The Newscast of the Future

I predicted a lot of the changes above would happen many years ago (News channel going for branded strands, varying presentation, standing (yes, that old chestnut) and finding new ways to engage a younger audience with inovation in news bulletins to compete with social media (AR anyone?)).

While there is a space in the market for a 30 minute straight linear bulletin on BBC One, times have moved on from just replicating that style on a rolling news channel.

Despite the foot dragging and comments from people on here (and some working directly in the sector) saying it would never happen, nothing would change, the status quo was fine - its all now happened and become commonplace, particularly on the BBC News channel which really did need to get its act together after the 2008-2013 staleness. So Kudos to the BBC for parking that era and moving on!

Makes you realise that in News channel presentation terms, Sky News were ahead of the game in 2005. A bit too early though. I always knew branded segments and varied presentation would make a return as the European channels were beginning to adopt what had gone before elsewhere (Franceinfo anyone?).

In terms of what will happen next, I still believe there's more ways news channels can evolve to be relevant in the smartphone, non linear TV market. Whether that's more regional content, breakout segments, online integration or more strands like the morning briefing on the BBC News at 9 (which really would benefit from being presented at the catwalk). Instead of BBC News competing with itself (from what i've seen in a lot of cases) between social media, online and the TV News channel, it would be good for each platform to be complimenting one another a bit more and for some of the digital social media based reports to appear on the news channel. Whether that's recycling video news social content packages from Radio 1/1xtra or something different, who knows. But the scope is there.

Presentation and journalism wise, I think Franceinfo have got everything spot on. It looks like a channel built in 2018 for the digital, TV and social media market. The way they tell stories is innovative whilst not bordering on patronising. They are well set up for the future I feel.

UK wise, Sky News were best placed to 'borrow' the Franceinfo format when they moved in to Sky Central and completely missed the opportunity!

Channel Five might have a few short radio news bulletins with tweets and pictures on the screen. Nothing longer than three minutes.

I agree with pretty much everything you've said here. I have said this many times on here, but apart from the exceptions that you've already mentioned, I do think news presentation (and TV pres in general) in this country has become very conservative, especially when compared to our friends on the continent. My pet theory is that after the likes of Sky News' 2005 relaunch and ITV's theatre of news went down like a lead balloon, execs here have been scared to rock the boat and try anything too daring for fear of losing viewers; on the other hand, none of this stuff was tried on the continent, so perhaps execs there are less afraid to experiment.

What are Sky's current innovations? A glass box overlooking the foyer of their headquarters and a semi-CSO studio that wouldn't look out of place on regional news. Doesn't exactly set the world on fire, does it? And as for ITV News, apart from News at Ten, I don't think anything's really changed over the past ten years in terms of how the bulletins are presented. I do think it comes to something when even New Zealand, a country of just under five million people, has a better news set and more innovative presentation than anything seen on British screens:



Having said all that, my impression is that this is slowly beginning to change. As you've said, the BBC are, to their credit, beginning to innovate a lot more - something which is badly needed, IMO. I do agree with you that they should tie the social media/online/TV output closer together. For instance, the VRT in Belgium have recently started showing short news updates on TV, their website and social media simultaneously, which I think is something that the BBC would do well to copy. And I do think Sky's recent schedule changes are a good step forward. The point I'm trying to make here is that I wish there were an executive somewhere with a bit of vision, someone who can take TV news into the future, rather than plodding on as we did ten years ago. Revolution, not evolution.



I think some of Viasat's channels in Scandinavia used to do something like that. Not sure if they still do, mind.

Thats a 20min bulletin, with 5 minutes of weather? Light news day?

No, the bulletin is actually an hour (or 45 minutes minus adverts). The video I posted is a condensed version of the bulletin.