New Countdown

News 24 don't have a "Pres" department - the channel goes straight to air from the news production gallery. If you're talking about when BBC1 or 2 joins News 24, then yes - the pres suites do have copies of the countdown on their servers, but generally they simply join News 24 when their schedules run out - it's not often at or near the top of the hour. If it so happens that BBC1 is due to join at (for example) 01:59:30 then they do use their version of the countdown to enable the channel to join cleanly at 02:00.

It is only 60 seconds - well to be totally truthful it starts with the timer on 59secs ... the music is basically 60 seconds ... and others have mentioned News 24 does not have a Pres dept. They are it.

These are so very stylish...does anyone think that they might even be used as titles instead?

Somehow they're more engaging than the black and red shrouded globe.

A bit about the new countdown in the BBC in house mag this week.
I quote parts of it ..
"Directed by Mark Chaudoir, the BBC Broadcast films were shot by CLive Norman (UK, Europe, Africa and China), Richard Jopson in the US and by BBC News cameramen themselves during coverage of Iraq, the Middle East and the tsunami disaster. Reports being sent by satellite to the News 24 newsroom are depicted as a red data stream, reflecting the red channel branding. On air from this week, the short films were commissioned to highlight the global newsgathering strength behind News 24 and the pace of the operaton. They were shot, reportage-style on Sony DV cameras, and will be among the most played out sequences on BBC television, getting more than 8000 airings a year".

I managed to catch a 39-sec countdown from when BBC One handed over, that's the best I have in relation to nighttime countdowns.

Don't know if anyone's mentioned it, but have you noticed how in-sink some of the video is with the beats on the music? Examples include the "three bangs" where the BBC transmitter flashes thrice, and most of the "launched" red beams are accompanied by a crash -- I believe there's even a whooosh as the beam flies across the screen. No idea if there are other mixes for the different times, I'm referring to the night-time version. It's just so swish!

Anyway, nice that they're coughing up new footage for the things rather than recycling stuff from the old countdown and the regional bits to comprise it. Plus, if it is 60 secs in total, it should make it a lot easier to get the full thing eventually -- I mean they can't precede them with trails forever (can they!?)

It doesn't surprise me, though, that they've cut it down to 60s. All that footage is expensive -- and that's 30s of footage that rarely gets aired (even 60s+ countdowns were relatively rare)! What I've wondered, though, is why don't they load all those short clipettes into a playout thingymajiggy and do it live? Would mean for a unique countdown each time, and, frankly, those clips would go fairly well in any order.

Shame that most of the pictures in the countdown are in the wrong aspect ratio - ncluding sme of the satellite dish shots.... which of course are very obvious

The expense is irrelevant..... the only cost is shooting the material, but that's already been done.

So who at News 24 would have decided that they needed a new countdown, and one like this - which is, in a way, a promotion of the channel itself rather than simply a countdown. Would it have been the controller/editor or whoever is in charge?

Would there be plans (and therefore a planned budget) for updates of the videos to reflect changes in news agenda?

The music really is a big change isn't it. There is still the base BBC News theme, but there are some whole new elements (including minor notes/chords if you'll excuse my limited musical knowledge). Does anyone know if this was done in house or by the original guy?

The red background on the number really works well as does the fractions of a second.

As someone said b4 though, it could have done with a slight update to the titles at the same time, perhaps the red data trails flying round the globe and a general speeding up. Why do they insist on doing things by halves?

Are you sure? Quite a few of the shots have that superimposed red streak, and they all seem fairly "unique" in that they feature footage from behind cameras and are interestingly stylised. I'm almost certain that most of the footage was custom shot.

Well that countdown proves that there is at least someone at the BBC with design talent and it's great to see News 24 being different.

All they need to do now is change the slow "dumm dee dum dum BEAT" headline and title music and possibly make the visuals to the titles less slow and clunky.

Come on News 24 - be bold and different. The national news is a dire mess, so stop trying to emulate it!

Only thing is -- there are some shots of Caroline Wyatt in Iraq during 2003. They couldn't have been custom shot, as the 2003 re-launch hadn't happened then.