The Newsroom

Election 2010

Rerun .... (April 2020)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
MO
Mouseboy33
If you are interested in American election programmes this is an excellent YouTube channel. During the long hours of lockdown I have been enjoying the NBC Presidential election broadcasts of yesteryear. Tom Brokaw and John Chancellor were an excellent team.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7X0LKts7k4FT498Id_x5sg

Those days are well and truly gone. And surprisingly not so long ago. Shame really. Brian Williams certainly had the gravitas and writing skills of the old school network anchor man. Oh well.
RK
Rkolsen
If you are interested in American election programmes this is an excellent YouTube channel. During the long hours of lockdown I have been enjoying the NBC Presidential election broadcasts of yesteryear. Tom Brokaw and John Chancellor were an excellent team.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7X0LKts7k4FT498Id_x5sg

Those days are well and truly gone. And surprisingly not so long ago. Shame really. Brian Williams certainly had the gravitas and writing skills of the old school network anchor man. Oh well.

He still does, Im still a big fan. He told a fish story about himself but never lied or effected his reporting. His MSNBC show The 11th Hour sort of like 100 Days was supposed to be temporary since the election. He has held down the timeslot and I believe is beating the cable newser competition.

On the show you certainly see more of his personality than when he anchored Nightly News. I wish they brought back Rock Center even as a monthly news magazine - they still have many of the high profile names they lured over from the other networks - Kate Snow, Harry Smith, Cynthia McFadden. And they added excellent and hardened foreign correspondents like Bill Neely and Keir Simmons who although is mainly a Today correspondent has proven he can report from war zones while doing fluff pieces.
SW
Steve Williams
It is interesting that the 1983 General Election was probably the most sterile General Election programme that the BBC ever produced. In the studio there was just Dimbleby, Snow and Sir Robin Day (and guests). All the production staff were hidden out of view and Tony King & John Cole only made sporadic appearances throughout the night. The computer graphics were very basic and lacked effect and Snow was seated most of the night, therefore not jumping about the set as we came to expect in later years. It was also a short broadcast. The programme started just before 11pm and finished by 4am, before resuming the next day. I think I read somewhere that it was possibly not even made in studio one, so downsized was the production. It was until 1992 that the BBC returned to the vast set, complete with rows of production staff in the background.


We've discussed the eighties elections before and indeed they weren't in TC1, they were in TC6 - 1987 certainly was, I think 1983 was too. That was very much the style of the time, all slick and pristine, though things in telly do tend to go round in circles - of course in the last election we were back to the backstage staff being, er, backstage. It's like how in the nineties there was the trend for virtual sets (like the BBC News and MOTD) and then when they were revamped they got real sets again, and now for sport virtual sets are back in fashion.

As you say, it was quite an interesting election because it was the first with computer graphics, but the technology didn't exist to project them on a large scale, so Peter Snow stayed seated pretty much throughout, which was a bit of a contrast fom 1979 when Bob McKenzie had his big wall of graphics, and indeed in 1987 when the technology had moved on and Snow had a big screen. The coverage started at 10.40 but this wasn't unusual, in those days it was seemingly considered not worth coming on too early when there was nothing to report - in 1979, although they came on at 9.55, they went off again between 10.10 and 10.55 for Mike Yarwood. Similarly they kept on the 4am finish until 1987, and indeed it was billed in the Radio Times as finishing at 4am in 1992, but they decided to carry on. In 1983 especially though the whole result was done and dusted within a few hours.

While John Cole only made brief appearances in 1983, I presume he was also involved in the radio coverage. In the seventies the Political Editor - David Holmes in 1979 and Hardiman Scott in the 1974s - weren't on the TV coverage at all, they were on the radio (presumably still considered the senior service).
UKnews and tightrope78 gave kudos
RD
RDJ
Backstage staff were only backstage last year because of how sudden the election was called and the lack of usual studio availability.

Hasten to think that should the usual studio in Elstree or even TC1 has been available they would have gone with that and with their usual style as per the rest of the elections in the 2010’s, all four of them in total!
SW
Steve Williams
RDJ posted:
Hasten to think that should the usual studio in Elstree or even TC1 has been available they would have gone with that and with their usual style as per the rest of the elections in the 2010’s, all four of them in total!


It does sound like there were loads, but we had four elections in the seventies as well, and in a shorter space of time too (June 1970-May 1979, compared to May 2010-December 2019).
MA
Markymark

......and indeed in 1987 when the technology had moved on and Snow had a big screen. The coverage started at 10.40 but this wasn't unusual, in those days it was seemingly considered not worth coming on too early when there was nothing to report -


Yes. 1987 ITV had Spitting Image 10:15 to 10:45 I think. It included sketches in accurate mock ups of both ITN and the BBC election studios too !
BA
bilky asko

......and indeed in 1987 when the technology had moved on and Snow had a big screen. The coverage started at 10.40 but this wasn't unusual, in those days it was seemingly considered not worth coming on too early when there was nothing to report -


Yes. 1987 ITV had Spitting Image 10:15 to 10:45 I think. It included sketches in accurate mock ups of both ITN and the BBC election studios too !

Anglialad and Markymark gave kudos
UK
UKnews
RDJ posted:
Backstage staff were only backstage last year because of how sudden the election was called and the lack of usual studio availability.

Hasten to think that should the usual studio in Elstree or even TC1 has been available they would have gone with that and with their usual style as per the rest of the elections in the 2010’s, all four of them in total!

The decision to use NBH was in the planning long before the snap election - albeit with the idea there was a chance there could be one at any time. It's one of the reasons why the European elections earlier in the year had been produced from there.
GE
thegeek Founding member

EDIT: Just found out that a far higher quality version of 2005 was uploaded a few months ago, great to see!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fz6OdDZhT0

I've just watched some snippets of that - I don't remember seeing a huge amount of it at the time - I think I may have been in the midst of my finals and/or drunk.

TV Centre was definitely the star of that set design. The louvred panels seen on each of the alcoves are a copy of a bit that probably wasn't often seen by the public, the upper levels of South Hall. The window views appeared to be live too, either looking into the donut or out across Wood Lane from the colonnade. Skip forward to the closing seconds of the video and you can see one glitching a little...
GE
thegeek Founding member
Just noticed that the publicity shot billings page on /programmes has a composite image of the presentation team in N9:
*

(thought it was worth mentioning given the amount of chat about the old TVC studios on here lately)
RK
Rkolsen
RDJ posted:
Backstage staff were only backstage last year because of how sudden the election was called and the lack of usual studio availability.

Hasten to think that should the usual studio in Elstree or even TC1 has been available they would have gone with that and with their usual style as per the rest of the elections in the 2010’s, all four of them in total!

The decision to use NBH was in the planning long before the snap election - albeit with the idea there was a chance there could be one at any time. It's one of the reasons why the European elections earlier in the year had been produced from there.

But say for a scheduled one and Elstree was available they’d go with them again?
NG
noggin Founding member
RDJ posted:
Backstage staff were only backstage last year because of how sudden the election was called and the lack of usual studio availability.

Hasten to think that should the usual studio in Elstree or even TC1 has been available they would have gone with that and with their usual style as per the rest of the elections in the 2010’s, all four of them in total!

The decision to use NBH was in the planning long before the snap election - albeit with the idea there was a chance there could be one at any time. It's one of the reasons why the European elections earlier in the year had been produced from there.

But say for a scheduled one and Elstree was available they’d go with them again?


My guess (and it's only a guess) is that NBH with the Elstree Hub only will be the model for the future. It's a lot more cost-effective, and worked pretty well last year. With the BBC still having to save significant amounts of money year-on-year - it's kind of difficult to justify a more expensive studio solution once you've delivered a cheaper one that still works on-screen and uses all your existing facilities.

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