BBC Regions on Digital

I watched BBC2 the other day to listen to the local news. I switched Digital BBC2 on (I have Telewest) and it was some programme called UK Today! No Yorkshire News at all! But on BBC1 in the mornings, Look North is on! So why not on BBC2?

UK Today goes out all the time on SKY Digital. Becuase on SKY Digital regions cannot be detected, they send out a generic UK Today from London. This is a compilation of reports from the main news teams across the UK. It is also a backup programme for BBC Regions when an programme cannot be broadcast for any particular reason. It is filmed from the other side of the National News studio and is normally presented by Dalya Raphael, Martine Croxall or Gwenan Edwards.

Thanks for that Rob. At first I thought there must've been a cock up with the server! So, how does this UK Today get the best story's for every region in such a short bulletin time?

They compile the main news stories from each of the English regions regional news programmes, plus Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales' ones, and there you go! You'll notice at the end of each report how the reporter will say eg. 'Phil Connell, BBC Look North, Bradford' or 'xx, BBC Midlands Today, Solihull' or whatever.

Yep - the BBC English regions can only opt out on BBC One on Digital Terrestrial (and digital Cable where that takes the feed of Digital Terrestrial)

BBC Two on DTT and DCab is the same as DSat - which takes UK Today.

BBC One on DSat (and DCab operators who take DSat) also carries UK Today instead of a regional programme.

You may also notice that on NTL Digital BBC Two you get Metropol (from BBC South East) rather than Look Norths political programme on Sunday afternoons.

A while back Midlands Today stopped having the reporters name and programme at the end.

I think they stopped when UK Today became the sustaining feed. Normally they say who's the report is before it starts, they normally say 'As ___ ___ reports' and when the report has finished they normally say '___ ___ reporting'

Sometimes they use one or both. On very rare occasions you get an aston at the beginning saying who's report it is. Or when a correspondent is seen within the report it will flash up their name and what they do. (Health, Transport, etc.)

Similar sort of thing up here in the north west. We have 'Stuart Flinders reports..' and every report ends with either 'Stuart Flinders, North West Today.' or 'Stuart Flinders, North West Tonight'

Newsline reporters stopped saying 'Newsline' at the end of reports when the corporate look came in. Henceforth they have simply said 'BBC News'. (BBC NI also stopped calling the bulittens 'Newsline 6:30, Newsline 1:30' etc at that time).

On Newsroom South East, we generally have everything. We always have a signature ('Mr X, Newsroom South East, Croydon'), usually have a link ('Mr X reports'), and quite often an aston at the beginning

Oh yes - the faces. I didn't need them, but they look good anyway!

I wonder why they didn't - when the rebranded in the corporate style - get every region to end in the style: Stephen Naylor, BBC News, Brighouse.

It would make it much easier for UK Today and give a better corporate branding - which was what they wanted!