I certainly don't go round the house making sure every clock is in sync to the second.
That won't stop the complaints coming in. Just look at the complaints about the Daybreak clock running an hour behind a couple of years back.
There's a whole Twitter account for people who are watching Daybreak on ITV+1 and think the clock is an hour out, which is a bit over the top, but I'm surprised at how many people don't check that they're on the wrong channel before complaining.
How about something most of us use everyday, like a clock?
Oh wait someone might complain to the DM that the clock is wrong when viewing on a PVR that's been paused and then played
It would be "wrong" on live broadcasts anyway (seconds, but still) because of the delays inherent (or useful) in digital broadcasting.
It has always been technically inaccurate - including during the analogue era.
It is foremost a Pres device and it was a Presentation-based decision to withdraw it in 2002, not one of accuracy; otherwise, they'd probably have disappeared long before. That's no doubt why Breakfast television clocks are still in use, despite suffering this same delay.
Not seen it mentioned here so it's not an obvious issue but ***cough*** The Sun ***cough*** today trying to get a little bit of outrage going for the BBC using the helicopter ident at least twice over the weekend into the news where the top story was the helicopter fatalities up in Scotland.
I've known a few times in the past where that particular symbol has been dropped due to news events, probably without viewers even realising. Genuinely a lot of care is taken over this sort of thing, the same goes for things like annos over the back of programmes with sensitive endings, but occasionally things will slip through and of course the papers immediately like to kick up a fuss about it.
As it happens, I was briefly speaking to someone who ought to know earlier this week, and this topic came up in passing. I was told that the idea of a vaguely news-channel-style "countdown" ident had been floated reasonably recently but dismissed because
a) a special ident into the news could present a "barrier" to the more "ergonomic" and "accessible" style of BBC News nowadays as compared with the "news from on high" approach in the former "clock" era; and
b) the news is one of BBC One's main flagships. If anything should reinforce the core brand, the news should.
Neither of those points seemed particularly convincing to me, but then I'm no expert in the field.
As much as the digital delay may or may not be an important issue, perhaps it was just the excuse the BBC needed to drop an "outmoded" and "dated" form of presentation. Which also does not bring attention to when the News may be running a few seconds/minutes late.
