The Newsroom

Central News East

New Newsgathering Centre (September 2004)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
FA
fanoftv
jay posted:
Reuben posted:


Yes they are, and it's bloody horrible and crap. In desperate need of a new one and soon.

And I'm hoping to see East on Sky really soon.


I wonder if Birmingham have just built two identical sets, if so CNE could have a sofa and no desk.

I wonder why they can't develop something so that either the regions are provided by a press of the red button (ala old BBC One), or so that they use all of their available space to put out ITV1 until it's needed for regional news where the quality would become lower.

Am I talking rubbish, or is the second possible too?
MO
morgaineofevil
forget that east is awful the quality has gobne down soo much since all these newer presenters were druaghted in theyre all bad at reading the news. i MEAN WHO PUT eMILY ON CNE AT SIX NEEDS TO BE SACKED She reads the news like a wet fish
Bob and Llewella rule!!!
LO
Londoner
fanoftv posted:
[I wonder if Birmingham have just built two identical sets, if so CNE could have a sofa and no desk

I think that is pretty much guaranteed.

21 days later

LO
Londoner
Thought people might be interested in this image of the new Nottingham news centre from the Government Office for the East Midlands website.
http://www.go-em.gov.uk/images/news/sep04/central_tv_medium.jpg

This press release from ATG also gives more idea on the timetable for the move:

Quote:
ATG Broadcast chosen for dual-site ITV Central installation
ATG Broadcast, one of Europe's leading broadcast system integrators, has commenced a major new project for ITV Central. The contract will see the installation of two new studios in Birmingham and a greenfield-site newsroom in Nottingham.

The objective is to provide studio facilities for both East and West Midlands regions in Birmingham. Central News East will be transmitted from Studio E in Birmingham within ITV Central's existing Gas Street headquarters. ATG will install a new production control room and sound control room, two news edit suites and two production edit suites. West Midlands operations will be controlled from Birmingham Studio W which will be equipped by ATG on the site of the existing Studio A. Installation at ITV Central in Birmingham commenced October 11 for February 2005 completion.

ITV Central's new Nottingham facility will contribute East Midlands content. Technical resources will comprise a newsroom, traffic area, apparatus room, two news edit suites, a graphics suite and a presentation area. The Nottingham project begins mid-November and is due for completion within one month.

Dave Whitaker, ATG Broadcast Projects Manager, comments:

"ATG Broadcast was chosen for its proven ability to handle both the electronic integration and the infrastructure-furnishing of large-scale broadcast systems contracts reliably and efficiently. ATG has a particularly high reputation in and around Birmingham for its many successful projects in the English Midlands ."

ITV Central is a division of ITV plc which began trading on February 2 2004 as a result of the merger between Carlton and Granada. Central is Britain's largest commercial television network, covering 25% of the landmass of England and reaching a potential audience of 9.4 million viewers.
MO
morgaineofevil
What is going on with Central News East. The presenters are so dislocated and not at all consistent, another new ish face that i have never seen was on the lunchtime news today, some guy. All the other cn presenters were on the on location reports. Why can't they just have their normal presenter to do 11am and lunchtime news anf maybe 3pm and then have the main new s at 6pm. I m not at all keen on any of centrsl news' newsreaders, all the goods ones seem to have left. (Lisa , Richard, Anabell,who actually now presents the late bulletin on NWTonight, and if i'm not wrong has a good chance of becomming anchor lady for nwt pretty soon.) It really isn't good for the viewers to see different faces all the time it doesn't feel very local and friendly. (mind you it sound sas if London Tonight is a bit like this as well!) I watch Midlands today with Nick and Suzanne, mcuh better than anything produced in the East region.!!
Well thats my opinion over, what dou you all think?
:-(
A former member
Why not broadbcast Central East News from the new building, e.g. like BBC london News, they only need a bit of a newsroom, and looks very effective, and it will come from Nottingham!
MS
MrStrawsonsSheep
gmtvtoday posted:
Why not broadbcast Central East News from the new building, e.g. like BBC london News, they only need a bit of a newsroom, and looks very effective, and it will come from Nottingham!


Quite.

My personal view (rubbish therfore)is that where the C3 licencee (in this case ITV plc - or one of its many subsidiaries), can't be bothered to provide a locally sourced and maintained news base in the sub-region. Then, the service would have to be provided by someone else, as directed by OfCom.

Thus - you get a sub-licencee, a sort of nominated sub-contractor who would act as the local news provider, and be paid by ITV for supplying the service. A bit like an affiliate, funded by network compensation, but in this case regulated.

ITV would still be able to pick and choose which sub-regions it supplied, and no doubt these would all be in the big cities (even Nottingham?).

The others would all have their regional news sourced from third parties. These third parties could be anyone, but logically would be existing news gatherers, such as groups of local papers, radio stations or ex ITV managament buy-outs.

You could even extend the concept by saying that at certain times of the day, C3's airtime belonged to the local sub-licencee, and noit ITV plc. This would be analagous to GMTV (or as was before ITV bought it outright).

You coul;d even go so far as to say that, as a proportion of air-time has to be supplied by airtime, then a proportion of regional news should be provided by independents as well. Possible ratios might be (say) 50 of all regional news by exposure.
NG
noggin Founding member
gmtvtoday posted:
Why not broadbcast Central East News from the new building, e.g. like BBC london News, they only need a bit of a newsroom, and looks very effective, and it will come from Nottingham!


But there is a lot more to a news presentation operation than the space required for the studio. BBC London is far from a cheap operation - just because it has no studio of its own...

To run a full studio operation you also need a gallery, a technical area, lines and most importantly staff to run the whole thing. If you co-site you can share many of these functions - and reduce running costs... That is the whole thinking behind doing it - running two studios, galleries, and production operations on one site is just cheaper than running two separate operations. Staffing alone becomes easier as you covering sick and holiday becomes much easier if the two studios and galleries are run from a single pool of staff - rather than two pools.
IS
Inspector Sands
Isonstine posted:
Having presentation and newsgathering miles away will severely hinder the whole smooth running of the operation.


Not really, with the technology that's around today it's no problem. All the crews bring their tapes back to Nottingham, they're edited on a computer and sent down a line to another computer in Birmingham.The reporters and journalists type their scripts and other data into their computers and it appears in the studio/gallery in brum. There's virtually no diffrence between having a presenter 2 desks away and one 50 miles away.



Quote:

It won't change the presentation of the programme much, but as has been said...who's going to bother driving to Birmingham to talk about a story in Lincolnshire?


Apparently the plan is to have a newsroom camera in Nottingham for down the line interviews
JC
Jack Carkdale
Inspector Sands posted:
There's virtually no diffrence between having a presenter 2 desks away and one 50 miles away.


Aah, at last, someone's talking sense! Smile Indeed, having virtually everything in Notts, but the studio in Brum will NOT be a disaster (neither technically nor journalistically).

For all those p*ssers-and-moaners: Be grateful that, as it turns out, it's just the studio that'll be in Brum. After all, it wasn't all that long ago that we were all assuming that ITVplc were intending no presence in Notts at all.

94 days later

LO
Londoner
New Central News building to be named Terry Lloyd House

Central took possession of the building today
LO
Londoner
So do we known when CN East will first be presented from Birmingham?

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