Live Reports on News Bulletins

Watching the BBC News at Six tonight, it seems that today is a relatively slow news day, with the attacks on the British Council obviously leading the news, but not requiring extended reports or a great deal of analysis. And yet following the report, apparently someone felt that it was necessary to go live to the reporter in Afghanistan for an update. Sian Williams asked one question and the reporter (whose name I cannot remember) gave an answer that can't have lasted more than 20 seconds.

Obviously, this is fairly run of the mill stuff, and it doesn't look like the live report is going away any time soon. But a day like this makes me wonder whether it might not be best to dispense with all the "now we can go live to *whoever* in *wherever* for the latest. So, *whoever*, what can you tell us?" When there isn't an actual two-way conversation between the newsreader and the reporter it all just seems terribly contrived and embarrassing to watch

Sometimes, when there's something big going on in the US, I have a look at the NBC Nightly News. Their approach seems to be a bit more sensible. They cut straight from the filed report to a live update from the reporter, who will usually hand back to the studio by simply saying the newsreader's name. Personally, I think the live report is usually completely unnecessary, but if it must go on, the American way of handling it is often more appropriate and less contrived.

I agree sometime they are unnecessary but the American way is no better at all - much better reporters are introduced and hand back to the studio formally. (I haven't liked it recently when ITV have had a presenter on location and just cut back to the studio for the next story without a formal handover).

I completely agree with what you've said; unnecessary lives have annoyed me for years. NBC does have a good way of handling them - like you say, sometimes Brian Williams will introduce the report and the reporter will come straight on afterwards to give the live update without having to unnecessarily 'chat' with Brian. Other times Brian throws to the live reporter first, then the report is played and then the reporter comes back on afterwards to hand back to Brian. It does look a lot slicker than the British way of doing it. What's more, I find it's easier to watch and less cringe-worthy too.

I have a few downloads of full ITN bulletins from the late 80s and early 90s and it's quite refreshing to see a newscast without any lives at all. They occasionally went live to a reporter (like Michael Brunson for politics) but it was by far the exception rather than the rule. As a result, it was much more effective. Nowadays there are so many lives every day that they almost become pointless. In terms of ITN, I think the pointless lives started in 1992 when the Early Evening News launched. It spread to News at Ten when it re-launched with Trevor McDonald in November 92. Before that they were very few and far between.

Brunson was brilliant in my opinion. There was a documentary in 1988ish, a BBC/ITV co production, it was shown on ITV, I can't recall if it was repeated a few days later on BBC 1 ? but anyway it recorded a day in the life of UK TV. There were camera crews covering, (from memory)

BBC Breakfast
TV-am
A BBC LE management meeting
A meeting with Greg Dyke and John Bromley (LWT and ITV Sports heads)
BBC 1's continuity booth
An OB somewhere

Anyway, part of this was Micheal Brunson on College Green preparing a 'live' for the ITN lunchtime news, it was uncertain until a few minutes before he was due on air, how long his slot would be. I seem to recall he was given 45 seconds to fill at a minute's notice. He ad libbed his slot perfectly. That was his skill as both a journalist and a presenter.

I find the whole idea of a reporter being 'interviewed' by a presenter bizarre in the extreme. As a journalist you should be capable of relating the story to the audience solely by yourself, directly to that audience, and without having to send your questions back to the studio, so they can prompt your answers !

If these lives are so unnecessary I don't see why not having the presenter introduce the reporter (and that's often just the case, rather than "interviewing" them) makes them more necessary.

Just a thought - could the US situation be down to timezones, so they can insert a different "live" update in to the bulletin when airing in later timezones should the story develop?

I find the reporter interviews only add value when the reporter has actually witnessed the event being reported on, court cases being a prime example, they can reflect the 'colour' of the case easier in an interview format.

Quite often 'lives' will be done purely because they can.

Regional news programmes are a good example. A BBC region will have it's own satellite truck (and possibly another links vehicle) and each day there will be a crew (2 people) rota'd to it. It makes sense to assign them to a story even if there's no real reason to do so. Although sometimes superficial, a 'live' adds to a story and also has the advantage of filling a few more minutes of the programme, the only extra cost is the diesel for the truck and maybe transport for the on-air 'talent' - there's no crew costs and the satellite space is part of the BBC's leased space so is sitting there waiting to be used.

Of course often a sat truck will be sent to a story because it is required to send back a package or raw pictures, again if it's there and the reporter's there, why not do a live from it?

Another good example of an opportunist live is something like the weather on BBC London News. Often the weather presenter will be live on location, they've either been sent there because there's a truck and crew which would be sitting around doing nothing or it's an alternate camera angle from an earlier live report. Often you'll see a reporter on Oxford Street doing an economy story and then 10 minutes later Peter Cockcroft doing the weather from Bond Street doing the weather... that's just the cameraman walking around the corner!

A lot of news producers seem to be obsessed with that little LIVE bug top left. They think it shows the viewer that they're really 'there' and reporting from the scene (despite the fact that the reporter invariably was there for a VT package, but it's just that they've driven back to the office to prepare the report for TX).

Yes, it's a shame that this is the general opinion in the industry now as I would argue a well-prepared VT package is much more effective than an ad-libbed live any day. With a VT, the reporter can carefully craft it together, giving consideration to the effect of the pictures, the wording of the script, conveying everything they want/need to, etc. I often get the impression that 'lives' are spare of the minute and, as such, they can come across as a bit random and ill-thought out. Yes, it adds immediacy, but is that always the best way to go?

To address Brekkie's point earlier, I believe the American method of handling lives is much more effective because the reporter is actually addressing the viewer. It's not a 'chat' between the presenter and the reporter with the viewer on the sidelines, as so often happens on British television. That's the difference.

I disagree though that on the main terrestrial bulletins (24 hour news is a different matter) it is a chat. Usually the newsreader just segways to the live with an opening question and then the reporter gets on with it. A second or third question might follow, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.


Exactly - much cheaper to throw to a couple of superficial lives in the bulletin to fill a couple of minutes than to commission an extra report.

I'm not sure how true that is, Rob. On all the networks in America, every correspondent addresses the anchor by name - sometimes two or three times - and the anchors regularly ask questions the reporter answers. ABC World News has also been highlighted in the press for their studio set-up positioning in-studio correspondents and guests directly opposite the main anchor at the desk, rather than off to the side like we do (worth noting NBC also do this, where CBS go for a more BBC approach), which causes more of a 'conversational' style. That said, on all programming (excluding CBS) the anchor and on-location correspondent are usually both straight-to-camera, rather than the BBC setup of Sophie Raworth talking to a giant Nick Robinson on a side wall of N6 which can in my opinion make the interviews and reporting seem passive to the viewer. From my experience the correspondents and anchors are a lot faster in dialogue than you'd expect from their British counterparts, which can also make it seem more direct.

What the Americans do particularly well, though, is how they show it's live. On somewhere like ABC World News, they have a small 'Live ET' at the top of the aston, which fades in and out with it. Nothing big and obscuring (usually), on screen for the duration. But then it's less of a deal for the US broadcasters as they usually have far more lives as standard in bulletins than we do. And NBC's TODAY programme kept a 'LIVE' bug during Al Roker's weather forecast, which obscured the statue of Marilyn he was talking about (they only had the one shot), leaving him to actually reference the bug. But even then, that sort of thing seems rarer than here.

Someone mentioned to me years ago, that unlike a self contained packaged report, 'lives' don't get archived, and even is the segment of the programme they're part of does, the format is of course unsuitable to edit into a documentary or similar years (or even a few weeks) later ?