I wish I could have remember were I saw it, but I have seen footage of the studio in daytime bulletin mode with a couple of journalists sitting off camera to the right of the presenter
That late eighties/early nineties Nine o'clock News intro has never been bettered. If the BBC wanted to look to the past to move into the future with a (much needed) rebrand of BBC News they could do a lot worse than begin there for inspiration.
That late eighties/early nineties Nine o'clock News intro has never been bettered.
I have to completely disagree here - I think it's possibly the worst of the past 35 years! I loved the previous Nine O'Clock News theme tune and graphics, which for me is the best ever national news intro. I remember sitting down on 31st October 1988 to watch the new opening titles for the first time, and was absolutely appalled at what they done - the titles looked so basic and horrible compared to what they replaced, and it seemed such a step backwards. I didn't like the use of the newsroom as a backdrop either.
At the time I felt it was the Six O'Clock News music and titles that needed updating, not the Nine, which I thought by that time were already rather tired, yet they were to last another four-and-a-half years!
I think the problem with the Nine 1985-88 titles was that they were just so over the top. Especially when compared to the much more sober and authoritative ITN News at Ten opening titles. I'm not really surprised they were replaced fairly quickly. Probably my favourite Nine titles were the 1981-85 "Chinese lantern" or "Venetian blinds" ones. In my opinion, they were much more classy and understated than the "flying fish fingers" or "transmitter and lightning" Nine titles.
That news summary intro music always reminds me of growing up and when the hourly news summaries interrupted the kids programmes in the school holidays. Back in those days the presentation of the bulletin and the entire way it was read was about as dull and boring as it could possibly be.
That news summary intro music always reminds me of growing up and when the hourly news summaries interrupted the kids programmes in the school holidays. Back in those days the presentation of the bulletin and the entire way it was read was about as dull and boring as it could possibly be.
Me too, that and the full version of the One O'Clock News theme always remind me of the school holidays, as does the last version of the Pebble Mill at One theme before it was axed to make way for the new daytime television service. Clearly I was usually near a television at 1pm during the holidays.
That late eighties/early nineties Nine o'clock News intro has never been bettered.
I have to completely disagree here - I think it's possibly the worst of the past 35 years! I loved the previous Nine O'Clock News theme tune and graphics, which for me is the best ever national news intro. I remember sitting down on 31st October 1988 to watch the new opening titles for the first time, and was absolutely appalled at what they done - the titles looked so basic and horrible compared to what they replaced, and it seemed such a step backwards. I didn't like the use of the newsroom as a backdrop either.
At the time I felt it was the Six O'Clock News music and titles that needed updating, not the Nine, which I thought by that time were already rather tired, yet they were to last another four-and-a-half years!
I disagree with your assessment. At the time, what seemed most stale and in need of an overhaul was actually the weekend news programmes, which were still using the "Chinese Lantern" look, which looked really dated by that point. The fact that they created this look and used it on the Nine O'Clock News, as well as the weekend news, I really liked it, it made the Nine O'Clock News look more authoratative, rather than the flying fish fingers which looked somewhat gimmicky by the time they stopped using it. The fact that during Election 87, they replaced the flying fish fingers with the flight around the Palace of Westminster, kinda highlighted how gimmicky the flying fish fingers were. And then they went back to the flying fish fingers for another year plus.
The transmitter look also managed to tie in the weekend news to the weekday bulletins, sort of a first attempt at a corporate look. The simpler look was so much better. Much like the equivalent weekend bulletins on ITV at that time, which was also a simple, stylish look.
I seem to remember those 9 o clock news titles being quite an innovation at the time and they got a lot of attention and comment (I seem to remember them appearing in one of my school textbooks for some reason). Was surprising they didn't last longer.
The transmitter titles are a design classic though, just so dramatic and they pack so much into those 10 seconds, both in the visuals and the music . The big problem with them is that they were just a title sequence, nothing else of that design was utilised in the other elements that makes up the rest of the bulletins like is the norm today.
The only other thing it was used for was as a logo for the news and current affairs department. The tower was turned into a dog shape (news hound?) and it appeared on the copyright caption of some programmes
I remember reading on TV Ark that were was some controversy with the transmitter titles, as they were created by an outside firm (Lambie-Nairn IIRC) and the BBC promised it would never happen again(!)
