BBC News (UK) presentation - Reith launch onwards

Just a heads up that David Lowe will be down the line on the News channel this hour talking about the theme tune (its gone viral again as someone else has done a Bill Bailey with the music).

The weather's just failed to air, replaced by corona trailers.

No, because it was still billed in the Radio Times for all of next week. And as mentioned, you'd have heard if it was going to be.

Reeta just did a very awkward 'This is BBC News' during the middle of a Skype interview during the News Special.

She turned away too early whilst the interviewee was still talking. Then once she stopped talking did a very quick "This is BBC News" before pausing and then continuing with the interview. No explanation afterwards or anything.

The average viewer would have no idea what was going on.

It was Reeta Chakrabarti and I think those pauses were probably to allow World to opt in or out.

That's autocorrect for you. Amended now.

It is for world to opt, but for the audience that is remaining... an explanation wouldn't go amiss rather than just breaking away from the interview to say that and then carry on as if nothing happened.

I've seen it before where the News Channel takes the opt out ident that World gets, before going back to the presenter in the studio.

That makes it slightly better than an awkward silence.

I think in the US it’s called a hiccup, or atleast at NBC. During Special Reports there maybe times where stations may have newscasts starting and they will call an audible such as “for some of you you will return to local programming for most we will remain with the NBC News Special Report. (ten seconds of silence) and we’re back with an NBC News Special Report. I’m Lester Holt.” At that time stations who may have been local would have joined.

For the record, I’ve recorded today’s BBC One lunchtime bulletin simulcast with WN just in case if anyone is interested on how both channels (NC and WN) handle all the branding stuff and continuity... There’s no significant difference for the average viewers in the UK... they’ve managed to handle the rights issues for playing various clips on both channels, no sport update near the end of the bulletin from Salford, Ben Brown does not mention “more news throughout the day on the BBC News Channel” and “the next news on BBC One is at xxx...” at the end, and apart from that nothing else...

That is Ben Brown.

I must be drunk when I typed that... fixed it!