Broadcasting House, Salford Quays & TVC

Indeed I do House, indeed I do.

Moving out of a fully functional broadcast centre that has been kept up to date with technology, into the shell of a building that does not have a single technical cable laid into it yet?

Couldn't possibly comment

Apologies - this is indeed what I was meaning. Out of interest do any of the current BBC News studios ( N6, TC7, N8 or N9) have such capability?

N6 can support two outputs, as it does this regularly with the network news and the News channel, The news channel has the ticker on throughout, along with the clock yet on the network bulletins we just get the astons no clock or ticker. They do occasionally break away from the network, for breaking news stories or press confrences etc, I believe this can be handled by N6 as well.

A far better solution - as ITN has(had) - and a number of American operations have - is to separate galleries from studios and engineer a system where any studio floor can work (within reason) into any gallery.

That way you can have fully-automated and semi-automated galleries (with different staffing levels for different production value requirements) but not tie these facilities to the same fixed and standing sets or studio.

This is how ITV ran the ITV News Channel and ITV1 bulletins - two studios, two galleries - but either could work to the other. It is also very flexible when it comes to changing sets or doing studio maintenance - as you don't have to automatically change galleries.

I hope this is what they are planning for W1. It will be a completely wasted opportunity if they aren't.

You could then have a range of studio and newsroom spaces, and a range of galleries for different outlets. You could rehearse properly etc. etc.

Maybe I'm not explaining myself properly, but I was under the impression N6 couldn't manage two feeds of entirely different content - by that I mean have the One O'Clock News, for example, going from N6 and also manage a different feed to the NC for breaking news. Thus, breaking news is often disregarded during the One on the news channel, the WN feed has to be taken or (occasionally, usually for pre-planned pieces) N9 is used.

I was asking if it is likely this will be the same issue at Broadcasting House or if they will plan it to prevent such a thing from happening.


And that sounds like a much smarter use, Noggin. Other than additional costs (I'm guessing both initially and potentially additional running/maintenance costs?) are there any draw backs to such a system?

I believe one of the reasons N6 was closed for so long when the News channel moved in was to allow this to happen, although I believe the system is far from perfect and therefore only used for important breaking news stories.

Setting up a graphics-less feed is pretty trivial - BBC1 is fed directly from the vision mixer and the ticker is laid on further downstream (although it does mean that for network bulletins they have to generate the astons a different way, via the mixer as they're usually done by the same piece of kit as the ticker AFAIK).

I *think* the way it's set up is that N6 has two vision mixers, the main desk and a separate "emergency" mixer, which is in effect the presentation desk for the News Channel, and it's at this stage that the ticker is overlaid. Therefore the main mixer can do the BBC1 bulletin (or rehearse the 10) while N8 or some other source is taken to air on the emergency mixer.

On the idea of a green screen studio with a small gallery (I guess similar to the single operator second galleries many regions have) there probably would be such a facility for the daytime updates and 60 seconds, but I wonder if in the light of recent-ish experience they would arrange for that to be generator supported (much like the pres areas, allowing Nick Witchell to do news from the Broomcupboard after the great storm) so that they can keep something on the air while decamping to Millbank?. I guess a lightbox and photo blow up might be better than CSO.

They seem to be putting rather a lot of eggs in one basket at BH, whereas at TC they have studios in various parts of the complex, so when the news centre in Stage VI had a power cut they were able to use TC7, when a fire alarm meant N6 was unavailable, BBC1 was able to join World in N9 to sustain in place of the One.

This is what they've built into Pacific Quay, and I'd be surprised if they weren't planning something similar for BH.
In PQ, news programmes are generally controlled from the Studio C gallery, and bulletins from the BCR. So whie STC is directing An La (which is presented from Studio G in Inverness, with a sport report from the PQ newsroom camera), BCR can prepare for the 8pm bulletin from STC. If there's football on, then they might use the STA or STB* gallery with STC's floor.

That said, it would be a bit of a missed opportunity if BH didn't get some sort of basic, studio-independent pres area for the News Channel. The current system does work, but it's pretty limited, and if there's a problem with the emergency mixer, requires CCA to crash other sources to air with the aid of a 2x1 switch.

* though AFAIK they've still not equipped STB, so they have to use an OB truck.

I'm not very knowledgeable about graphics, but why do the daytime updates' font and animation not look/animate like the typical BBC News graphics?

Also, noggin, do you know whether BBC News is planning to do a 'DIY' HD graphics on BBC One HD, as per your discussion in the BBC One HD thread?

It's done from a different studio with much more limited facilities.

Yep - Aston vs Viz.