BBC News | New Countdowns 2020

The insta post in question and the edits to the countdowns I’m afraid were entirely coincidental. Sorry.

No way!!!! And here was me congratulating the lightning speed of Auntie for a change. 😜

Joking aside, I’m not sure that new countdown music would make sense, unless all the music was also changed.

Mind you, back in the day, BBC World’s “breakfiller” music was entirely different from the main theme music. (There were no countdowns as such back in those days).

In fact, I really like the countdown audio and visual elements. Especially after the orchestral touches were added a few years back.

(It is NOT my mobile ring tone, by the way.....)

I still have Breakfast 2001 as my morning alarm.

Yes definitely. But we know that will never happen.

Something akin to the 2010-13 countdown theme would be interesting to see

Refreshed countdowns are up! Aired just before News at 5.
Hint: glowing numbers are gone

Ah I was hoping for a whole new style of countdown with numbers without the milliseconds - disappointing

Correct me if I’m mistaken but someone said the countdown plays automatically in the background on a loop in the Mosart running order and when all the trails finish playing out from said running order it joins the countdown in progress? Are the numbers burnt in for the final 90 seconds or are they generated on the fly?

When did anyone indicate that?

It’s just the same countdown with a few different clips isn’t it? 🤷‍♂️

Not the revolution i wanted but nice to see a refresh in the clips.


Dharshini has replaced Alastair Leithead and Faisal Islam has replaced Steph McGovern in that particular countdown (God I'm so nerdy).

They’re not milliseconds (that would be 3dp) but they’re not centiseconds either, they are frames - going from 00 to 24 to represent 25 fps (as it’s interlaced 1080i50).

If you look at the first number after the colon notice that only 0, 1 and 2 appear, with the 2 only appearing for half the time that 0 and 1 appear for obvious reasons.