BBC News Channel: Presentation

Thanks for putting up those clips. I was three when these were filmed and it was great to see how they did things back then.

Aha. The Ice Maiden. And Doily. And Sleepyhead. LOL.

Thanks, Rob.

3?! Oh my word, I've been on this forum for far too many years! You were hardly walking when the forum started... I feel old Come to think of it, if you're 14 now, I was that age when TV Forum started and I was recording those clips!

Geez. So, at mid forties, I must be the oldest person on here!

You're all making me feel very vintage now!

I'm probably the only person who remembers Reggie Bosanquet and Peter Woods as tv's main newscasters of the day..........LOL.

Haha, well if Jaxford is making me feel old at 25, and I'm making you feel old in your mid-40s, then that, sir, makes you practically a fossil

On the subject of the clips, I really did love that era of BBC News. 1999-2003 was just fabulous. The titles, graphics, music, studios... the lot! If only HD had existed back then. That vamp they used on overnight bulletins always makes me chuckle. I think someone edited the BBC World vamp so that it had more beeps at the start. The idea was that it would make the opt in easier for BBC World. However, whoever did it somehow managed to change its pitch as well, meaning it sounded awful going into the title music! For at least 2 years that vamp was used every night and it was never corrected!

The BBC bomb clips took me back. It was the first time I'd seen them in years. The clips come from News 24 the day after the explosion. N9 is in a different part of TVC to the News Centre which houses N6 and N8. The bomb damage meant that BBC News 24 couldn't broadcast from N8, so they moved to N9 for several days and produced joint bulletins that went out on BBC World as well. The National News couldn't use N6, and if I recall correctly they used the Breakfast set in TC7 the day after the explosion with Sarah Montague presenting. Sadly, I didn't capture that for some reason.

Only watched the Heather McCarthy one but the headline bed does not fit in with anything else at all. Was this normal?

Haha, I've just mentioned this in my post above yours, dvboy. Yes, it was normal during that period - only on the overnight bulletins. When David Lowe's first music for BBC World debuted, it was decided to use it for overnight bulletins. As I recall, until that point they'd been using the BBC One news titles overnight. Anyway, I remember being told by someone at the time that they took the BBC World headlines vamp and wanted to extend the start slightly to faciliate the opt in for BBC World at the top of every hour. As well as extending the start, for some reason, its pitch was raised too. This meant it jarred when going into the title music. It happened every night for a couple of years and was never corrected.

Maxine Mawhinney looks really high up in that first clip, what's going on there?

Wow, it's now been 4 years since this era begun and we dropped the 24. My how time flies! Is it just me or does it still feel rather fresh and new(-ish) 4 years on... increasingly important with no refresh in sight following the move to BH.

No, I disagree there - it's aged. The titles are fine, perhaps in need of a refresh but other on screen graphics such as astons, content backgrounds, splits and so on look awful today, that and it appears the Lambie-Nairn kit of parts fell drastically short of what was needed - for example the regions were left without a closing sequence, some hashed their studio screen 'property' as LN called it, others made their own (Midlands Today use a blank version of the screen property sans programme name and just fade an alpha image of the text etc on top). North West Tonight have broken away from the main look - yes it looks similar but the point is they're meant to look the same. The 'Live Bug' template was non existent leaving regions to make their own, London opting for a black on white, nationals using white on black, Midlands Today using white on grey and mixing the weights up. There was a severe lack of stings included by LN too, leaving regions without too much creative licence within the style - 1 sting, 1 short titles and 1 long titles, all an aftereffects thing with a workflow, in case you've wondered

There was also no split screen made, leaving regions to compromise (again!) and some don't half make a pigs ear of it - teeny tiny strips with the locations in them, usually Gill Sans Bold as well, 10 pixels tall - others just abandoning this completely and using a static white background with grey text on it (here's looking at you Spotlight)

Gill Sans looks truly awful on astons and doesn't hold much weight in its bold variants (pardon any potential puns there) - again something that's not truly standardised throughout.

It's hideous! Roll on the updates, make it better - please! Looking at Martin's mock of the 2000 with '08 colours I REALLY miss the decoding place names and transmission rings.

**WARNING - Images ahoy!**

To prove my point, an assortment of graphics from a few regions - look at the variation (pics TV Live)
Look North Hull use this split screen
http://www.tv-live.org.uk/wp/media/bbcnews2008/regions/looknorthhull/lnhull0820.jpg
Midlands Today use
http://www.tv-live.org.uk/wp/media/bbcnews2008/regions/midlands/mt0942.jpg
meanwhile Points West adopt
http://tv-live.org.uk/wp/media/bbcnews2008/regions/pointswest/pointswest1007.jpg
as for Look North Yorks
http://tv-live.org.uk/wp/media/looknorth/splitscreen.jpg

Closing endboards:
SET
http://www.tv-live.org.uk/wp/media/bbcnews2008/regions/southeasttoday/setoday200956.jpg
LDN
http://www.tv-live.org.uk/wp/media/bbcnews2008/regions/london/london200909.jpg
MTD
http://www.tv-live.org.uk/wp/media/bbcnews2008/regions/midlands/mt1023.jpg
LNL
http://tv-live.org.uk/wp/media/bbcnews2008/regions/looknorthleeds/bbcyorks0812.jpg

Live bugs:
http://www.tv-live.org.uk/wp/media/bbcnews2008/regions/midlands/mt0923.jpg
http://www.tv-live.org.uk/wp/media/bbcnews2008/regions/looknorthhull/lnhull0814.jpg
http://www.tv-live.org.uk/wp/media/bbcnews2008/regions/southeasttoday/setoday200821.jpg

Graphic randomness, also notice the kerning differences - I get different regions have different systems but some of these look like Powerpoint!
http://www.tv-live.org.uk/wp/media/bbcnews2008/regions/london/london200833.jpg
http://www.tv-live.org.uk/wp/media/bbcnews2008/regions/looknorthhull/lnhull0903.jpg
http://www.tv-live.org.uk/wp/media/bbcnews2008/regions/midlands/mt0941.jpg

From those examples it does seem that Look North Hull are consistently the tidiest loooking.

That said they do have an awful non corporate aston to trail Lord Levy's radio show

Talking of radio - I've noticed NWT have started using new astons to trail Radio Manchester football coverage, looks very slick.