BBC One Golf Breakdown, 23/05/09

Well, in any shots of the Playout areas at Red Bee that I've seen, the breakdown captions seem to be permanently running in a loop, ready to be cut to at any time.

The most likely explanation for the state of this caption is that the people behind this revamped package didn't provide an apology caption in the deliverables and Red Bee staff have come up with this concoction.

The state of BBC Two's pres is a very sad state of affairs. But, what can we do?

No, the breakdown caption was supplied along with the other elements of the on screen presentaion I'm afraid to say! If it was a quick rush job made on the day of the breakdown you could just about forgive it, but, no it was made weeks ago. My other problem with it is you should never say in a breakdown that you "will" return to the programme, you should only ever use "hope" to, as there is always a chance you won't get the programme back and then you look abit stupid if you don't! It should never have been cleared for transmission, but it was!

That really is depressing.



It never ceases to amaze me how poorly announcers perform in breakdown situations. The utter nonsense they talk (using poor grammar in many cases). Very rarely do they relay anything remotely useful. They tell us little more than the text that's on the screen. If they've nothing useful to add, they ought to keep quiet. Having someone pop up every thirty seconds to spout the same nonsense is just annoying.

It's their local radio backgrounds that cause it I think. They seem to imagine the transmitters will stall unless someone keeps talking.

Remember the CAs from the 60s and 70s were mainly from an acting background, with a quite different attitude, and able to intelligently ad-lib.

I presume that the announcers are repeatedly being instructed to ad-lib apologies at regular intervals for the benefit of (a) those who have just tuned in and (b) those who (for whatever reason) can't read the caption, and given that they are clearly not being given any new information with regards to when the programme will return, simply try to rephrase the text on the on-screen caption in as many different ways as possible - which, of course, is quite difficult to do without sounding (as you put it) "annoying".

Some of the Nations directors tend to inject a little more 'personality' into their announcements, so it would be interesting to see how they handled a 'modern' breakdown scenario like this one, and whether or not their voiceovers would be a little less frequent!

In the initial stages of most breakdown situations, there's no need to improvise. A pre-prepared breakdown script/announcement would be more than adequate. Granted, it shouldn't be too much to ask, that an announcer be capable of ad-libbing in such situations; however, I haven't been terribly impressed with many of the examples that have occurred in recent years.

As a previous poster has pointed out, it is most unprofessional for an announcer to be declaring that we'll be returning to the programme "in a few moments" or "very shortly", when they have no idea what's going on. This doesn't instil confidence when a breakdown goes on and on. The viewer will have no faith in what they're being told, and will probably reach for the remote. Nor does anyone want to hear an announcer proclaiming the same thing over and over, at intervals of thirty seconds. This becomes very annoying very quickly.

A phrase that I really hate: "We hope to return to the programme as soon as possible".

What do you mean you "hope"? It goes without saying that you'll return to the programme "as soon as possible".



The apology caption on the screen is more than sufficient for anyone that has just tuned in. It goes without saying that the problem is being worked on. Viewers don't need to be verbally reminded of this every thirty seconds.

In terms of people that are unable to read the caption - well, if I tuned in expecting to hear EastEnders, and heard music playing, it wouldn't take me too long to figure out that something was wrong. A verbal apology every 90 secs or 2 mins would be more than enough.



I'm not keen on too much 'personality'. There are very few that can successfully pull off this type of thing.

I presume the regular announcements are intended to be a veiled "don't switch over" message.

With the nations, on the occasions when they do their own apology rather than staying with network, I'd expect them to be doing fewer announcements purely because the announcer is running the entire show, and has to find out what is going on and perhaps arrange a filler.

Oh undoubtedly. However, if it weren't for my interest in pres, I doubt I'd hang around to hear the same message being repeated over and over and over.

The BBC (alongside other broadcasters) has a duty to inform all viewers at any given time, including those who can't see the caption - so the announcement has to be repeated at regular intervals. Many viewers might feel that these announcements are too regular - but if I had sight difficulties and couldn't see the caption, I wouldn't believe that music in place of a scheduled programme necessarily meant that something was 'wrong'. There could be any number of reasons why this might have happened - and I'd rather be informed about it as soon as possible (after all, viewers with sight have access to the caption instantaneously...).

Of course, the announcements could be more informative sometimes; but I think we'd all rather that we had announcers saying something - and I think that the word "hope" is an entirely appropriate one to use. The announcer hopes the programme will return, the viewer hopes the programme will return; and, though you might think that "as soon as possible" should be taken as read, I think Steve's 'hit the nail on the head' that they're probably trying to hold onto as many viewers as possible.


It's the announcers with what I described as 'personality' that pull off live ad-libbing the most successfully - the ability to sound natural and reassuring is very important. I've just re-watched the "Something For The Weekend" breakdown from a few months back and I don't think that Duncan Newmarch's announcements got irritating - probably because he chatted casually in most of the announcements instead of making formal-sounding apologies.

(Sorry for the long post.)

You're having a laugh right ? Beyond the first announcement, it was just verbal diarrhea. Going by your reasoning, just how many partially sighted viewers would be tuning in mid breakdown to warrant that sort of repetition ? Oh, and 28 seconds for someone to wake up and cut the BT test signal is about 20 seconds too long.

No, I'm not having a laugh - merely my personal opinion, though I agree about the the cock-up with the BT slide.
I don't want to take the thread off-topic though, so you might as well forget I said anything at all.

Tell me this. Why during the 70s, 80s and 90s was it sufficient to have a verbal apology every 2 mins (minimum) or so? What has changed exactly? This 30/60 seconds business is absolute nonsense. I have witnessed people asking for the channel to be changed because of the repetitive nature of these messages. It is VERY annoying.



I don't know that we'd "all" rather the announcer kept waffling. I've certainly witnessed evidence to the contrary.

"Hope" is a very good word to use in a breakdown situation, yes. But NOT in conjunction with the phrase "as soon as possible". Something is either going to be done "as soon as possible" or it is not. You don't "hope" to do something "as soon as possible".



Duncan is one of few that does fairly well with this type of thing. He does come across quite well, and indeed has made a number of very worthwhile contributions to BBC continuity in the last few years. HOWEVER - leaving aside the number of verbal apology messages - he did commit one or two sins on that clip:

- NEVER say that you'll be returning to the programme in "a few moments" or "a few seconds' time" - not even when qualified with the word "hope"/"hopefully" - unless you're absolutely certain that that will be the case.

- Know your breakdown music well. One announcement came near the end of one of the tracks, and was followed about 20 seconds later by a further apology when the track ended.