life' he ends his blog with.)


By far the majority of stations worldwide are back to back records. The only difference is the artists they play. And yes, there are plenty that do far more than that, and they get most of my personal attention, but seriously, most radio these days is non-stop music and adverts.
DA
davidhorman
cityprod posted:

Because radio is radio whether it's in the USA, Canada, the Uk, Ireland, France, Germany, Japan, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, India, Swaziland, or anywhere else. It's the same medium the world over.


That's a statement as empty of meaning as saying "cinema is cinema," when the medium encompasses works as diverse as the latest Marvel blockbuster and a 4-hour documentary about a mole-catcher in Uzbekistan.

Quote:
You don't believe that? Try listening to stations in other countries


You do believe that? Try listening to Howard Stern and then listening to The Archers .
CI
cityprod
davidhorman posted:
cityprod posted:

Because radio is radio whether it's in the USA, Canada, the Uk, Ireland, France, Germany, Japan, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, India, Swaziland, or anywhere else. It's the same medium the world over.


That's a statement as empty of meaning as saying "cinema is cinema," when the medium encompasses works as diverse as the latest Marvel blockbuster and a 4-hour documentary about a mole-catcher in Uzbekistan.


At its heart, cinema is all about storytelling, and that's the same whether the film is 20 minutes long or 20 hours long. All cinema serves the same basic purpose, telling a story.

In the same way, radio is all about being the listener's companion, and that's the same whether the station airs drama, back to back music, non stop news, sports events, or even listener phone ins. It's that one to one nature of radio that defines it and is the same the world over, like storytelling is for cinema.

Television owes a lot to both cinema and radio, in different ways.

Quote:
Quote:
You don't believe that? Try listening to stations in other countries


You do believe that? Try listening to Howard Stern and then listening to The Archers .


Of course I believe it. I wouldn't say it if I didn't. Don't be obtuse.

Howard Stern. The most overrated, overhyped DJ ever.

The Archers. The most boring idea that ever lasted over 50 years!

Both my opinion of course. But if you want me to believe that somehow radio is different in different countries, by citing those two, you just failed miserably. Though they might provoke two reactions at extreme opposite ends of my personal scale, they are both examples of radio trying to talk to an audience of just one person. Done in two very different ways, but their ultimate aim is the same. To entertain the individual listener, listening on their radio, or their computer.

Cinema is cinema, it's all about storytelling.

Radio is radio. It's all about communicating with a single person.

Those are the facts. Deal with them.
DE
deejay
This really has descended to staggering levels of intolerance. And quite what is has to do with presentation on the news channel I just don't know.
CI
cityprod
deejay posted:
This really has descended to staggering levels of intolerance. And quite what is has to do with presentation on the news channel I just don't know.


Well, since someone decided that a TV newsreader picked up a radio style, the discussion went in that direction. And quite what it has to do with TV news channel presentation, well, TV owes a lot when it comes to news presentation to radio and cinema newsreels.

Lukwesa is a very competent newsreader, and they have a bloody tough job to do these days, and the lack of respect for how tough the job actually is that we've seen here at times is an insult to these hard working people.
IT
itsrobert Founding member
Anyway, back on topic.....

I've just spotted this recently uploaded video which shows the start of an overnight BBC News bulletin presented by Samira Ahmed during the last year of the flags era in February 1999: https://youtu.be/PTSfnRv5ksY?t=22m1s

This must have been just before Samira joined the Channel 4 News team at ITN. I'd forgotten that Samira had been at BBC News before her recent stint with Newswatch.
RN
Rolling News
One I've spotted - a clip of Nicholas Witchell presenting a BBC News bulletin after the 1999 red and cream relaunch. For some reason I always thought he'd stopped presenting before the end of the virtual era.

https://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=rZdx73Zi1Wg

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