SW England news thread

Cable and Wireless (largely through their own incompetence) caused the Aug 5th national BBC radio transmission failure :-

Read internal BBC/Siemens documents, obtained via a FOIA request here:-

http://www.lamont.me.uk/broadcast/

20 years ago, no telco would have been stupid enough to feed both main and standby circuits through the same location. It's still up to the BBC to ensure they don't attempt any 'short cuts'.

Then I guess I'm doing a lot better than some people here.

Today's local weather was presented by Richard Angwin, who I think works for Points West?

I think he used the Points West studios too.

Interesting link up tonight with Richard Angwin from Points West doing our weather tonight.

Much better compared to the normal London presenters!!

Indeed he does. I was just about to mention this! I think it must have been a first for Spotlight... usually the forecast comes from Chris Stumbles or Alex Barr or the forecaster in London when David is unavailable.

He was indeed presenting the forecast from the Points West studio... and a brief hop over to BBC ONE West saw him presenting the forecast for the West at the same time - albeit outside and without a jacket!

In case this hasn't already been mentioned I don't think Craig Rich is very well. He is currently appearing with Ron Bendell and Chris Denham on Westcountry TV's "Slow Blokes In France", and has now grown a beard. But that's not all he has acquired - watch carefully and you'll notice an uncontrollable tremor about him, possibly early signs of Parkinson's - whatever the cause, it may be why he is no longer seen on Spotlight.

Spotlight CI didn't have a weather report at all stating the reason as 'Technical Difficulties on the Mainland'

Didn't catch tonight's Spotlight; wasn't back from Birmingham in time.

You can always tell if the Bristol studio's been used for the weather.

The map will be in completely the wrong aspect ratio, somewhere in the region of 40,000 to 1.

Yes, I thought it was a bit squished. Not very good quality either, presumably as Bristol still isn't set up for 16:9.

But it is (went 16F16 on July 16th), although I notice 'down the line' interviews from its newsroom are still 14P16.

I honestly don't know how Bristol manage to do this.

The entire shot for the forecast is always in the correct ratio. It was before they converted to 16:9 and it still is now.

It's just the map on the screen that always looks horribly stretched, horizontally, like when you set a 4:3 picture to 16:9 on your telly at home.

Sadly, I just see it as yet another example of Points Worst's total lack of pride in any of their output, but that's a subject for another thread.

For those that didn't see the forecast, it's available here at the 25 minute mark.