I noticed this morning on GMTV (before I turned over to find out what was actually happening in the world) that Sally Lyndsey was speaking from "our Manchester studio" and having obvious problems with her earpiece. Two questions:-
1. Is Quay Street (and the other sites outside London) fully open at that time of the morning? Who is responsible for collecting the visitors, doing make up, showing them to the studio and setting them up with a mic and earpiece etc? How many people would be in at that time of the morning and would the studios be fully operational?
2. What are these small studios? Are they in reception areas for easy early morning access, part of the news room, or the main studio block?
Not sure of the answer to your specific questions, but your comments about mini-studios being located close to receptions for out of hours broadcasting reminded me of a recent trip I had made to the interior of Texas, and upon departure I found there to be a newsdesk and mini-studio set up in the concourse of a small local airport, and it was used for that specific purpose - i.e. to host the Breakfast edition from.
It was midday by the time I passed through and I was so tempted to try out the news desk and all the cameras and plasmas, etc. However, they were closed off behind a locked glass pertition.
The main editions of the channels broadcasts were handled from their central studios - only the breakfast output came from the airport studio.
Maybe the flight attendants on duty help out with the make up, etc,
When you go back to the days of "in-vision" CAs, I always understood that they controlled most of the technical aspects of the broadcasts themselves, with a skeleton crew on hand in the gallery. (Very similar to the old "broom-cupboard" of Phil Schofield in the early days of CBBC).
I imagine that this is similar to the operation used for breakfast bulletins on GMTV for the smaller regions.
I'm sure the female presenters are capable of putting on their own "slap" before going in front of the camera; and I recall a story that Reggie Bosenquet used to do his own before News at Ten (which is perhaps why he ocassionally looked rather orange )
I was thinking more of the "experts" who appear in the small studios with a photo of the city in the background, not the newsreaders of the morning bulletins which I appreciate usually come from the news studio.
I remember reading a few years ago in Broadcast about a company that had plans to set up a network of mini self op studios across the country in hotels and places to be used for interviews for the likes of GMTV.
I was thinking more of the "experts" who appear in the small studios with a photo of the city in the background, not the newsreaders of the morning bulletins which I appreciate usually come from the news studio.
They would usually be the small CSO bulletin studios with a different background put up.
Yep - in the days before the newsroom cameras, most regional down-the-line cameras used by the BBC were the same position as used for regional breakfast bulletins. (This was certainly the case in Norwich and Southampton). For this reason you couldn't interview a regional guest from these studios directly before the regional opt - as you had to allow the guest and presenter time to swap (and in some cases time to physically change the backing - some were roller blinds, some were sliding panels)
(This was certainly the case in Norwich and Southampton). For this reason you couldn't interview a regional guest from these studios directly before the regional opt - as you had to allow the guest and presenter time to swap (and in some cases time to physically change the backing - some were roller blinds, some were sliding panels)
Were there not also (historically) issues of genlocking in a different way for a contribution and for an opt out? I recall reading something about Nationwide having to allow a few minutes either side of an opt out before it could take a piece from a region
(This was certainly the case in Norwich and Southampton). For this reason you couldn't interview a regional guest from these studios directly before the regional opt - as you had to allow the guest and presenter time to swap (and in some cases time to physically change the backing - some were roller blinds, some were sliding panels)
Were there not also (historically) issues of genlocking in a different way for a contribution and for an opt out? I recall reading something about Nationwide having to allow a few minutes either side of an opt out before it could take a piece from a region
Yep - this was a long time ago before synchronisers were widely available. (i.e. in the 60s and 70s)
For a studio to work TO Nationwide it had to be remotely locked to the Nationwide studio (using Genlock/Natlock audio circuits to allow the London gallery to control the timing of the remote studio)
When the contribution to the network show was finished, the local station then had to re-Genlock to the incoming network feed, so that they were then locked locally to allow a clean opt-out.
This process took time - and hence there had to be time allowed for it.
These days the remote studio can stay locked to network, and then the network studio will take the incoming contribution via a synchroniser.
When you go back to the days of "in-vision" CAs, I always understood that they controlled most of the technical aspects of the broadcasts themselves, with a skeleton crew on hand in the gallery. (Very similar to the old "broom-cupboard" of Phil Schofield in the early days of CBBC).
No, in those days there was a normally a director, vision and sound mixer, engineer, PA in the gallery as well as a few people dealing with the adverts, and VT operators running th programmes, so quite a fleshed out staff.
At the BBC the announcer had a basic vision mixer and could mix together slides (in those days they were real slides) and the live sources from the 'Noddy room' (clock, globe, captions). Everything else was done by the gallery team
TV-am had regional studios all over the UK when it held the franchise for ITV breakfast time between 1983 and 1992. Reporters and office staff were based there and a dedicated ENG crew, plus a replica of the Good Morning Britain set for regional injects. Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester, Bradford, Birmingham, Peterborough & Cardiff. These were all scrapped when GMTV came on air. The set for TV-am North East still remains. TV-am had a policy of 'opting in' rather than opting out for regional news, broadcasting items of regional interest to the whole of the UK.
