How strange (odd choices in news programmes)

I saw BBC London do that once back in the days when their studio was in the open plan newsroom at Marylebone High Street. The reporter was not only in the same room but if you looked behind the presenter you could see where the reporter was. After the item finished you could see the camera operator turn off the light and the reporter take his earpiece out while the next link was being read.


I think the idea was to have a back drop of some monitors showing things which were in the newsroom but it didn't really add anything from what I remember

^ Sounds like when Midlands Today would do a segment from the newsroom, which was behind the presenters (a matter of 5-10 metres away), usually for the weather...

Sticking with Midlands Today - How about regional programmes 'thanking' the national news? At some point between 2002 and 2008, Midlands Today would always open with one of the presenters saying 'Thank you' - it was a little bit strange...

'It's goodbye from me, now it's time to join the BBC's news teams across the UK'
'Thanks X, welcome to Midlands Today' or 'Thank you...'.

It got very weird when Midlands Today would opt out around 3 seconds early with the network feed on their projection screen, and the presenters would look at the national presenters to thank them:

Somewhat similar are the incidences of presenters thanking weather forecasters in the regional segments in Breakfast when the package is clearly recorded.

I'd like to think they sat there patiently watching the national bulletin beforehand!

And remember the launch of GMB. Pre recorded inserts to introduce each region.

Wales Today had a similar setup.

Midlands Today has reporters on the Mailbox balcony often but we've also seen them be slightly in the back of the shot of the presenter when they've presented the programme from by the window.

Have to say, when I first saw that I knew it wouldn't last. I don't know if it was planned as just a short-term thing or not, but I never thought it would last long-term.

Though it was a shame - I thought that worked pretty well,

Agreed. Seemed like an awful lot of unnecessary work.

I don't think it was necessary and it was a lot of work but I did like the GMB personalised intros, but don't think they were executed all that well. Firstly, they avoided mentioning any regions by name to start with, and then having the sting between the 'coming up' bit and then the regional news throw messed the flow of the link up; in the early days of GMB they would often jump between single shots of each presenter so would have worked much better to just cut from a single shot of one presenter, or even a wide shot of them at the desk, to the pre-recorded shot of the presenter introducing the local news. Because ITV opts are all centralised they could have probably managed the cut quite cleanly as well!

Over the years, several U.S. stations also tried some unusual transitions between the local and the national news. Here's an example from way back in the 1970s:

https://youtu.be/XU44AIl9e_g?t=220