The Newsroom

Nationwide

(May 2013)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
MW
Mike W
How times change, the Mailbox had a scanner (Visons 1?) and loads of staff back in 2006 for that - now it's nothing more than BSC, Midlands Today and WM Sad

Isn't there still a big English Regions operational centre there? As well as programmes for the Asian Network and The Archers etc.


There's The Archers, AN, English Regions Technology, Broadcast and something else and a new local radio system is centralised there - but in terms of programme production there's little
GE
thegeek Founding member
Yep - that's an inevitable requirement of rolling news channels though. If you are standing doing live interviews every hour, you don't really have the time to make a package for the national bulletins. (So usually one reporter is deployed to sustain the News Channel/BBC World News, and another will package and do lives onto the national bulletins.)

The BBC is using regional reporters more in the former role it seems, and at weekends also more in the latter?

I think that's probably fair to say. Rhun ap Iorwerth has been popping up more frequently with major stories from Wales, for example. I think they've got a bit better about not sending a network satellite truck when a regional one will do, too.
NG
noggin Founding member

The CP receive site is no more, though. It was decommissioned, somewhat inconveniently, just a couple of weeks too early for it to be useful for a large-scale OB at St Paul's which cropped up at short notice lately.


Oh - hadn't heard that. Was offered it as a circuit option last year Sad

Pity - ISTR it was higher bitrate than most satellite circuits, and had significantly lower latency.
NG
noggin Founding member
I think they've got a bit better about not sending a network satellite truck when a regional one will do, too.


Network have had a deal for quite a while now where regional trucks are on standby for them (different regions have different levels of readiness ISTR) so that they can be deployed quickly by network and use by both, with a second truck (or crew) being sent if the requirements get to much for one. That was part of the 'hidden' investment that evolved with the News Channel. (When News 24 launched many regions didn't have sat trucks of their own, and only had microwave links trucks. Now I think all of the regions have a sat truck and some have more than one - though the additional trucks may be uPods - which are simpler but with fewer facilities, or VSat, which are more IP-based)
SP
Steve in Pudsey
The BBC is using regional reporters more in the former role it seems, and at weekends also more in the latter?


To an extent. Look North's Olivia Richwald was reporting for network about the M62 hen party bus crash last weekend, but Look North's report was by somebody else completely (who I don't recall seeing before). I guess it could simply be that having the same person reporting on the network and then on Look North would look strange so they got somebody else (a producer perhaps?) to present the regional report.

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