The Newsroom

General Election Thread

Discussion/speculation/predictions (February 2010)

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DA
Davidjb Founding member
noggin posted:
Davidjb posted:

Was Sport based at BH? I remember when News 24 first launched the sport came from St. Elsewhere to start with, was it BH?


BBC TV Sport were based at Kensington House (a studio-less production office building now known as the K West Hotel) with studios at Lime Grove and then TVC. I think TV Sport moved to offices in TVC around 1995ish when Docs, Sport & Events, Science & Features etc. all vacated the building (moving either to White City or TVC)

However News 24 started in a very odd way. It wasn't part of the TV News bulletin operation, it was initially part of the BBC Continuous News division (also home to FiveLive, Ceefax and BBC World - I think). Thus the sport news on News 24 was made by the Radio Sport News division (might not have been their accurate name) which also did the sport news on Five Live.

Because N24 launched a little under a year before the News Centre was finished, the Radio Sport team were still at BH, so they got a very simple (and horribly basic) TV operation at BH (with the infamous "presenter operated mic switch") prior to moving to their better operation in the News Centre. ISTR that the sport bulletins moved to their new home at the News Centre a week or so before News 24 moved from their original operation just outside the News Centre, to the News Centre space (now occupied by BBC World News)

Sport News has had a bit of a nomadic existence, wandering between being part of News and Sport - though now both are in the same Journalism division it makes life a bit less complicated I guess.


I remember those first sport bulletins on the very shakey News 24 back then, perched on the edge of a desk in the corner of an office with a rather colourful wall painted behind it.
SW
Steve Williams
noggin posted:
Until the late 80s, there was a separate TV current affairs department based at Lime Grove (which did Nationwide, Newsnight, Breakfast Time etc.), but John Birt merged the News and Current Affairs departments when he was Deputy DG, and the Current Affairs stuff moved to TVC.


Yes, but when the two departments were separate, the election was a Current Affairs production - its editors all came from the likes of Panorama and Newsnight - and hence their offices would have been at Lime Grove, although the studio was always TC1. And will be again this time. As for the rehearsal, before the last election they printed pictures of the rehearsal in the Radio Times - production staff sat next to Paxo with "Ann Widdecombe" signs round their necks - but they didn't use the set, so presumably they can do a rehearsal in any available studio.
MD
mdtauk
I imagine the rehearsals would all be about data ingesting, swingometer, results announcements and hand-overs at this moment in time. Once the set is constructed, the camera rehearsals will begin.
MA
Magoo
Any thoughts on Sky’s election coverage?

I was wondering whether they may stick to the ideas of their 2005 coverage - two senior correspondents focussing on each of the major parties, reporting from a swing seat, use of the Skycopter, and then the similar idea to their election night coverage. Some pictures from last time courtesy of TV Newsroom: http://tvnewsroom.co.uk/news-events/election-night-05/ (Thanks for reuploading them Johnnie. Always loved the event coverage bit of the site.)

Adam Boulton/Julie Etchingham last time so wonder who it will be this time, perhaps Adam Boulton/Jeremy Thompson again or Adam Boulton/Kay Burley? Plus Martin Stanford with the analysis. Personally, I feel they should perhaps adopt a similar to their US Election coverage: studio-based presentation and then four or five presenters on location in key locations.

What would people like to see?
SP
Steve in Pudsey
noggin posted:
Incidentally - there has never historically been a huge TV operation based at BH - though there was a small multi-camera studio there (or possibly Bush) at one point in the 60s/70s I believe (as well as the old remote DTL studio) I think, bizarrely, some Welsh language shows came from there at one point...


Even more bizarrely, when Top of the Pops was still being made in a converted church in Manchester, bands which wouldn't journey up north would perform in the small studio in BH in a similar way to Whistle Test's use of Pres B. The Radio 1 DJ who would present next week's show also did an insert from BH. Technically, the programme originated in BH - it was cheaper/easier to feed Manchester output through the BH studio than use an additional circuit to have BH appear as an outside source in Manchester.

http://www.tvstudiohistory.co.uk/old%20bbc%20studios.htm#BH

(apologies for this off-topicness!)
GR
gregmc
That Sky News set looks ridiculous now, at the time did it really look 'state of the art'. I remember many forumers thought it was a sneeky peak at what was to come with the 2005 Rebrand!
CA
cat
Magoo posted:
Any thoughts on Sky’s election coverage?

I was wondering whether they may stick to the ideas of their 2005 coverage - two senior correspondents focussing on each of the major parties, reporting from a swing seat, use of the Skycopter, and then the similar idea to their election night coverage. Some pictures from last time courtesy of TV Newsroom: http://tvnewsroom.co.uk/news-events/election-night-05/ (Thanks for reuploading them Johnnie. Always loved the event coverage bit of the site.)

Adam Boulton/Julie Etchingham last time so wonder who it will be this time, perhaps Adam Boulton/Jeremy Thompson again or Adam Boulton/Kay Burley? Plus Martin Stanford with the analysis. Personally, I feel they should perhaps adopt a similar to their US Election coverage: studio-based presentation and then four or five presenters on location in key locations.

What would people like to see?


Not sure what Sky have planned but one would assume it would come from their main news studio with their virtual studio in use as before.

What will be interesting is whether Sky now join up with the BBC and ITV following the success of last time's exit poll, which got the result spot on. Sky have always refused to use exit polls, citing their inaccuracy in 1992 (suspect it's more down to cost in reality), and instead last time commissioned YouGov to run what was I think a daily tracker during the campaign.
NE
newsatten
I think this is the right place for it to go ( without opening another thread)

I think the Gordon Brown's Life Stories interview wen't quite well for him.
I think it did show a bit more of a human side to him.

From a handful of tweets too , most seem positive.
IS
Inspector Sands
noggin posted:
Incidentally - there has never historically been a huge TV operation based at BH - though there was a small multi-camera studio there (or possibly Bush) at one point in the 60s/70s I believe (as well as the old remote DTL studio) I think, bizarrely, some Welsh language shows came from there at one point...

BBC TV started at Alexandra Palace, then expanded into Lime Grove, Riverside studio and TV Centre (plus the TV Theatre and a few other places). Slowly the other studios were vacated as TVC studios were finished and then the requirement for studios changed, but BH was never a major TV studio operation.

Although in the very early days of TV before Alexandra Palace the experimental broadcasts came from studios in the basement
GE
thegeek Founding member
gregmc posted:
David Dimbleby was on 5 Live this afternoon and revealed that they had rehearsed their Election broadcast last weekend over Friday/Saturday using mock election results in real time.

Apparently the rehearsal took place in N9, but the programme for real will be a TC1 production, as per usual. And, I'm told, in HD.
GR
gregmc
sstripling posted:
I think this is the right place for it to go ( without opening another thread)

I think the Gordon Brown's Life Stories interview wen't quite well for him.
I think it did show a bit more of a human side to him.

From a handful of tweets too , most seem positive.


Yet screamed a desperate final attempt to win over voters. 'Aww poor iccle Gordon had a fight with Blair' Laughing

Interesting the rehearsal took place in N9. Has any of the BBC Election 2010 branding been aired yet? I imagine it might be in the same 'Lambie Nairn' vain as the EU Elections?
JA
Jamesypoo
They wouldn't go amiss if they used branding similar to the Democracy Live graphics.

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