On Children in Need on Friday, when it cut to the Scottish output, I heard an old voice, it was an old BBC Scotland announcer (I think his name is Tony Currie although I'm not sure). It's quite confusing because I've not heard him on for years I assumed he'd left.
It's also made me think, as there are quite a lot of announcers at BBC Scotland, do they do other jobs as well within the BBC as surely a couple of shifts every 2 or 3 weeks wouldn't be enough to pay the bills.
On Children in Need on Friday, when it cut to the Scottish output, I heard an old voice, it was an old BBC Scotland announcer (I think his name is Tony Currie although I'm not sure). It's quite confusing because I've not heard him on for years I assumed he'd left.
It's also made me think, as there are quite a lot of announcers at BBC Scotland, do they do other jobs as well within the BBC as surely a couple of shifts every 2 or 3 weeks wouldn't be enough to pay the bills.
Don't BBC Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run on "Channel Directors" in presentation, rather than dedicated announcers? In other words the voice you hear announcing is also pressing all the buttons and running the channel - a bit like an out of vision self-op.
Quite often the channel directors also direct the short local news bulletins as well AIUI - so they may be "on shift" without you hearing their dulcet tones, or there may still be scope for freelancers...
Yes as far as I know they do everything behind the scenes as well so perhaps that's it. I think that's the best way to do it as it also keeps continuity live, perhaps other channels should do the same thing.
I think though in Tony Currie's case, he presents on BBC Radio Scotland too. Yes, the nations do use Channel Directors, rather than separate announcers and directors. There are presentation assistants AIUI, but I think their role is slightly more administrative than operational.
On Children in Need on Friday, when it cut to the Scottish output, I heard an old voice, it was an old BBC Scotland announcer (I think his name is Tony Currie although I'm not sure). It's quite confusing because I've not heard him on for years I assumed he'd left.
It's also made me think, as there are quite a lot of announcers at BBC Scotland, do they do other jobs as well within the BBC as surely a couple of shifts every 2 or 3 weeks wouldn't be enough to pay the bills.
Don't BBC Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run on "Channel Directors" in presentation, rather than dedicated announcers? In other words the voice you hear announcing is also pressing all the buttons and running the channel - a bit like an out of vision self-op.
Quite often the channel directors also direct the short local news bulletins as well AIUI - so they may be "on shift" without you hearing their dulcet tones, or there may still be scope for freelancers...
The situation varies slighlty from Nation to Nation.
In Scotland, I believe, the Announcers also adjust the timings of schedule throughout the day... other more technical duties such as caching programmes to server are carried out by someone else. The Announcers also work on Radio Scotland AFAIK.
In NI the Continuity Directors (i.e. Announcers) not only adjust and maintain the schedule as the day progresses (making certain editorial and media planning decissions), they also perform more technical operations such as caching local programmes to server, re-branding the trails from London to carry the NI brand, recording network programmes to local server for later playout, routing of sources, creation of some graphics etc. As well as writing scripts and performing the voice overs. There are lots of other duties... too many to mention in one post.
In Wales, I believe, the Channel Directors have similar duties to their Belfast counterparts... while also directing most Welsh TV news.
On Children in Need on Friday, when it cut to the Scottish output, I heard an old voice, it was an old BBC Scotland announcer (I think his name is Tony Currie although I'm not sure). It's quite confusing because I've not heard him on for years I assumed he'd left.
Tony can be heard presenting The Night Shift on Radio Scotland. I'm not sure if this means he's not doing anything as part of the presentation team these days, but it's entirely possible he'll pop up here to tell us...