UK General Election

Problems abound in E at BBC NBH tonight.

The BBC NC had problems of not playing the titles for the 11pm bulletin because the headlines showed a preview The Papers for 11:30pm being shown not once but twice from a slide for tomorrow's front page of Theresa May on the Daily Telegraph.

The camera then went straight back to Clive Myrie in E with different BBC News music being played instead of the main title music.

Sky did last time, using reporters from student and commercial radio in some places. They also have good connections with local newspapers so may have used some of their reporters.

The BBC would have someone at each count, at least a local radio reporter.

Two points..

One, I bet David Dimbleby wishes he got paid a fee everytime they showed that sound bite from the EU Ref, as that clip is becoming a modern day classic.

Secondly, both on BBC News and ITV News, today was a rare occasion when stopping people on the street to ask their opinion actually was worthwhile, as we got some right gems. Normally you get someone with half a brain cell who either gives the blandest opinion going, or who says something that shows they didn't understand the question.

I hope they have an OB from the seat of Patrick McLoughlin (Conservative Party Chairman) as it is the only time many of his constituents will get to see him! Sorry. I'm just a very angry constituent and whenever I walk past the constituency office, which I do often, it is always closed.

Complete with audible talk back. You could hear the director say 'titles', then 'oh, stay on camera 3 Clive'.

The different bit of music was what is normally used on World OOB summaries.

Yes, indeed. When I was covering the count in Cambridge's Guildhall in 2015 for Cambridge 105, Sky News asked an Anglia Ruskin University film student to set up and man their mini-cam on the balcony in there. When I chatted with to operator, he said the best part was going to the Sky News Centre for training in using the kit. It was a pretty impressive small camera setup.

It turned out to be quite handy as the Cambridge result went to a re-count as it was so close (the result didn't come in until around 7:30am), by that time our breakfast show was on the air and they were able to view the live Youtube cam to see the annoucement coming in, with me feeding separate audio and interviews back to the studio.

You missed the slightly unusual Political Editor regeneration the BBC had, with Nick Robinson (recently back from illness) being supported by his predecessor Andrew Marr (ditto), and Laura K who had been given a non-job to "monitor social media" gradually abandoning that role and doing what everyone saw as an on-air audition for the PolEd gig.

On paper it should just be Laura this time, or will they continue that team effort?

That also meant Newsnight lost it's NC repeat, owing to it no longer fitting in the timeslot and The Papers having been pre-empted due to the 10's extension.

I'd go along with the concensus that the likelihood is things will look pretty similar to 2015 and the referendum.

With some of the talk about how far in advance things are ready to go, I'm sure I've seen pictures of Dimbleby and co rehearsing in the 1997 set with "Election 96" logos dotted around - but of course before fixed terms an election 4 years into a Parliament would not have been unusual at all.

Sky used 150 LiveU encoders . LiveU supplied 138 LU200 encoders while the remaining were existing Sky LU500 backpacks. They used a Sony prosumer camera PJ620 outputting an HDMI signal.

Here's the case study.

I believe the BBC sends someone to every count, even if it's just someone to phone in the result. Back in 1997, I was on a university placement at my local BBC radio station and was sent to cover a very safe seat. Back then before everyone had mobiles, the BBC had dedicated BT phone lines installed purely so the result could be phoned in to London. I also used it afterwards to do a quick chat with the local radio results show.

I remember there was also a guy there from the local paper who had been employed by ITN to phone the result in for them. Both of us had strict instructions to make every effort to be first phoning the result in. In the end, with everyone applauding over the Returning Officer's announcement, neither of us could hear the winner's number of votes, so we went together to confirm the result and ended up helping each other out.

If those were bought rather than rented, should just be a case of getting the students to man them this time round? I assume they were rented though Who has a use for 150 Live U's year round...