The Newsroom

BBC Points West - best regional news programme or what?

(June 2009)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
DE
deejay
kirstie75 posted:
deejay posted:
Yes, it's painted and ISTR they had a good three weeks or so presenting from the newsroom while the floor was relaid and painted and the set was moved and relit. In that set's first incarnation the floor was gloss black (some Forumers may remember it was a radically different set to the Lambie-Nairn design all BBC news studios had at the time). The studio floor was the original Studio floor from the 60s and the gloss paint did nothing at all for it; it became very spongey and was pitted within weeks making camera tracks rather difficult. IMO the set still looks extremely good.


Ok, that confirms what I had heard (about it being painted), thanks!
I saw the Politics Show today (Sunday 12th) on BBC West (the Points West area) and see that they had a local weather slot presented by Ian Fergusson towards the end of the programme, which was a surprise to me. Two questions from this arise,

(1) Are other BBC regions also including local weather in the Politics Show?? and
(2) Ian Fergusson was without a tie, like David Garmston, the guy who presents the Politics Show in this region. Does anyone know if the BBC now has a rule that weathermen are to 'dress down' at weekends? I've noticed that they often have no ties (sometimes unshaven also, like Thomas Schafernaker a lot lately!!) on BBC News Channel at weekends (Ian Fergusson seems to have switched to this style at weekends too, which makes me think it's a rule being enforced by BBC powers in the local weather studios too??)

Thanks for thoughts. BBC Dumbing down for the masses (or weathermen not bothered to wear ties??lol)


(1) yes, regional weather during the Politics Show started when Country File moved to the evenings (although the Country File weather was national rather than regional).
(2) I don't know for sure that there's any sort of policy, but Politics Show is supposed to be 'accessible' and therefore informal, unlike the very worthy and rather stuffy regional political coverage it replaced many years ago. That used to be on BBC Two and was watched by very small audiences ISTR. Ian Fergusson not wearing a tie for this forecast probably fits in better with the style of the programme. AFAIK, breakfast weather presenters don't wear ties either - when Ian does breakfast is he tie-less?
IS
Isonstine Founding member
Surely a more relaxed weather presenter style is nothing new? Of course John Kettley is a weatherman - so here's a fine example:

http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/weather/bbc_images/bbcweather_daytime88a.jpg

And so is Michael Fish:

http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/weather/bbc_images/weather_may1985a.jpg

http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/weather/bbc_images/fish_breakfast-01.jpg

With thanks to TV Ark for the images.
KI
kirstie75
deejay posted:
kirstie75 posted:
deejay posted:
Yes, it's painted and ISTR they had a good three weeks or so presenting from the newsroom while the floor was relaid and painted and the set was moved and relit. In that set's first incarnation the floor was gloss black (some Forumers may remember it was a radically different set to the Lambie-Nairn design all BBC news studios had at the time). The studio floor was the original Studio floor from the 60s and the gloss paint did nothing at all for it; it became very spongey and was pitted within weeks making camera tracks rather difficult. IMO the set still looks extremely good.


Ok, that confirms what I had heard (about it being painted), thanks!
I saw the Politics Show today (Sunday 12th) on BBC West (the Points West area) and see that they had a local weather slot presented by Ian Fergusson towards the end of the programme, which was a surprise to me. Two questions from this arise,

(1) Are other BBC regions also including local weather in the Politics Show?? and
(2) Ian Fergusson was without a tie, like David Garmston, the guy who presents the Politics Show in this region. Does anyone know if the BBC now has a rule that weathermen are to 'dress down' at weekends? I've noticed that they often have no ties (sometimes unshaven also, like Thomas Schafernaker a lot lately!!) on BBC News Channel at weekends (Ian Fergusson seems to have switched to this style at weekends too, which makes me think it's a rule being enforced by BBC powers in the local weather studios too??)

Thanks for thoughts. BBC Dumbing down for the masses (or weathermen not bothered to wear ties??lol)


(1) yes, regional weather during the Politics Show started when Country File moved to the evenings (although the Country File weather was national rather than regional).
(2) I don't know for sure that there's any sort of policy, but Politics Show is supposed to be 'accessible' and therefore informal, unlike the very worthy and rather stuffy regional political coverage it replaced many years ago. That used to be on BBC Two and was watched by very small audiences ISTR. Ian Fergusson not wearing a tie for this forecast probably fits in better with the style of the programme. AFAIK, breakfast weather presenters don't wear ties either - when Ian does breakfast is he tie-less?


Hello Deejay, thanks for explaining about the Politics Show. I hadn't considered about the Countryfile change, so that makes sense.

I only see Breakfast on Mon-Fri (do they even have regional segments on weekend mornings?). Ian was wearing a tie this morning (and a 3 piece suit, have not seen that before on weather, maybe he will get brave and ask Michael Fish for his old jumpers and jackets!!) and as far as I know, he always does on weekdays, so does Richard Angwin, the other weatherman on Points West. Maybe they are told they must do this, as a rule for just Points West itself? Sometimes I think the BBC is far too stuffy in terms of image, maybe could learn a thing or two from GMTV although I confess to preferring BBC Breakfast in any case!

Did anyone else see that they started Points West this evening with presenters standing up? Much more modern, I thought. They could do the Breakfast news slots like this too, it would look good.
DE
deejay
Bear in mind that presenters standing up brings many problems for programmes with fewer people behind the cameras (in other words, most programmes except the 6.30!). Most regional centres have foot pedals to control the autocue for breakfast and weekend bulletins (some centres use them for most of their programmes) but presenters standing up cannot easily operate autocue pedals without looking awkward. Hand-held wireless controllers are available now but they're not commonly found AFAIK. Lots of regions still use hard-wired mics and talkbacks, which makes moving the presenter around the studio on a whim rather difficult. There are also lighting and camera movement implications for standing for some links and sitting for others - cameras are often on fixed shots and the lights are often off or on, called up by preset cues. Breakfast bulletins are generally crewed with the bare minimum of people, often just a presenter and an operator/vision-mixer.

143 days later

PE
Pete Founding member
Bit of cross-posting I know but I felt it deserved putting in what currently appears to be the thread for points west...

Long-standing TV Forum Favourite , Susan d'oilie Osmond, is moving to China because the BBC think she's menopausal. I'll certainly miss her exciting doilie based fashions as she cropped up on random hours on News 24.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1232720
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/12/02/article-1232720-076EDD70000005DC-100_233x353.jpg

I would like to dedicate to her one of my favourite ever TVF posts

tvmercia posted:
seeing as you're so *in* with the osmans, can you tell me if susan protects her furniture by placing hot drinks on formal blouses? if so i think may have identified where susie has been going wrong.


Those were the days.
ST
South Today
Lovely to hear good news about Susan after she disappeared when she left PW. Completely agree with her. Good Luck I say. Very Happy PW became a joke when they decided to employ Alex wotsit as main presenter.
NG
noggin Founding member
Steve in Pudsey posted:
seamus posted:
It does look brand new.


It was second hand when they got it! That used to be the BBC Three "60 Seconds" set, modelled here by our own NickyS

http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/otherchannels/bbc_three_images/60seconds_nicky2007.jpg

Pic from TV Ark


But not THAT 60 Seconds set - that was the set that was used for the 30 minute "7 O'Clock News on BBC Three" - which lasted until the end of 2005. If you look carefully you can see the background is made up of five separate black towers of three plasmas each, angled a bit and the plasmas aren't all the same size. There were 15 plasmas in the towers, one in a coffee table, and three projectors in that set - quite a tricky show to vision mix (and it was vision mixed by the director... )

When 60 Seconds was done on that set, it was decided to match the previous look, and so the top and bottom plasmas in each tower were used as virtual lightboxes! (The previous set had used lightboxes)

The Points West set is the one used by the original 15 minute "The News Show" and the 15 minute "7 O'Clock News on BBC Three" that followed it. This was a straight run with a strip of five plasmas in the middle row with lightboxes in the rows above and below, and became available around the middle of 2004 when Points West got it.
Last edited by noggin on 2 December 2009 11:36pm
NG
noggin Founding member
seamus posted:

Regarding Points West, I think TVARK was referring to this part of the set:
http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/bbc_west/bbcwest_images/news/2008/pointswest_main2008b.jpg

It does look brand new. Perhaps they just need a refit like Spotlight.


Nice to know that a set that is at least 6 years old is still going strong. Points West have the remnants of the original "The News Show" set used by BBC Three News from Feb 2003. It started off white, then was repainted black when it became a 15 minute "7 O'Clock News on BBC Three", and was then shifted to Bristol.

Ironically, those chairs are exactly the same as the ones used by the replacement 30 minute "7 O'Clock News on BBC Three" that replaced the 15 minute one and got the run of the whole studio (as Liquid News had finished). They're good chairs for that kind of set.
RM
Roger Mellie
As a side note: The five-day forecast only appears within the Politics Show on a Sunday, if Country Tracks isn't on (usually supplanted by Formula 1)
BC
bcdr
South Today posted:
PW became a joke when they decided to employ Alex wotsit as main presenter.

Spot on!

110 days later

JV
James Vertigan Founding member
An interesting report on the Digital Switchover in the West on Points West tonight - they said the analogue and digital signals were split so viewers would see a report relevant to them about the switchover. Of course, watching on Sky here in London, I only got to see the digital version.
SP
Steve in Pudsey
That is interesting - wonder how they did that? Perhaps opted out with the main gallery on digital and the pres gallery on analogue (with the main studio's output running through it until that report?) Probably helped by the fact that Bristol has an extensive Comms Centre compared to many regions. Did they manage to get (the right) subtitles onto both platforms?

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