BBC London

The Mediaweek article that I found today, dated 02/08/01, says that Maitlis 'will present the London news programme, which is still to be named'. I am sure that the BBC will make a formal announcement when it has decided upon a name and has confirmed all the members of its new BBC London team and officially named a date for the BBC South East split - I think people are reading too much into this article - newspapers do not always get their facts right and I'm sure that the BBC would not call the flagship regional news programme of such an important region plain old BBC London.

Has it been described anywhere by the BBC as BBC News 24 Interactive? It would not surprise me if it were just called BBC News Interactive, in the same way as BBC News Online.

(That said I believe that it will be produced by a mainly News 24 production team, as will the BBC One summaries shortly. UK Today is also managed, and technically a part of News 24, though it is not branded as such.)

This BBC News 24 Interactive thing. Will it be the same as Sky News Interactive but, of course, made by the BBC? I can't see Sky News Interactive as Sky Digital customers only have it. And does anyone know if cable digital customers will get it?

Not sure if it will work on DCable.

If it looks and works like Sky News Interactive then it is unlikely initially - as these effectively require a separate TV channel to broadcast the video element of the interactive service. I would imagine that the BBC service may well use the new transponder they have bought for interactive services. This 3rd transponder can carry roughly a further 6-8 video channels - and was used for Wimbledon and Open Interactive.

Sky News Interactive broadcasts its four quarter screen feeds in a single quad split video channel, with the four streams at half horizontal and half vertical resolution. A second video channel is used to broadcast a version of Sky News without adverts for legal reasons - as the small text on financial adverts could not be read (and that is an ITC advert requirement apparently)

surely it's more likely that the reason the adverts aren't on Sky News Active is because they don't
sell that airspace (yet!).

Look London!!

Reporting London perhaps?

Its quite hard for London, as its the capital and isn't really on a coast like other regions!

I think you misunderstand! Noggin didn't mean banner ads, he means when you go off the 4-video screen, to read say the sports page, Sky News appears in the left hand corner. When they go to adverts, because the window is 1/4 size the normal screen, people won't be able to read small print on adverts. (Anyone seen CITV's 'small print' - that font makes it really hard to read!) so instead they run a Sky News Active promo.

Cheers, Asa

Is it not for the same reason that news programmes aren't sponsored, and there are no ads on Teletext's news pages ... in that ... you can't sponsor a news programme, only advertise in the middle?

That was the reason I had always assumed, although I could be wrong.

Nope - the ITC have very strict rules on the visibility of text on financial adverts. (I read an article by the bloke looking after SNI who said as much!)