Do they really think the public is too stupid to cope with a delay between sets thats likely to be in the magnitude of a few milliseconds (like it is in my house).
Remember "the public" are the same people who tweet daybreak complaining the clock is wrong on ITV1+1 ever morning
Haha, you're winding us up, surely, Pete? Have people actually complained about that?!
I always thought the mute clock was a very suitable way of leading into the news. Idents with music sound awful - it's been 10 years now since the BBC dropped the clock; enough already.
My sentiment exactly.
The best parallel I can think to draw would be the pips - an immediately recognisable and distinctive audio cue for news at the TOTH - but it's the sound, rather than the accuracy in relation to the time, that ultimately gives the signal to listeners.
In that sense, the clock itself - even if inaccurate - is the visual equivalent of the pips.
It allows the lead in to be instantly distinguishable from that of other programmes as an effective and very suitable way of introducing news. And without needing any sound at all - it appears ticking up to 1 or 6 o'clock, and you know it's the news before the announcer has even spoken.
I think the presence of the mute clock as a strong and appropriate on-screen cue, rather than an accurate timepiece, is its real strength. And as TV now gives even less time to silence, it makes a much greater impression when it is used.
Very true, Paul. The silence really made the news stand out during the 1997-2002 period. Personally, I'd do away with ident music althogether for channel idents (I do think music is important for news titles, as it sets the right tone if done well). I always thought the junction between a mute ident (or at least a short musical ident followed by silence to allow the announcer to speak) and the start of a programme was much easier on the ears to what we have to endure now. More often than not channels dip the ident music slightly for the announcer but put it back up before crashing into the programme in a rather jarring fashion. Bring back the old days is what I say. It sounded a lot more professional back then.
Yeah, absolutely nothing wrong with a clock into the news, would provide a gravitas that's currently lacking. Although at least the BBC still introduce it and who is reading, that can't be guaranteed (hence the Voice of God returning for ITV News I guess)
In-vision was mentioned in the first post and I'm a bit surprised channels don't make more use of their 'channel faces' to even more clearly promote what channel you're watching. You could imagine Dermot introducing the evening's programmes on ITV1 from the X Factor set on final night, for example. Or Ant and Dec when Takeaway returns or even find a totally new face that the person can be heavily associated with a particular channel. Would inject some personality into junctions and provide a link between the evening's programmes.
Can't think of any recent examples but I'm sure it's been done.
I think the issue with the on-screen clocks that broadcasters used to use before the News bulletins was that they have second hands.
There is no way that this can be accurate in the digital TV era.
Freeview, Freesat, Cable and the routes taken on the way, plus HD and SD broadcasts using different systems (with different latencies) and differences in receiver technology mean that we're not talking about 'a few seconds' we're talking about 20+ seconds in some cases.
That isn't a 'little bit out' like the pips are on DAB, that's a country mile out.
On-screen clocks on Breakfast and Daybreak, which are only accurate to the minute are a different kettle of fish. They'll be right more often than they'll be wrong - a clock with a second hand will always be wrong...
I miss the clock before the One, Six and Ten as much as lots of people do. It was a great visual device and gave a good sensible lead-in to the News. However there's no point in broadcasting something you know is factually incorrect - so I totally understand, and agree with, the reasons for ceasing to broadcast it...
(Though it had often got VERY inaccurate - and was often 5 hours out in some cases - when the One, Six and Ten all gained integrated regional headlines, and the clock started being a bit of VT played out from the regional centre - and on numerous occasions the wrong version was TXed - rather than a nice accurate network clock)
Yeah, absolutely nothing wrong with a clock into the news, would provide a gravitas that's currently lacking. Although at least the BBC still introduce it and who is reading, that can't be guaranteed (hence the Voice of God returning for ITV News I guess)
We'll have to agree to differ on this. I can't argue for broadcasting something you can guarantee won't be truthful (and you can guarantee you'd get a LOT of complaints that the 'TV clock was wrong'). It's a basic trust thing. If you ditched the second hand then it would be better - but then it would be duller...
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In-vision was mentioned in the first post and I'm a bit surprised channels don't make more use of their 'channel faces' to even more clearly promote what channel you're watching. You could imagine Dermot introducing the evening's programmes on ITV1 from the X Factor set on final night, for example. Or Ant and Dec when Takeaway returns or even find a totally new face that the person can be heavily associated with a particular channel. Would inject some personality into junctions and provide a link between the evening's programmes.
BBC Three tried this a bit recently didn't they - with in-vision pres between shows. Didn't really work for them.
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Can't think of any recent examples but I'm sure it's been done.
Not sure you need a single face - surely better to keep the junctions minimal and get each show to hand positively to the next - particularly if you have a very live schedule.
BBC Three's approach to the in-vision wasn't as well executed as it could have been - you had Jose Vanders doing the live IVC links, but at the same time, you also had pre-recorded idents with the voice of Lola Buckley fired out during evening junctions, as well as the user-generated content - it was confusing as to who was the "voice" of BBC Three, so something had to give - and the cheaper option won through, it seems.
I still think in-vision is a viable option - look at UTV and the popularity of Julian (which you can't dispute even if he's not to your personal taste), Gillian, Tina, Pamela and Rose. At the moment, it's a unique selling point UTV has finally began exploiting to a greater potential - comments on here and other fora demonstrate it's held in fond regard.
Yeah, absolutely nothing wrong with a clock into the news, would provide a gravitas that's currently lacking. Although at least the BBC still introduce it and who is reading, that can't be guaranteed (hence the Voice of God returning for ITV News I guess)
II always think that an ident and anno before the news is fairly redundant these days anyway, especially as the BBC News Channel doesn't do it.
It's even more pointless on Channel 4 - why do they need to tell us that next on Channel 4 is the news when the next programme is called 'Channel 4 News'?
Last edited by Inspector Sands on 26 June 2012 12:57am - 2 times in total
The on-screen clocks were never accurate in the Nations (and presumably English Regions) in the analogue days either. They were off-set by a second or so to allow the network clock to cut to the news studio, before the Nations and Regions announcers cut from their clock to the dirty feed.
Then when digital was introduced in the Nations the clocks had even more of an off-set added to allow for the digital delay on the incoming feed and the fact that the feed was dirty and they needed to avoid the network clock being seen.... add to that the delay in the feed making its way back to London for coding and uplinking to satellite, and then being received in the home... all adds up to the fact the clock was never accurate!
The point of the clock never was to be accurate. It was a presentation device, used to indicate that the news was about to start... and also quite often used to just fill time.
It was dropped in the era of the dancers for a couple of reasons... 1. initially because the 'dancers' background behind the clock had the BBC One logo in the wrong position and would have looked a mess if you cut or mixed from a trail in to the clock... and 2. because it was seen by some as old fashioned and 'slow' and therefore there was no great will to get the thing fixed after they successfully managed to introduce the News with dancers idents.
I was thinking about this, the other day when my mind went a bit blank. could some of the older CA/Press come back in to use on tv?
One thing you have to consider is that the style of presentation on TV in any era is determined by the technology available. Today computers and the like make things very slick on air but in the sort of time you're referring to almost everything was done manually and there was stuff that couldn't be done. There was also the factor that they mostly just couldn't think of another way to do it.
Items like station clocks, slides, in vision continuity and menus, as well as the BBC's looped symbols were used because they were live and could just be put on air whenever needed without having to load or pre-roll a replay machine. Editing of trails was also a less simple affair
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* Church spots for who ever?
The Epilogue is one historical oddity that will never return, it's nearest contemporaries Thought For The Day/Pause For Thought probably won't last that much longer in their present forms I suspect.
The on-screen clocks were never accurate in the Nations (and presumably English Regions) in the analogue days either. They were off-set by a second or so to allow the network clock to cut to the news studio, before the Nations and Regions announcers cut from their clock to the dirty feed.
Wasn't it a bit fast anyway, so that the viewer actually saw it tick onto 6:00:00 exactly? If it was spot on accurate you wouldn't have seen it do that
I don't want 5 channels only but I believe there is a lot of pointless sky channels and you could easily cut half the channels
But it's a free market.... especially on satellite. It's not as if there's a limited amount of channels and your 'pointless' ones are preventing others from existing.
Think of it like magazines, it doesn't matter how many open or close there will always be enough room on the newsagent's shelf.
