BBC News (UK) presentation - Reith launch onwards

Firstly I find the breaking news strap no more intrusive than the previous version, where even in non-breaking mode you'd have a strap of solid graphics across the bottom quarter of the screen quite a bit of the time.


As for the titles - I'm hoping they will come as it's not uncommon for the BBC not to manage to revamp everything at once, but even if not just ditching them completely and sticking to the newsroom shots, perhaps adding a shot of Broadcasting House at the beginning as well, would have sufficed.

There’s a line/gap appearing between the translucent black bar which includes the BBC News dog and the name strap currently on Dataline London. Also why isn’t there a Dataline London bug?

OK, I've got it wrong about the Sans-Serif and Serif flipper font, but it did appear like Serif typeface on my smaller TV. I apologize.

From how I see it all the OG BBC News programmes don’t have them... and good, they don’t need them as it is.

Two points:

Point one: I’ve read a few times on here that television is a visual medium and graphics that obscure the picture are bad. I don’t always agree. Often the actual pictures are a few seconds of video repeated on a loop and don’t actually bring that much to the story, whereas textual graphics can bring much much more if they’re used properly. Of course there are times when things are happening on screen and the graphics need stripping back, but these are rare.

Point 2: the red breaking news banner would be nicer if it had some animating texture to it, rather than being just red. Maybe some sort of pulsing effect - a series of three rapid pulses would be nice to match the three flashes that now seems to accompany the flipper breaking and red bullet.

They did tweak the Breaking News banner in the last graphics package, adding an effect to the red when it first appeared on the screen. No reason why they won't tweak these? However, flat non glossy graphics seem to be the trend right now.

Although on the flip(per) side you watch TV, not read it. You could argue news channels have so overused the lower thirds over the last decade people don't actually pay much attention to them and they are just visual noise. They could almost fill them with nonsense and people wouldn't notice.

But, surely the reverse argument goes, this is because the lower thirds have not been updated or kept pace with technology so have become irrelevant. All the more reason to properly rethink lower thirds and use them to their full potential. Just think of the One Day Cricket package used at the recent World Cup, completely unrecognisable from 10 years ago. I know it's a very different genre but I think there is scope for a lot more relevant and additional information to be integrated into the graphics on the News Channel which would make it a much better watch.

I agree with Moz's points above. But I do feel like the refresh, while overall nice enough, has been compromised by having to work to the lowest common denominator, i.e. everything has to be able to be reproduced to look basically the same on whatever antiquated kit exists in every single BBC region. This is a restriction that obviously doesn't apply to Sky or CNN etc, and I do wonder if they should let BBC News/World News develop their graphics around the core brand but independently from those used on the BBC1 National/Regional bulletins and if this would open up a lot more creative possibilities in the future.

This is where I'd use the same example to disagree - as I said during the coverage of the Cricket World Cup IMO that is just information overload and as such becomes on screen junk. Keeping it to the essentials (the score, overs and target) was much more informative IMO.


I do take your point though that updating them keeps them more relevent and thats why at the moment I think the flipper works so much better. It's also not being overused for breaking news - on both BBC and especially Sky the ticker often seems to be in permanent Breaking News or News Alert mode, and hence it becomes somewhat redundant. Arguably when the channel is in breaking news mode that is when a ticker/flipper displaying the main headlines of the day is actually more useful rather than reiterating the information that is being relayed.

Yeh I do agree the World Cup graphics were a bit much at times. But then they offer something extra if the game is going through a dull period.

That's where I think the lower thirds/surrounding graphics should maybe fulfil a different purpose on a linear news channel these days. If they are just constantly reiterating the same three breaking news lines that are already being reported by the presenter- that's when they become irritating or obtrusive to people who are actually watching the channel. The flipper is there as a rolling update for those watching in the pub etc. The rest of the graphics should be adding something extra/different to what is being said and could then make the channel more watchable I think.

I agree that much more effort needs to go into the textual information. My point about video just being repeated segments carries to the flipper most of the time.

I think more of the screen could be used for text.

I’d use pushback to keep breaking news text information onscreen while the rest of the news continued in the main picture and lower thirds. For example if something big has happened and they’re still waiting for more info, rather than the newsreader just keeping on repeating the same stuff, put it as text on the right on the pushback, and carry on with the rest of the news until more info comes in. This way anyone tuning in would instantly know the breaking news.

BBC News at One has just used mostly two lines for the TOTH headlines - most likely just used the same set as Newsrooms Live.