In the UK ITV and Sky have a set of voiceovers for each presenter and programme, and then have substitute presenter 'inserts', so they'd cut out Mary Nightingale and replace her with Andrea Benfield etc, but in America they keep the same voiceover, if if one, or both presenters are not present. NBC used to add a 'substituting tonight *name*' to the voiceover for Nightly News, but doesn't anymore, and if their weekend anchor (Lester Holt) steps if for their weekday anchor (Brian Williams), they keep Brian's voiceover, why do they do this?
Because American news is much more personality-driven. NBC Nightly News is Brian Williams news "show" (urgh, I hate that word in relation to news); CBS News is Scott Pelley's and so on. Over here, the programme has always been bigger than the name who presents it. Even when Trevor McDonald was the main presenter of News at Ten, it was still only known as "News at Ten". Similarly, the Ten O'Clock News is usually presented by Huw Edwards, but it's not considered to be "his" programme; above all it's the BBC's.
Suppose you're right, the prgramme names actually have 'with *Anchor*' in it. ALthough that doesn't explain the weekend standing in for weekday voiceover? Also the morning shows aren't really the presenter driven, yet have set voiceovers.
It does explain the odd weekend/weekday scenario. The weekday NBC bulletin is "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams" but the weekend version is officially Lester Holt's. Therefore he has his own voiceover at weekends, but if he stands in for Brian during the week, it's still Brian's programme, hence his voiceover remains.
I'm afraid it's just one of those things you have to accept. It's just the way it's done in America and always has been. To us, it does seem very unusual but that's because we're used to a totally different arrangement.
Similarly On BBC World News they have things such as GMT with George Alagiah however they create two sets of titles. However - Sky News has a similar system to the American System, I have often seen Episodes of Boulton and Co with out Adam Boulton or Murnaghan without Dermot.
I do wonder whether with all the ITV News time changes the title "ITV News with Trevor McDonald" was ever considered, even for his original stint on the Evening News or when the News at Ten moved to 10.30pm (even though he wouldn't do it most days). I suspect if it had though it would simply be rebranded "ITV News" when he was off.
And didn't C5 for a short period have one of their newsreaders names in the title (might have been Natasha Kaplinsky). Sky News do it with some shows - but that is more the show is named after the presenter rather than it being "Sky News with Dermot Murnaghan presented today by...".
Similarly On BBC World News they have things such as GMT with George Alagiah however they create two sets of titles. However - Sky News has a similar system to the American System, I have often seen Episodes of Boulton and Co with out Adam Boulton or Murnaghan without Dermot.
That's different when the programme is named after the person who hosts it, it's like when people complain that Lorraine isn't hosted by Lorraine, they can't exactly call it something else on those days.
Yeah, the BBC World programmes are merely a blatant attempt to be more American like CNN. I've never liked the programme titles they use - GMT isn't bad; but Impact and The Hub, in conjunction with presenter names, just doesn't sit well with the Britishness of the BBC.
It's a shame that such Americanisms are creeping into our own news presentation. Just another example of vacuous celebrity/personality-driven culture - the media seems to think that a programme has to be associated with a well-known "personality" in order to engage viewers. The irony is that most ordinary folk really don't care who reads the news to them, so long as they get the facts right.
I really think the introduction of voiceovers signalled a step towards the American way of doing things. The ITN of the '90s in particular seemed to be gravitating towards American-style presentation, you only have to watch the any of the 1992-1999 NAT bulletins to see how US-influenced the whole look is (and that is actually one of my favourite looks for a news programme). The presentation from the newsroom on the early '90s ITV bulletins also reminds me of US cable news networks of the time, right down to the world map in the background. In fact I think I recall reading that ITN actually brought in a US design consultancy to oversee the various relaunches at that time.
Anyway, moving back on topic (!) I would argue that the voiceovers on British television news worked well because of the fact that the bulletin in question was the "star", be it the BBC Six O'Clock News or ITN News at Ten, and not Nicholas Witchell or Trevor McDonald or whoever. In my view the "voice of God" over here helped to create household names of newsreaders while avoiding the awkward "the news with Joe Bloggs tonight with John Doe" situation.
Anyway, moving back on topic (!) I would argue that the voiceovers on British television news worked well because of the fact that the bulletin in question was the "star", be it the BBC Six O'Clock News or ITN News at Ten, and not Nicholas Witchell or Trevor McDonald or whoever. In my view the "voice of God" over here helped to create household names of newsreaders while avoiding the awkward "the news with Joe Bloggs tonight with John Doe" situation.
Yes, I've always thought the British news voiceovers worked a lot better than the American ones.
I was just trying to think who actually brought news voiceovers to the UK. I don't know what the BBC did before the 80s (I know they started using voiceovers on the Six in 1984, which spread to the Nine and One in 1985 and 86 respectively - but did they used them earlier than that?) but I'm fairly confident in saying that ITN first adopted them for First Report in 1972. They were certainly using them by 1974 as proven by TV Ark. They then spread to News at 5:45 in 1976 and eventually to News at Ten in 1992. The ITN Weekend News also had a generic voiceover for a short while, in between 1987 and 1992. Has anyone got a firm idea of when voiceovers were first used in Britain and by whom?
One difference is that in the US the presenters are also "managing editors". Not sure how much power they really have, although if it's anything like that portrayed on HBO's
The Newsroom
, Will McAvoy operates more control than Huw Edwards, for example, who doesn't edit the programme, although I'm sure he has a big voice in news meetings and obviously writes his own scripts.
The only news programme in the UK I can think of that had the presenter's name written in the titles was "Look North with Mike Neville"