BBC World [soon to be BBC World News]

Breakfiller from 1999

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqSlV6fN2ZM

wow it really is superb, that's what you call a breakfiller!

and here's another excellent from the year 2000, ah those were the days

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B43TuEce7qo

i felt that BBC World's Breakfiller during 2004 was best. after that, in 2006 it's Dreadful... Especially the music...

Now these are what I call titles!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHYHsSKEQ5w

The newsroom seems much bigger than I remember. Those were the days... Richard Quest and Paddy O'Connel on the WBR, Weekend World, and the flags! #Memories... like the corners of my mind...#

I always thought that it was a miracle the Automated Breakfiller ever worked at all! It was a combination of an Apple Macintosh computer, a BBC Modified Laserdisc Player and various data sources. The sequences of backgrounds and music were on the laserdisc and the mac would get the data for the text and render it live on air in conjunction with the background. There were about 15 different break sequences as I recall, varying from 30" to 3'00" in duration. There were five different sorts of information that would be displayed in 30" chunks: Coming Up, Sport, News, Business and Weather (though strangely, the Weather sequences were seldom seen on-air) The Mac got the coming up sequence from BBC World Teletext (so consequently showed European opt-outs with a subnote saying what was on in the rest of the world as in that youtube example). Originally the World newsroom were responsible for the text on the News pages, though this later changed to Teletext as well. I've a feeling that the Business information originally came from Reuters...

When there was a minute to the break, the automation would send a standby pulse to the Mac, which would
(a) cue up to the right part of the laserdisc to provide the correct break sequence
(b) check for the latest data that it needed for the chosen break sequence
(c) produce a visible cue on it's output so that the pres director knew it was ready (this was usually at about 30" to the break!)
(d) on transmission it would then run the laserdisc and render the text live in synch.

If it went wrong (which it didn't very often) it was usually becase one the data streams wasn't working or was out of date. You either saw a Menu from the Aston for the whole break or if the director was feeling keen, a sequence was chosen so that the affected part of the break was avoided either by choosing a sequence that didn't include News (or whatever) or by some clever vision mixing off to a menu leaving the sound from the break running.

The original ABF was the one with the white backgrounds and was updated in 1999 with the classic David Lowe breakfiller music and red backgrounds. The beginning of the end for the breakfiller though was when Teletext on BBC World was significantly cut back (thus depriving the ABF of it's data). A quick fix was to change the ABF backgrounds to just Coming Up Sequences and monthly highlights listing were downloaded onto the Mac every month (as on one of the youtube examples). Eventually the current "Dynamic Junction" idea was born where video and data would be run in a split screen format.

Wow, that's amazing. What an insight! I've always thought the breakfiller was a very creative solution, it's surprising more similar channels don't use them.

Yep - that is a special opening with a slow mo mixing montage and the very long opening music. It was used on special news days - I think that looked like Kosovo coverage to me but I might be wrong.

Always thought that era of music was particularly effective. The studio was OK with the rotated plasmas (which rather too often displayed pictures on their side...) - though I'm not that keen on the set design (it was a modifed version of the News 24 original set ISTR)

The Newsroom does look quite big - I think in one of the revamps they removed a row of desks to allow the news set to be deeper..

I guess that now there are multi-region streams there is less of a need for a break filler with nice 30" slots to drop in and out of on a core stream, and as more advertising is sold, the dynamic junctions, that replaced the automatic break filler in its various iterations, is seen less and less around the World.

AIUI the half hour shows on World have got shorter and shorter over the last decade or so as more advertising is sold (at one point in Europe there were very few ads indeed - so you saw a LOT of break filler)

Whilst I liked the white flag era one visually - I always thought the flags on World were a very clever graphic device - making the service feel international and inclusive, with the music somehow sounding a bit more World Service Radio than the later packages, which tied in more closely with BBC TV News domestic services.

That said - I do love the David Lowe music as music - and the break filler here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkT7CUA-oVE&mode=related&search=

Is pretty effective.

It is wonderful isn't it. All of his work seems to be fantastic, I'd highly recommend his newest album, there's some very BBC sounding parts in places.

Am i the only one who have notice over the last 2-3 months there are more ads on BBC WORLD. We hardly get to see the breakfillers.
programs have been cut to go to commercial breaks.

They also increase the number of commercial minutes sold to advertisers. Are they feeling the pinch from the commercial sector.

It is all about the money.

it could also be the reach of bbc world and the confidence from advertisers.
will all the cash be shared with all the stiff compitition from AJE, CNN, SKY, FOX, FRANCE 24, and others.

BBC World is often keen to point out the erm... 'pedigree' of it's viewers: highly paid, well educated, decision makers in their firms etc. This in turn results in a higher than average appeal for specialist/luxury/high value advertisers, eg private banking, hotel adverts from the likes of Mandarin Oriental and Ritz Carlton as opposed to Holiday Inn and Novotel and high value car marques (which is why 'BBC World News' on PBS is sponsored by BMW and recently Rolls Royce). According to their research and as evident in their advertising, BBC World attracts this type of viewer more than its competitors in most markets. During boom times, this is good news, during bust times though things aren't so rosey. At present though, there are many indicators showing the post-9/11 recovery is doing well and (fingers crossed) should continue - good news for BBC World.

Is this just in europe or have other regions notice the changes. the weather has been cut for more commercials at the botton of the hour.
now you see lots of 3 min breaks.
also the variety of companies. EXON, TOYOTA, LEXUS, CANON, UPS, BANKS, TRAVEL AND LEISURE SECTOR.
It is good news that they are making more money, hopefully this will result in better product and new studios.
wonder how much does a thirty second ad cost.
In the US Fox News makes a millon plus a day.

the rates are on the bbcworld.com website