BBC World News from New Broadcasting House

Thanks Generic - can you give some insight into why the smart glass was replaced? I presume they couldn't get the contrast but they must have thought it would be ok as it was built and part of the set quite close to launch by the look of it.

I think it's a shame as I liked the look of the smart glass.

Presumably the same is being done in Studio E?

Having seen a few days of the output of BBC World on here, it appears to me that the rebrand resulting from move to W1 has almost entirely been focused on the studios. Obviously there's been a huge background change in moving newsrooms and over to new equipment etc, but I'm talking about the television output here.

Don't get me wrong, the studios are impressive and by focusing the rebrand on the studios you can effect more change on a programme than anything else (presentation wise). However, it does feel that the focus on the studio has meant the onscreen graphics overhaul hasn't been as radical, or successful as it could have been.

Although I like the amount of space taken up by the graphics, the shapes and their relation to the text looks messy in my opinion. The ticker text in Sentence case needs more room to breathe, and the BBC WORLD NEWS logo looks cluttered. It doesn't help that the weight of the logo and the text is so light.

The options that VizRT gives designers are immense. From my professional experience, they've only just dipped their toes in the water in terms of what the machine could do. The transition logic (how one graphic gets to another without being taken off screen, e.g. a single line strap to a double line) is well done, but unimaginative. I appreciate the graphics must stay on brand, and it's a news channel so they need to be fairly sober...but I'm not sure I like what I see.

BBC World News is a commercial channel and so distribution decisions are based on deals with platforms and partner networks around the world.

I'm not privy to the commercial discussions myself, but experience of WS would suggest that in America and Asia deals have been done that make HD financially viable - either through cuts of subscription revenue or additional advertising reach on a new platform. Given World News is already FTA across Europe they won't get any additional reach by putting an additional FTA HD service on Hotbird, and the pay TV providers aren't queuing up to fund a HD service (if they did it could well end up encrypted for that platform anyway).

Basically a launch in Europe will be very costly without any immediate prospect of additional revenue to offset those costs. I'm not saying it won't happen, only that it will be being considered alongside other distribution changes which have a better commercial basis.

It was never the intention to do a radical overhaul to the onscreen brand, as the money isn't there to roll it out across all networks. It's just a series of minor changes that were needed to make the existing title and graphic sequences look good in HD. In some cases it has resulted in them dumping the existing assets and starting again, so I can see how it gives the impression that a rebrand has happened in a lot of cases.

On the whole, looks and sounds really good. Orchestra incorporated into a solid TOTH mix is a real success - actually fits the tilt towards a more dynamic feel quite well, I think.


These are excellent; thanks Paul.

Done already

Do you know if the smart glass is going to reappear anywhere else? It seems like a terrible waste of money on something which is probably quite expensive.

(I know in the general scheme of things, their massive budget etc etc.)

Can a bulletin not be shown on BBC HD Europe?

They were chosen so the cameras could shoot though them, allowing a wider range of shots etc, but as you've correctly guessed, they couldn't get the contrast in them to make them look good on camera.

AFAIK BBC HD in Europe doesn't show news programmes.

If it did, then it would depend on if the broadcast glue between the two networks was HD capable or not.

Hello, I am a BBC World News viewer from Brooklyn and a new poster here. I am a subscriber to Verizon FIOS and currently BBC World News is on Channel 107. Unfortunately, the channel is not available in HD on my system. I understand that BBC World News in HD on Time Warner. However, when ever I see BBC World News broadcasts on BBC America (which is in HD on this system) it is in 4:3 and not in high definition, even with the transition to the new facility. When can I see BBC World News broadcasts in HD on BBC America? Also, I want to know how some posters here are able to capture HD broadcasts of BBC World News. Thanks.

That seems like a pretty big cock-up by Jago/BDA/whoever's responsible for the sets. Surely they'd be aware of the limitations and requirements of the technology they were using?