IT
What a find! Thanks for sharing. I've never seen Alastair present from the newsroom at GIR before. I'm intrigued now... I wonder whether he ever did the odd weekend bulletin (which came from the newsroom) at this late stage.
Notice how bare the newsroom looks during this early period compared to the later years, I wonder when they put all the world maps on the walls? The view out into the atrium looks very dark as well in the other camera shots. It's interesting to see this bulletin in comparison to the later 1990s ones, when the camera shots displaying how full the whole building had become.
Lovely to see Alastair throwing over to a young Bill Neely as well!
Glad you like it, Nicky. The bulletin is introduced with the special Gulf War music so this is probably one of the additional programmes they did from the newsroom position. I doubt Alastair would have presented weekend bulletins in the early 1990s. He was probably at ITN to do News at Ten on that particular occasion and so presented the Gulf War news report as part of his shift.
Yes, the newsroom is indeed very bare. I think the newsroom remained pretty much like that throughout 1991. As far as I can tell, the world maps were only installed for the launch of the Early Evening News in March 1992. Prior to that it was a bit on the bare side! You're right to say that the building was practically empty at this time too. If you scroll down to the ITN 8 O'Clock Gulf News Report (presented by Trevor McDonald) on http://www2.tv-ark.org.uk/news/gulf_war.html you will see that the upper floors of the building were totally unoccupied in the early stages of 1991. I bet the Gulf War was perfectly timed for ITN: they had just moved out of the cramped and overcrowded Wells Street building and into the breathtaking GIR complex and the Gulf War the next month gave them the opportunity to experiment with their new atrium!
itsrobert
Founding member
I've just been searching for some old ITN presentation on YouTube and I came across this little gem which shows a very rare sighting of Alastair Burnet in the Gray's Inn Road atrium studio: http://youtu.be/rzvMqW7p_KE?t=6m33s This would probably have been from early in 1991 when the Gulf War was under way, so 200 GIR is literally brand new here. ITN had only moved into the building in December 1990. And if I'm not mistaken, that little TV screen he interviews Jeremy Thompson and Bill Neely on is the one they used to wheel in for the News at 5.40!
What a find! Thanks for sharing. I've never seen Alastair present from the newsroom at GIR before. I'm intrigued now... I wonder whether he ever did the odd weekend bulletin (which came from the newsroom) at this late stage.
Notice how bare the newsroom looks during this early period compared to the later years, I wonder when they put all the world maps on the walls? The view out into the atrium looks very dark as well in the other camera shots. It's interesting to see this bulletin in comparison to the later 1990s ones, when the camera shots displaying how full the whole building had become.
Lovely to see Alastair throwing over to a young Bill Neely as well!
Glad you like it, Nicky. The bulletin is introduced with the special Gulf War music so this is probably one of the additional programmes they did from the newsroom position. I doubt Alastair would have presented weekend bulletins in the early 1990s. He was probably at ITN to do News at Ten on that particular occasion and so presented the Gulf War news report as part of his shift.
Yes, the newsroom is indeed very bare. I think the newsroom remained pretty much like that throughout 1991. As far as I can tell, the world maps were only installed for the launch of the Early Evening News in March 1992. Prior to that it was a bit on the bare side! You're right to say that the building was practically empty at this time too. If you scroll down to the ITN 8 O'Clock Gulf News Report (presented by Trevor McDonald) on http://www2.tv-ark.org.uk/news/gulf_war.html you will see that the upper floors of the building were totally unoccupied in the early stages of 1991. I bet the Gulf War was perfectly timed for ITN: they had just moved out of the cramped and overcrowded Wells Street building and into the breathtaking GIR complex and the Gulf War the next month gave them the opportunity to experiment with their new atrium!