The NEW Central West and BBC Midlands thread

Well I suppose Central could have had the bulletin presented from Terry Lloyd House, either from the "newsroom" camera or its "sport section" at the end. Nowhere near as good as a studio, but better than nothing I suppose

Just a mention that Mollie's kicking off WM again at 4am tomorrow!

Re today's show, it was mentioned that the text service wouldn't work until after 5am.

What's the technical reason for that then? Something to do with 5 Live?

Did any or will any of the other Midlands BBC radio stations kick off earlier than normal?

Just a question , is Central Tonight/News widescreen

As far as I know...

No ITVplc regional news service is in true 16:9 widescreen at the moment. All ITVplc regions have 16:9 capability (see the non-news regional programmes for proof), but the news is still being done in "pretend widescreen" (14:9 crop-o-rama, and all that) on digital telly.

The reason why the regional DOGs and namestraps appear so far up from the bottom of the screen on the analogue 4:3 picture, is because they're placed in an area that is "safe" for the digital 14:9 crop-o-rama arrangements.

ITVplc regional news programmes won't go proper widescreen until ITV national news does. But, why they haven't yet is anyone's guess, as I'm sure ITN are 16:9 capable already too (see Channel 4 News).

Not this debate again. ITN are 16:9 capable, but not all of the regions are. For example i don't think the studios in westcountry have the facilities to support widescreeen news service. Central probably do have widescreen capabilities due to the studio being revamped a couple of years ago, but itv are waiting for all regions to go widescreen before the news does, because on itv alot of the source material comes from the regions.

I thought it was just 'ITV Channel' holding up the widescreen. As far as I know all the other regions are ready.

I noticed something this morning, GMTV, ITV had their news bulletin followed by their recorded weather forecast which said that Friday was going to be dry and cloudy but after they took the video off and the news presenter read the news instead afterwards. Because the video was wrong hehe.

Is that because they record the weather forcasts for the GMTV bulletins the day before.

Well, the BBC were quite happy for their national news to go proper widesceen long before most/all regions were ready to do so. An odd few BBC English Regions (e.g. South Today) are still in 14:9 crop-o-rama even now, AFAIK!!!

So, why the "all or nothing" attitude at ITV? Surely it would make more sense for as much ITV news (both national and regional) as possible to be in true 16:9 already - not least of all because it'll put those few straggler regions under more pressure to "get their ars*s in gear", re: upgrading to 16:9 capability????

The problem with ITV regions' pre-recorded "windows" was highlighted during the snow.

Clearly, CNwest felt a bit embarassed about having a snow-free view of Brum on Thursday night's 6pm show, so stuck a camera presumably in the foyer of Central Court, looking at that nice little garden-y bit in the front of their grounds, and towards the "lock keepers cottage" type buildings in Gas Street itself, from a ground-floor point-of-view. All covered in snow, of course, and presumably live.

A live, snowy view from a camera on the rooftop of Central Court (overlooking Gas Street Canal Basin, the Alpha Tower, and the Hyatt hotel) was then used for the 22:50 bulletin - which was the original choice of "window" view back in Feb 2004 anyway!

After 'toning down' the snow mode for a few hours after the Breakfast Show, BBC WM went back into rolling snow news between roughly 3pm, when stacks of listeners started contacting Danny Scouser about traffic problems in Halesowen, through Paul Franks between 4pm & 8pm, then Jimmy Franks between 8pm & 10pm(CWR joining at that point), then 'Midlands Masala' from 10pm as normal.

This meant McFly(popular beat combo of today ), who were supposed to be live in the Mailbox with Danny, got stuck in traffic & never made it, even though they managed to get to the Brum Hard Rock Cafe for a live MT insert with Ashley Blake.

Also, due to the travel conditions, both the footy phone in & 'The Other Side of Peter Harris'(ATV/Central producer) were dropped.(This was why Jimmy Franks, who was compering the Hard Rock Cafe McFly thing, in one of his 'other hats', was called in at short notice, as he was fairly nearby.)

While I've got no complaints over WM's reaction to the event itself, once Satnam Rana took over, it was 'back to normal' practically, where people were still ringing in up to 10pm on the previous show, at which point I switched off.

Did Satnam take any travel calls later herself or not, because if she didn't, it seems strange unless the situation had reduced to 'drop' snow mode entirely.

(Loved the 'spat' between Jimmy & Satnam where he mispronouced her surname. 'It's Rana, not Rama!')

My own experience was leaving work around 10 mins early at 420pm, getting a 529 bus from Willenhall to Walsall fairly easily, apart from it being slower than normal, but my main beef was once I got to Walsall, I never saw any TWM buses on the Walsall to Bloxwich direct routes, but the Choice Travel & Arriva buses got through eventually(I had to pay on Arriva & it crawled all the way!), so where was TWM?

Arriva left at 550pm & I left the bus around 615pm(normally it takes 10 mins!), then I had to call at the chippy, which meant I didn't actually sit down at home until 635pm, when Shefali said she'd only got to St Martins Church in Brum in the last 5 mins!

Can anyone beat that?

i gave up trying to get home after 2 hours and tried again at 9pm as the traffic had started to clear. a colleague stuck it out and it took her over 5 hours!

hats off to WM though, their updates really were invaluable. i dipped into brmb and although claiming to be keeping us updated, their updates were at best stating the obvious. listening to molly green at 4am on friday i was thinking it was all a bit of an over reaction, all she really had to update was the snow desk for the schools, but i was proved wrong by the weather later in the day.