BBC Regional on DSAT >>

Yep - I guess presenter/producer, director/sound/gfx, and VT? Is there still an engineer normally around to support both TV and local radio?

In the 90s, Look East was staffed with :

Director/sound/gfx person (aka Station Asst)
VT Editor/Playin
Presenter
Producer
Autocue Operator/Script runner
Engineer (also supporting Radio Norfolk the other side of the road!)

I think Elstree had a PA as well - but Norwich certainly didn't!

The autocue operator was the first to go, when a presenter operated foot-pedal was installed (same time as Cambridge launched with the same system)

Then the presenter was also asked to produce - though by this time Radio Norfolk news was moved into the TV newsroom from the other side of the road, and there was also a News 24 journalist to help if there was breaking news in the morning.

Nope -- generally no engineers around until about 8am

Usually it's:

Presenter
Tech op
BA

Although, it does vary slightly from centre to centre depending on kit.

Nope, Peter Levy, dependable as ever!

Our Peter ne'er has a day off,
He'll work through the sniff and the cough.
Fills Look North tape by the yard
He works ever so hard
To his dedication, our hats, we must doff.

Interesting - does the Tech Op direct,vision mix, sound mix and Picture Edit?

Bristol has got servers hasn't it?

Who plays those in? The BA or the Tech Op - if not what does the BA do? (In Norwich astons are burnt into VTs normally - so no live astons to do! SA does rough timings - and normally backtimes the bulletin from the end of the last VT)

Just out of interest - with no engineer until 0800 - how do network bookings for Breakfast, and fault fixing for local radio and TV happen? (I guess the News 24 camera/VTR is routed to London overnight...)

Yup - they play everything from 'profile' ... It's all played in by the tech op - the whole lot. Play in, vision mix, astons ... a nightmare for them ... they have a specially adapted one-person gallery to do this.

Usually they don't do editing during breakfast, so if something happens they're in trouble

network bookings for news 24/breakfast are done by forcing network to buy someone in to look after them.

There is, I might add, a comms centre -- so routing is done by them ... but that's all they do ...

Local radio look after themselves entirely, and the same of radio network guests happens - they force them to buy someone in.

Good Lord, sounds like some ststions are a bit short-staffed.

Does anyone knoe any good addresses I can write to to get training to do this sort of thing?

You're not kidding me.

Best way in Katherine, trust me here, write to the BBC local radio station and ask to help.

You may have to work for free, or penuts, for a while -- but if you're good enough, they'll give you paid work eventually.

Write a begging letter (don't e-mail them!) ... you're bound to get a response if you offer yourself (!) for free.

Why don't they make UK Today part of N24 again, then they could automatically switch over to N24, if the regions fail !

Watch LDN, instead of Midlands Today.I should coco !!

UK Today was a real thorn in the side for News 24 when it used to be a simulcast on BBC One/News 24. There always seemed to be breaking news at 1330 and 1830 when News 24 had to break away from it to show the best of the regions, leaving Sky to cover the main story of the day!

There were nearly cheers from the News 24 newsroom when the show became a separate programme from the national studio, leaving them with a level playing field.

The UK Today team are lovely - but the content really did stick out on News 24... Can't see it returning as a simulcast.

If you are interested, there are 3 staff on duty for Anglia's breakfast bulletins:
1. Presenter
2. Journalist
3. Tech Op

The same gallery and equipment is used for breakfast as for the main programme, so there isn't a cut-down version of the gallery like at the BBC. The tech op does the vision mixing, sound, plays in the VT's, puts up the supers and opts in and out if the GMTV automatic opt fails. The journalist does the timings and oversees the automatic caption generator which creates the supers from the scripts. The VT's are loaded into a MARC machine (like a video jukebox) which consists of 5 VT machines and a robotic arm. You load all your tapes into it and the machine reads your running order from the newsroom computer system and hey presto - all your VT's are loaded and played in order automatically. Finally the presenter edits all the VT's and creates the graphics from the paintbox as well as updating Anglia's internet website with the latest news and digitises the VT's to put on the website.

Then its breakfast time!

Interesting that there are loads of different ways of using three people for breakfast bulletins!

The sound desk in the Anglia Gallery must be pretty close to the vision desk if one person has to operate both - as well as running the MARC... How many arms do your directors have ?

Wait until servers and automated galleris hit all the regions like they have at BBC Tunbridge Wells and London, as well as News 24 and World (though 24/World is slightly less automated).

This allows automatic vision and sound mixing, caption generation, stills and server ' VT' playout - all linked from the newsroom computer - you can even enter which cameras you want to use into a script... Combine this with simplified server editing, and you can get it down to two people. A director who just hits the 'Next' button (assuming things are going to plan!) and a presenter to sit in front of the camera, and produce the bulletin and edit any breaking news.

In fact this could go down to one person if the presenter were given the 'Next' button - I think this happens in the US at places like Bloomberg....

So long as they don't opt for Leich server! Urgh
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