SW England news thread

That point would be valid if the local weather in Manchester is sponsored as "North West Weather". However, if it's "Granada Weather" then in the South West it should say "Westcountry" as they hold the franchise.

EDIT: I was watching the CI intro to the Six tonight, there were two idents (both the same). Was this the same either on the Plymouth feed or network?

EDIT 2: I think the problem was entirely CI based. The whole of Spotlight CI was a mess from start to finish:
Gallery chatter over reports that did manage to run
The weather wouldn't run, but then did, complete with a weary sigh overheard from the presenter in the studio
A lengthy Spotlight caption before jumping into the Plymouth edition.

Awww!

The Channel Islands edition of Spotlight tonight was utterly embarassing from start to finish as Stuart has said. Without wanting to be disrespectful to anybody affected by the ongoing investigation in Jersey, this was a chance for Spotlight to shine as they had a national story on their hands. Countless technical problems occured such as the reports/stings not appearing at all or in some cases starting half way through. Sound levels all over the place and the weather not coming on. Then after the brilliantly professional Gwyn Garfield-Bennett tried to cover up the technical mistakes and then announcing they'd be showing a trail beause the weather wasn't working, the weather suddenly appeared.

I sighed along with her when her mic was left on i tell you...

Channel TV on the other hand did a superb job at covering the story.

I watched the hour from the Channel Islands tonight. Channel Report, then Spotlight.

It really was a case of ITV one, BBC nil.

ITV dumped Report Sport at 18:15 and did the whole half hour of news. Okay, the occasional bit of achive footage in the wrong ratio, but nothing else to criticise them for in a very professional programme.

Then the BBC attempt!

I started hoping they'd dump Plymouth and run the full half hour from St Helier; but ended up eternally grateful that they didn't.

What on earth went wrong? They're normally far better than this. Definitely a case of not being able to take the pressure.

The report at the end from John Henderson, which went out on both versions of Spotlight, was the only bit of professionalism the BBC put out.

When they're saying 'ITV West Country' though, it really should be the brand.

I'll put together a little montage later for the amusement of fellow forumers. 'Twas rather cringeworthy

Agreed. Lets not be unfair here, Spotlight Channel Islands has really come on leaps and bounds since the days of Fremont Point, but tonight was bad. I'm guessing they won't upload it to the BBC website.



The BBC had this problem too when they showed footage from the News 24 coverage of proceedings.

Another reason why this isn't a valid point is that it says "ITV West Country". ok, the West Country is a geographical area, but the fact that it includes "ITV" means that it's referring to a franchise, rather than a geographical area.




The voiceover now says "Westcountry Weather" (and it's pronounced as Westcountry, and not West Country), but it's written as "ITV West Country Weather" onscreen, so it's a bit inconsistent now.

Doesn't the expression "West Country" actually really refer to the "wider south west"? (i.e. from Gloucester-ish to Lands Ends)

So, the "south west" telly region is therefore really only "the southern half of the West Country". If anything, surely the Bristol-based telly region has the slightly better claim to the expression, than the Plymouth region does?

I just watched (some of it) online. I'd like to see your montage though.

Here are some bits you may like to include...

00:26 - Report won't play, presenter tries to cover it up by reading the next part of the story then the report plays without sound (we can still hear the presenter) for a second or two.

05:45 - Report starts but the presenter's(?) mic is left on and we hear her talking about what happens at the end of the report.

07:15 - The presenter is talking and a female voice is heard to say 'to get'.

07:20 - The presenter is talking and a male voice is heard to say 'gobble'

07:31 - The presenter is talking and an ant is heard to sneeze

09:21 - The presenter is talking and an ant is heard to hiccup.

09:44 - First the weather isn't ready but then it is. The presenter is heard to sigh and who can blame her?

It also seems like every report was put to air in a paused state and left to run until the picture disappeared and the screen was left black.


I have never watched Spotlight before. Is this normal for them?

Yes, the above programme was recored in 1974, and has been played out every day since.

That appears to have been intentional as, during one of the reports, you clearly heard the director's talkback saying "ends on a fade to black, get ready for the back-anno".


Totally agreed.

Hence my "They're normally far better than this" comment.

Just reiterating what you were saying