BBC World News - to 14th January 2013

The World Today in the flags era was the main bulletin of the day and aired in the evenings (7pm uk), in the slot which is currently presented by Zeinab Badawi. In the flags days, the presenters of this particular slot were Donald MacCormack and Nici Marx.

They later introduced a second edition of said programme, which was targetted at the Asian audiences. This stream was presented by Stephen Cole, and is the one featured in the link above. Today's "Impact with Mishal Husain" occupies the slot then held by Stephen. (2pm UK time). The main difference between the programmes was that the 7pm edition had two main anchors who sat side-by-side at the main desk. Whereas the 2pm edition had one main anchor and a newsreader who sat at a different deskpod, actually facing the main anchor. You can just catch a glimpse of her in the zoom-in to Stephen Cole, above.

When the flags era ended and we moved to the current David Lowe brand, The World Today brand was abolished, along with all the other brands, and each edition became the generic BBC World News.

After a gap of a few years, The World Today (5am UK time) was launched again, and is the programme featyred above presented by Martine Dennis and Tanya Beckett.

I see. It's funny how things turn around following all that generic BBC World News you get The Hub, GMT and Impact without any mention of the initialism 'BBC'.

That brings back memories.

Originally you had
0600 - 0900 CET: BBC Newsday [Philip Hayton]
1100 - 1300 CET (Winter), 1200 - 1400 CET (Summer): BBC Newsdesk [fixed to 1000 GMT, 1900 Tokyo] [Nik Gowing and Tim Sebastian with Martine Dennis, Lindsay Brancher in the newsroom]
1430 - 1530 CET (Winter), 1530 - 1630 CET (Summer): BBC Newshour Asia Pacific [fixed to 1330 GMT, 1900 Delhi] [Nisha Pillai and others, with e.g. Liz Pike in the newsroom]
1900 - 2100 CET: The World Today [Donald McCormick and Nici Marx]
2300 - 0100 CET: BBC World Report, including World Business Report and 24 hours [often Alistair Yates]
0200 - 0500 CET: BBC Newsroom, including Asia Today and 24 hours
(CET - Central European Time, for UK times deduct one hour)

So the European Evening (CET) into 1996 was:
1900 The World Today
2100 BBC World News
2105 or 2110: Money Programme (Monday); Panorama (Tuesday); Documentary (Wednesday/Thursday); Question Time (Friday)
2200 BBC World News
2230 Time Out: Holiday (Monday); Clothes Show (Tuesday); Food and Drink (Wednesday); Tomorrow's World (Thursday); Film 96 (Friday) {Other programmes in this strand included Top Gear (Saturday) and QED (Sunday)}


Then in April 1997, Newsday was shorted by 30 minutes to accomodate a new programme called HARDtalk at 0830 CET. Newsdesk moved to 1200 CET Winter, 1300 CET Summer and was shortened by 30 minutes for HARDtalk. The World Today was shortened by 30 minutes, to give HARDtalk a 2030 CET showing. Newsroom & World Report disappeared.

At this point Time Out became World Living, and a new 30 minute strand of current affairs programmes was launched under the name of World Focus. Longer programmes moved to a new strand called Weekend World containing three 50 minute documentaries or factual series including Horizon at the weekend (Saturdays at 2105 CET). This allowed the 5 minute summaries during the week, e.g at 2100 CET to be replaced by full half hour bulletins followed by the World Focus 30 minute slot.

Summer 1997 looked like this: (CET)
1900 The World Today
2030 HARDtalk with Tim Sebastian
2100 BBC World News
2130 World Focus
2200 BBC World News
2230 World Living

At the end of October 1997 , at the beginning of the 2nd flags era and the Sun flag ident, Newsday, Newsdesk, Newshour all became The World Today. The European morning World Today ran from 0700 - 0830 CET. All other times remained the same. Europe Direct launched at 2100 CET in November 1997 simulcasting from BBC News 24. USA Direct screened at 0105 CET. World Focus was moved to 2330 CET. Question Time, Newsnight (used to be 0110 CET), Tomorrow's World, Breakfast with Frost were among the programmes culled from BBC World in 1997, and Dateline London with Charles Wheeler launched.

The evening in CET:
1900 The World Today
2030 HARDtalk
2100 Europe Direct
2200 BBC World News
2230 World Living
2300 BBC World News
2330 World Focus

By mid to late 1998 , Europe Direct had moved to 2310 CET then 2330 CET. An extra World Business Report was added. BBC World and BBC News 24 started to simulcast overnights from April 1998. The European morning World Today disappeared (can't remember exact date). The other The World Today's remained. BBC World moved in to N9.

In 1999 , World Business Report at 2210 CET moved to 2230 CET and developed into the London/New York double header edition. At some point Europe Direct just disappeared off our screens.

In 2000 , all editions of The World Today where axed, and the April 2000 schedule looked like this (in CET):

1700 BBC News
1730 Asia Today
1800 BBC News
1815 World Business Report
1830 Features (ex World Living)
1900 BBC News
1930 World Business Report
1945 World Sport
2000 BBC News
2030 HARDtalk
2100 BBC News
2130 Features
2200 BBC News
2230 World Business Report
2300 BBC News

In September 2001 , The World Today was relaunched from 0600-0900 CET (0500-0800 UK), with Tanya Beckett making the move from BBC Breakfast to this programme.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v214/nonstick/Screenshot2011-04-25at111428.png
grab from the YouTube video

I remember this from the time, and always thinking it very clever that they had two desks facing each other, and yet no visible cameras

Also, look at all those CRTs!

From the other clips you've posted, it's funny seeing this one of Lyeeeese Docettte - I have exactly the same TOTH, in audio only, because I didn't have any video capture facilities at the time.

I believe that's the back of Nisha Pillai's head we see above, news reading for Stephen Cole. And Nisha will be on BBC World later tonight, filling in for Zeinab Badawi on WNT.

Mishal Husain also away (wedding prep one assumes), as is Nik Gowing, with their slots filled by Lyse Doucet and Lucy Hockings respectively.

Another week of world anchors on the roam, it seems.

In N9 for a few hours today, but back in World Studio for The Hub, which incidentally, is presented by Peter Dobbie yet again today. Nik Gowing has been away for a month now.

Did anyone else have trouble with the sound on hardTalk this morning? Or was it only in my region? Strange hissing and wind noises all the way through the programme.

Have you checked the batteries in your hearing aid?

For those who keep tabs on such matters, it looks like World will be in N9 for the weekend. (And no, I don't know why.)

Yes, that was the first thing I checked. But I have one of those new-fangled hearing aids that runs on propane gas, as opposed to Alkaline batteries. I save a fortune a year on batteries.

N9: think the glass could do with a little visit from Mr. Sheen.

Is it an illusion, or does the lighting in N9 get a damn sight worse every time WN use it compared to the election programmes? I don't recall Dimbleby being as poorly lit as Adnan Nawaz was last night, and every other time I've seen the overnights use it?

I think they make more of a effort when its broadcasting to UK audiences, otherwise N9 its pretty much how it is, poor lighting, shoddy cameras which the Beeb should have thrown away many years ago, sound interference, luckily BBC World News comes from N8 and not from N9.

The plasma is of terrible picture quality in N9. The image always has a yellow-ish tinge to it.