Stock footage used on the news

When I watch the news, it's always a bit entertaining to see when they've dug out the same old footage to reference something they're talking about - that shot of money being counted (in whatever currency the report is on about); that shot down a street with four of five bank signs in view; that shot of wine being poured into a glass on a white background, waiting for a damning statistic to appear; and, occasionally, that shot of someone browsing the internet 15 years ago.

What I was wondering about was how often are such shots updated? In general, technology reports include very recent footage - doubtless down to the number of conventions they make the trip to. But sometimes, you get that aforementioned shot of Internet Explorer 4 displayed on the boxy VDU sneaking in. Is there a schedule to update the shots? Or are the older shots down to the fact the older ones aren't always excised?

I know such libraries can be huge - when I went on work experience to Pindar Set, who made adverts for the Yellow Pages (now Yell Adworks), they had a library of ten thousand images that could be freely used in any advert. Would the size of such libraries prevent too much updating?

On a related note, I would presume the shots of various objects in slow motion on a white background are purchased rather than made by the broadcaster themselves - is this true? In either case, it'll still be somebody's job to spin a pound coin so it looks good on the slow motion shot.

BBC South had a stock shot of commuters getting off a train at Waterloo for years, I remember because they managed to capture a friend of mine looking particularly miserable as he marched past the camera.

Also, in 1993 I rushed into a phone box about a 100 yards from BBC Southampton, to make an urgent phone call,
guess what ??! I should have charged royalties, I'd be rich by now.

There are times when they clutch at straws with the stock footage too - for example the fox baby attack story on Saturday, all they could dig out for the headlines was about 10 seconds of footage of a fox trotting across a Sainsbury's car park!

Tyne Tees once filmed my school playground for stock. I never saw it on telly

North West Tonight still use an awful background image of what must be an antique Nokia when interviewing someone on the phone.

I regularly see the same overweight man walking through the high street on ITV and of course the shot of the two policemen backs walking down the road.

Does Daybreak still use the same pregnant women stock shot GMTV used to use?

Shots of new technology like phones will also come from the manufacturers sending out video news releases.


In my experience it's just down to someone noticing it's out of date or a news editor getting bored of it and the footage/tape being deleted or withdrawn. There normally isn't a way to put expiry dates as you can't predict when stuff will expire.

However it is sometimes difficult to stop shots like that being reused because with today's production systems producers can look through archives and retrieve their own archive. So instead of going back to the stockshots compilation they'll just use it from a recent package, it's not possible to go back and label every single instance it was used. I believe some modern systems do allow this, though it's not foolproof.


No, something like that is usually done in house by the broadcaster, if someone wants a particular shot like that for a package it's far easier just to film it exactly as they want it than rake through libraries and you certainly wouldn't want to buy it. In my experience studio crews appreciate having something creative to do between bulletins. Of course such shots are then kept in case someone wants it again

Now hibu. Eugh.

This topic reminds me of a Newswipe report:

Brilliant!

The difficulty with any archive is what do you need and when? A library will always be out of date and servers are regularly wiped to free up production space. Expensive shoots like aerials are often kept on tape but most camera tapes/cards are re-used pretty quickly.
I can imagine in a few years a real shortage of archive material as all that is kept will be broadcast items and programmes.

When STV have reports regarding hospitals and such they always seem to use the same shot of Perth Royal Infirmary, it never ever seems to be updated...