BBC News Channel: Presentation

Unfortunately sometimes it seems the BBC (and especially News) is good at piggybacking off of the licence fee so they don't have to 'keep it fresh' and still know they'll get the money.

Would be nice to see the BBC News channel take some hints from BBC World News, who are trying different things and is still a very watchable channel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BWjB9RQzTw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eay2f_VRGuE

http://up.metropol247.co.uk/Chie/BBCNEWS.mp4

56 seconds of the news countdown mix. I love this update, no sign of it getting boring for me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt_6UKg0wnI

BBC News is getting worse with its overuse of the Breaking News straps, to the point where it is impossible to distinguish ACTUAL breaking news anymore.

Disagree about the first two, but I've always loved the music from the BBC virtual era. Sounds timeless. It actually works quite well with those titles!

Disagree with all of them really, less so with the BBC virtual music. Somebody on here did a mock once mixing the virtual era music and David Lowe and it worked quite well

Did anybody see the countdown before the Ten last night? How long was it?

About 55 seconds, although the weather slide didn't want to leave the screen so the visuals didn't appear until 48s.

Equally, being funded by public money means they have to justify every expenditure. Remember the outcry when they had this rebrand, both from the public and the anti-BBC press, that they'd spent so much money on a few seconds of video and not much else (in thier eyes). Just because Sky has updated their graphics doesn't suddenly mean it's more justified to spend public money on new graphics. When the current look was introduced, it will have been given a lifespan, almost certainly until they move to BH, and apart from exceptional circumstances, no additional money will be provided to have another go at the design of the News department.

Regardless of "piggybacking off the licence fee", BBC News is still the most viewed news service in the UK, so obviously, apart from a small number of people on an enthusiasts site, most viewers are not seeing a need for them to constantly "keep it fresh" in order to encourage them to watch. Sky have spent millions on advertising their new HD service, with more detailed graphics, info bars, and the ability to see Adam Boulten's veins pulse in high definition, yet still got around a third of the viewers of the BBC News Channel - so much for "keeping it fresh" dictating where the audience will go.

That's exactly my point. There's little more Lowe can do in the current style of BBC News music. He's already tried ramping it up, adding FXs, taking it back to basics. There's nowhere else to go. What I'm suggesting is that Lowe - or someone else - needs to take the basic elements that work and build them into a new, fresher style of theme. Hence why I used Dave Hewson as an example. He's demonstrated that the key ITV News elements can be kept but made to sound fresh in a different theme each time. Lowe just keeps churning out the same old stuff but ever so slightly tweaked.


ITV News 1995-1999. BBC News 1993-1999. Channel 4 News 1999-2005. Need I go on?

What was that?

News Special on BBC ONE at 5.15