The Newsroom

BBC News Channel: Presentation

Move to Broadcasting House and new look today (April 2008)

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JD
jdav
BBC LDN posted:
Worzel posted:
I know it will probably never happen but it would be nice to see the BBC try something like this come 2012 when they move to Broadcasting House.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzafWs1bsHA&feature=related

A title sequence with the newsroom on it, a slightly fresher graphics package. Maybe we don't need the presenter walking from the pod to the desk but it would be good to see the BBC doing something a bit different.

Whether or not it will happen... it's still a thought.

(I always liked that Sky News look, branding and graphics - the schedule, well that was another matter but on screen it was pretty simple but very effective).


Yuk.

It's all such unnecessary embellishment and decoration, from the cringeworthy staged interactions in the 'busy newsroom' to the bizarre triplication of video on the wall, to that wide shot with the presenter walking towards the desk.

What on earth do all of these elements add to the delivery of the news? That video came from a period of time when Sky News was haemorrhaging viewers to BBC News 24 - partly down to the new presentation paradigm, and partly down to the appointment-to-view scheduling changes - and the fact that even today, the BBC News Channel enjoys considerably larger audiences than Sky News does is a pretty clear indication that the majority of UK viewers don't have a great appetite for unnecessary bells and whistles in their news presentation. Even with its flat and simple graphics, and even with its unremarkable shoebox studio, and even with its lack of majestic sweeping newsroom shots, the BBC News Channel enjoys larger audiences than its flashy competitor.

So what would be the point of abandoning the key to its current success in favour of promoting elements that did nothing to improve the ratings of its key competitor?

Or is this just another example of you finding a YouTube video and deciding to share with us your wish that BBC News was more like it?


Even though the Sky News Today format was based around that style for years before, and gained viewers in that time way before the relaunch in 2005.
BB
BBC LDN
jdav posted:
Even though the Sky News Today format was based around that style for years before, and gained viewers in that time way before the relaunch in 2005.


Indeed - but times move on, and tastes change. Viewers have voted with their remote controls. News audiences in the UK have increasingly rejected flash and glitz as being superfluous, and gravitated instead towards a less ostentatious - but arguably more focused - style of presentation.

The superlatives of presentation no longer seem especially attractive to UK news channel viewers - the biggest, the loudest, the shiniest, the techiest, the tackiest, the first (to break news)... none of these seems to matter quite as much as accuracy, simplicity and focus. Rightly or wrongly, it seems that the superlative presentation style creates a negative association with viewers when it comes to newscasting; very much a case of 'more is less'.

Neither excessive presentation flourishes such as needlessly grandiose camera sweeps and wide shots, and distracting or OTT graphics, nor appointment-to-view scheduling have resonated with UK news channel audiences in recent years - so while things may indeed have been different six or seven years ago, things can't stay the same forever, especially when audiences make it pretty clear that they don't want them to.
SN
SN2005
BBC LDN posted:
Indeed - but times move on, and tastes change. Viewers have voted with their remote controls. News audiences in the UK have increasingly rejected flash and glitz as being superfluous, and gravitated instead towards a less ostentatious - but arguably more focused - style of presentation.


Maybe not tastes, but audiences? The BBC News Channel has grown in ratings as freeview has grown in take-up has it not? Could it be that the people who have freeview are the same people who are more familiar with, and thus more likely to watch, BBC News. I always understood that Sky had a 'younger' audience. I'd be interested to see the demographics that the NC attracts. You can find one such profile for Sky News here.
PE
Pete Founding member
SN2005 posted:
The BBC News Channel has grown in ratings as freeview has grown in take-up has it not? Could it be that the people who have freeview are the same people who are more familiar with, and thus more likely to watch, BBC News


Not quite sure I understand your point, Sky News is on Freeview after all. Indeed if platforms had anything to do with it surely it would be virgin that would be the one that changed things when they removed themselves from cable.
GE
thegeek Founding member
jdav posted:
Even though the Sky News Today format was based around that style for years before, and gained viewers in that time way before the relaunch in 2005.
I know we're going back a little bit now, and my memory may be getting a little rusty, but I recall finding Sky News Today a whole lot more watchable before the 2005 relaunch. There was a short period where they seemed to be finding their feet (if you'll pardon the pun) in presenting bits and pieces from the newsroom: bits where they'd "roll out the floormap"; have Martin Stanford perched on a desk using some sort of fancy tablet PC; occasionally swoop through with the polecam; or just do things from the newsdesk as usual. Perhaps being constrained by a small boxy studio (but still managing to use it creatively) is what made it so watchable?

The competition also egged News 24 on in doing similar things - gimmicky, but quite good all the same. Remember the occasional 3D bits they'd do in the right hand pod of N8, like the Film 24 'cinema'? You don't need a big studio, or a big budget to make good telly, just a big imagination.
JD
jdav
I think for Sky, they need a big flashy studio, because its Sky. Creating an big impressive studio does no harm to their image. Only how they use it.

Sky have this studio, because of their imagination. They just don't have it in the programming department.
WO
Worzel
jdav posted:
I think for Sky, they need a big flashy studio, because its Sky. Creating an big impressive studio does no harm to their image. Only how they use it.

Sky have this studio, because of their imagination. They just don't have it in the programming department.


Or it could be the BBC maybe a bit scared of change, but it has to come at some point. Just because their viewing figures maybe considerably larger than Sky at the moment - doesn't mean that come 2012 they will still be that way, most people maybe bored of their current format by then - when the opportunity is there in BH to do some BBC World News style presentation and do something new.

I can't help but think that the current basic approach will be the same come the move. It doesn't hurt to try something new, McDonalds try new foods at their restaraunts now and again... if it doesn't work or people complain - they stop doing it. But if you don't try something you don't know what the outcome will be.
SW
Steve Williams
Worzel posted:
Or it could be the BBC maybe a bit scared of change, but it has to come at some point. Just because their viewing figures maybe considerably larger than Sky at the moment - doesn't mean that come 2012 they will still be that way, most people maybe bored of their current format by then


People won't be bored of the format, because it's not a format, it's the news. The only time people have really switched off BBC News was under John Birt - and surprise surprise, they had a massive virtual set and over-the-top graphics, which just made the news look flashy and forbidding and turned everyone off. That's why it was parodied on The Day Today.
DD
DarkestDreams
Well it said in the Guardian report that Broadcasting House has 'about 20 camera positions around the building {which means] it can double as studios' so perhaps we will see some more interesting presentation.

I do miss the daytime updates from the stairs actually, I liked those so I hope they bring those back. They felt much more real than the current CSO versions.
HO
House
DarkestDreams posted:
Well it said in the Guardian report that Broadcasting House has 'about 20 camera positions around the building {which means] it can double as studios' so perhaps we will see some more interesting presentation.

I do miss the daytime updates from the stairs actually, I liked those so I hope they bring those back. They felt much more real than the current CSO versions.


I preferred the staircase updates too - gave you the feel of them preparing for the update, even if it was CSO. Alternatively, I preferred updates coming from the studio itself to them coming from the current, bland CSO (which, in turn, is better than the original 2008 CSO).
DV
DVB Cornwall
Special Extended Coverage of the Queensland Floods from an Australian Network ABC - now on BBC News
IS
Inspector Sands
The BBC News Channel seems to be showing a whole ABC News bulletin at the moment covering the Brisbane floods. Not sure about the time difference but presumably it's their late night bulletin.

An excellent way to cover the floods and interesting to see Australian news in the way we normally do with American ones.

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