Spotlight CI

[ee]

And the piece will probably crash on to air three seconds late...
( )

I saw spoylight CI fort the first time ever one night this week. I don't have Sky, but I'm house-sitting for a holidaying friend who does have Sky.

It was awful. Hardly any of the stories had a filmed report to go with them, most of them were literally just read.

One of the links had some humour in it - a pun or something (I can't remember what the line was now, but remember it at the time). But the woman presenter was reading everything in such a flat, disinterested way, that any humour value that there may have been was wasted.

It wasn't anything hilarious, only a mildly amusing "gag", but the flat way she read it was awful. All her reading was flat. No emotion (tragic stories should be read in a "concerned" voice, fun stories in an "exciting" voice, etc - but she was flat throughout).

And there wasn't enough news to fill the 15-minute opt. There was all this sh*te to pad out time at the end, on the approach to 18:45 (The CI variant of the "BBC Voices" trailer; and some "tide times" (etc) rubbish graphics that make MS PowerPoint or ITV Nightscreen look good).

Then the closing sting caption remained on screen in silence for ages after the music ran out, until the Plymouth edition was ready for for CI viewers to opt back in.

What a joke of a news "service"!

I only realised that CI had an opt when all the BBC regional services went FTA on Sky. I've watched it once or twice just to see what it was like and it didn't seem that bad. The CIs have a small population though. I'm sure they do scrape the bottom of the barrel in search of news stories, so there was a tendency towards "Man trips over crack in pavement" as being a major item

In view of there being a "special" about the move on tomorrow I might watch it again. I had wondered how long this opt had been available, but no doubt I will find out by watching tomorrow.

Channel Report's (different channel, but same place) second main headline yesterday was "Why the sudden gull invasion". Apparently this gull invasion happens every year in the Channel Islands... so presumably they cover it every year.

I suppose its a matter of good news days and bad news days. On a good news day for the CI, there might be some tax reforms or a major crime commited. On a bad news day, you might only have a few airy fairy stories like two toy shops merging.

Even as it is, Channel Report has a medium sized break in between with light stories after that break (AFAIK) and then several minutes break between the end of CR and the Evening Noos. Channel News' weekend bulletins aren't exactly comprehensive either, a 5/10 minute summary in the evening which is usually late becase of Puffin's Pla(i)ce.

Anyway, this is Channel News, not Spotlight Channel...

John

Channel News at the weekend is usually so short, other regions are on the 'and finally' story by the time they start!

Remember the first day of Patrick Muirhead presenting Channel Report, the main headline was 'How do you spend your housekeeping money?'

Well, cant wait to see the revamped islands bulletins from Monday, if their in new studios and new building, this hopefully means their using more up to date technology.

I found after watching it a few times the sound quality is rather poor, and they appeared to have a 2-3second delay when the bulletin starts, I caught on one occasion a month or so ago a time when the national studio cut to the regional output and the presenter was shifting her jacket and was chatting to the gallery.

I think that the current presenters are slightly better than when Fiona Spurr used to front the bulletins, still think they could do better though, as the current bunch always seem to come across as 'completely disinterested' in what they are talking about.

Anyway, lets hope Mondays revamp is a pleasant one!

I remember it well. What an awful story to have to start on. Thing is though being Patrick Muirhead he made it sound as important as the Gulf War. He mentioned this exact story in that Times article he did when he left the station. Fantastic.

Anyways it'll be interesting to see the re-vamp. It'll also be interesting to see if they have changed their kit or the way they do things. It is a very cheap service. The reporter also does the camera work as far as i know, and the last time i saw a BBC reporter they were using nothing better than a prosumer camera. The sony equivalent of a Canon XM2 i believe. Not really top notch stuff. And since it's the reporters themselves who do the shooting, you often find the shot extremely overexposed! Lets hope the re-brand changes things like this.

And someone above mentioned the tide graphics. They are Awful! They go off the screen completely in 14:9.

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You sound like you're in the know. Do you work for them?

And In the current set, do they have 2 cameras? And what cameras are they if you know?

If you do work for them, give them my name lol i have a couple of Canon XL2s they could use and could do some brilliant graphics for them

Does Jersey then get a full bulletin or will it still be an opt out of spotlight?

I was about to ask exactly the same question.

Any news on that one, Mr Leftof?