Election Night Results 2019: Presentation and Coverage

Sky, 45,000? Is that just Sky News, or does it include Sky One etc....?

From a pres point of view, Sky won it on the night. Coverage wise I'd go for Sky and CNN. BBC had the worst pres of the night, ruined by inane news bulletins when they should have been covering counts. ITV was meh and Channel 4 had an awful night not helped by Labour supporting comedians losing it.

Sky News’s G-UKTV providing the aerial shots above Buckingham Palace.

I abandoned BBC. It became apparent as the night went on that they were constantly missing results and just talking.

The hourly news bulletins completely took you out of the coverage and they missed important results live as a consequence.

I don't know what was wrong but it felt completely flat, the pacing was terrible.

I can't help but wonder, did anyone at the BBC see my video and think, hey, that works well? As their election titles were largely the same as years previous, just with the Arthur theme. I know it's extremely unlikely, but it doesn't hurt asking. I'm glad that I didn't listen to any of the previews until last night - I thought it was quite a good version of the theme and certainly sounded better than the 1997 or 2005 versions.



As for the coverage. The BBC's was a bit underwhelming, partly because of the much smaller set/studio, partly because there was no Dimbleby to make it feel special, and partly because their coverage of counts was quite slow and forced me to turn over at several points.

ITV's was solid as usual, with some interesting exchanges and discussions on screen from the guests, particularly with Ed Balls and Alan Johnson. Sky's has to be the most surprising - what's happened? Who at Sky News has decided to go back to graphics and sequences that make you go 'wow'? Bercow was a good guest with informed commentary (and no, Cando, that doesn't mean I condone any allegations of bullying).

As for Channel 4. Well, what didn't they do wrong? Far too many people on the panel, an audience that didn't feel like laughing at anything after the exit poll was revealed, Stanley Johnson being incredibly offensive/racist/Islamophobic, Jimmy Carr giving serious political commentary, graphics that (as Jon said) looked awful and about 15 years out of date (also did anyone notice the results graphic at the top was 4:3 safe but the lower thirds were 14:9 safe?). Anyone who was suspicious about Channel 4 giving the programme to a new production company without a tender has surely not had their worries assuaged after that. Apparently they even had to ask Zeppotron, the previous producers, for a copy of the titles and to use their set! https://deadline.com/2019/12/channel-4-alternative-election-night-anger-1202797051/

And with that I conclude my 10,000th post!

I know I’ve criticised the BBC’s studio but I thought the coverage was very good. Huw Edwards was just excellent - his depth of knowledge shone through and I never saw anything phase him, such as lines going down etc.

One triumph was when Andrew Neil was interviewing Alastair Campbell and he spotted the head of Momentum, Jon Lansman, entering the studio to chat to Huw. For a moment it was ‘oh no, they want to debate but they can’t because he’s over with Huw’ - but Huw took charge, put some of Campbell’s points to Lansman, and the director put them in split screen which allowed the debate we all wanted to happen.

As for the news summaries getting in the way of counts, to be honest once we’d seen the first few “Labour since 1923” seats go Tory with a swing of 10%, we’d seen them all. Unless you actually lived in the constituency concerned, so long as they put another seat on the Tory count it’s job done.

I think it was right they concentrated on the overall story with expert commentary rather than endless “I, the deputy returning officer for...” blurb!

Well done the BBC!

There's been so much talk of a Westminster 'Bubble' over the last decade - that commentators and experts cannot see what's happening beyond the capital. The irony is that there is also a TVForum 'Bubble' - that we, here, cannot see beyond the presentational aspects and do not recognise how the viewing public look at these things.

Was the Sky coverage any good? I don't know. I switched over briefly. The same goes for ITV. I only saw about 10 minutes of its coverage. The television was left on BBC One. I know what I'm going to get. People in the country at large know what they are going to get if they watch the BBC. It's as simple as that. Habit. Familiarity. We know that more people watch BBC News than ITV News.

I've seen Sky's reveal of the Exit Poll. Very nice. But would it work for the BBC? Let's imagine what would happen if they'd had a drone flying in from All Soul's Church towards Broadcasting House/NBH, flying up the plaza outside, in through the doors, through into newsroom and giant banners dropped from above revealing the poll. I can almost guarantee that there would be people here who would criticise it for trying to be Sky News or ITV. I can guarantee that there would be stories in the press about how much money the BBC wasted on its opening sequence (I'm looking at you Daily Mail...) If I'm honest, I'm waiting for one for the newspapers to question how much it cost to put spider cam in the newsroom for one day.

I was actually quite surprised by the walkthrough at the start, especially in the Media Cafe that was turned into the results/analysis area. It looked good. The touchscreen was of a good size and the graphics were clear. As a presentation point, it's a really good area. IIRC, the original plans for NBH included a studio there and on the opposite side. It's a shame that this never came to fruition.

The map on the plaza? It was criticised when it was first introduced (in 2015, I think). It doesn't really work. It didn't work last night. If this Parliament runs for a full five years, I expect that it will be dropped from the coverage.

On to the VR of inside NBH... Well... BBC News isn't very good at VR, is it? We've always known that. The graphics are never as good as they could be. It's as if they started to do a proper job and then ran out of money and hope to God that nobody notices how rubbish it looks when they use it. ITV's green screen/VR looks so much sharper.

I know there's been criticism of the news bulletins. Unfortunately, the BBC have always done news bulletins during Election Night. It's something that will remain, I'm afraid.

Would it have been a better broadcast from Elstree? Other than getting rid of the awful VR, all of the other elements would have remained. The map outside, the news bulletins. All would have been there still. It's a crying shame that they didn't do it from the newsroom itself. Shift a few desks in the pit, replace the circular LED gantry, swooping cameras. Would have been far more impressive but a logistical nightmare.

Edit: Just seen Moz's post about the BBC coverage. I fully agree.

NC's clock is on World..
Not really surprising though. After all, it's a simulcast

That hexagon map isn't even geographically accurate. They have one of Hull's three seats (which are all Labour) separated from the other two, by Cleethorpes (a Conservative constituency), of all places - that should be further south than Hull, not above two thirds of it! I get that they made all constituencies the same size, but places within the same town should still be adjacent to each other and everywhere should be placed geographically relative to each other. I bet there's other places with this problem.

One thing I would say is that ITV and Sky's coverage being simulcast on YouTube meant it was much more accessible than the BBC's on iPlayer - no registration, no agreeing to TV licensing, no drop in picture quality, no buffering when you navigated away..... crisp and clear all through the night.

Gold: Sky News
Silver: ITV
Bronze: BBC
Wooden Spoon: C4

I'm convinced that the BBC didn't do the map outside NBH in 2017, so I'm slightly surprised that it was brought back this year, especially given the winter conditions.