Flash flooding in Cornwall

I imagine if Sky had bothered to send their helicopter out, it would've been there by now.

Pretty pointless buying the bloody thing if they are never going to use it.

Do Sky have a sat truck based in Bristol?

Very thorough, in-depth and fast moving coverage of this very major and terrible news story on this evening's Spotlight - making full use of the resources available to them, including the talent of their reporters and presenters, and David Braine in the studio for weather updates.

It's a shame that Spotlight can't roll with this news - that was effectively what they were doing during the half hour period of their programme, and they did it very well. Where a story of this enormity is concerned, perhaps the regions should be allowed to drop scheduled programmes and show rolling news coverage, or at least have regular updates between this evening's programmes on BBC1.

I think they have an bureau with a couple of reporters and a truck in Bristol, yes.

They should have, but Bristol is 2½ hours away from Boscastle... if the roads are clear.

Dare I suggest that this might not have been welcomed by the majority of viewers, given that just about every phone interviewee has said that the local weather forecasts didn't warn them about this?

Indeed. The main thing that is hampering rescue efforts is the impassable roads - how do you get a sat truck in when a road has 5 feet of water on it? No point taking the BBC from Bristol down. And more to the point, don't the BBC also have a sat truck based in Plymouth? If they are going to send one it would make more sense to come from Plymouth than Bristol.

Is your property 5ft under water?

If so, email your pictures to newschannel@itv.co.uk - for everyone we show we'll give you £250! and add some nice canned laughter for dramatic effect.

Seriously, if you'd just lost your house, or car - or road! What would make you want to take a picture and send it to the ITV news channel. BBC every time!

SKY are just as bad! Both ITV and SKY have begged for photos or 'moving video' to be emailed to them!

SKy did begin their 19:00 hour with some natty 3d graphics of the story - ie some rain on a window pane in the background and a 3d map infront with four yellow RAF helicopters flying around.

Also, maybe a bit tongue in check, but at 19:15 SKY News showed the promotion about their technology and how advanced their news gathering is and how they had a helicopter...etc.etc I wonder if this was placed there because the helicopter hasnt been sent out????

Also to note ITV News dedicated 19:00 - 19:15 with Owen Thomas getting better all the time, getting the correct tone and some decent questions to people in the Bocastle area.

BBC News 24 has been far superior tonight! (you dont get me saying that often!)

Oh, I'm sure some people would be pulling out their Nokia camera phone and shooting video clips. How some people are managing to send it I don't know, since mobile coverage is supposed to have gone down, as has power in many areas. I think it's more an act of frustrated hope in order to get on the ground pictures on their channel - no ground based TV crew can get close enough.


Surely the fact that a major news story has broken, with on the ground reporting impossible, and they haven't dispatched their chopper to the scene would be the last time they'd choose to promote it's existance?

ITV and Sky just missed the Nottinghamshire police news conference- although it only lasted 2 minutes.

Sky have managed to get some of those floormap graphics up for the floods, which look OK, but then they covered it up with the breaking news caption.

I don't think it's that bad Sky and ITV showing viewers pics/video in the absense of the BBC helicopter shots, but you would have thought the ITV would be able to edit their shaky video just a bit? To remove some of the more pointless sections of green blur during the too-quick pan across the forest. I think (but am not sure) that Sky even went to the trouble of editing their pictures to cover number plates- but this could just be the photo quality.

There is no way that the BBC could possibly afford that, unless you are advocating a massive rise in the Licence fee