I watched this week's edition from Eltham, where Stephen Lawrence was murdered in 1993.
They did a segment from where he was murdered which attracted a couple of idiots, eventually moving back to the mobile studio where a crowd of teenagers were outside in the distance, the camera operators trying to not have them in shot.
One scene from the mobile studio had a car revving up during the link and another with a car horn. The new format is an absolute stinker and hopefully will return to a studio based show in the new year as it all distracts from the objective of solving crime.
I watched this week's edition from Eltham, where Stephen Lawrence was murdered in 1993.
They did a segment from where he was murdered which attracted a couple of idiots, eventually moving back to the mobile studio where a crowd of teenagers were outside in the distance, the camera operators trying to not have them in shot.
One scene from the mobile studio had a car revving up during the link and another with a car horn. The new format is an absolute stinker and hopefully will return to a studio based show in the new year as it all distracts from the objective of solving crime.
Trouble is there arn't many studios left to make it in. Llandaff's going and because of the shortage of production space the costs are through the roof. Also that mobile studio wasn't cheap
Last edited by TROGGLES on 13 September 2016 7:31pm
Trouble is there arn't many studios left to make it in. Llandaff's going and because of the shortage of production space the costs are through the roof. Also that mobile studio wasn't cheap
Bet it was. It's almost certainly just an empty box, the clever bit will be an OB truck. That show doesn't need a fully equipped studio, it just needs a space full of office desks, and phones, with an OB truck servicing it.
What it doesn't need is the nonsense of being 'on location'
It must be a pain to set up all the telephony on location each week. They would be better off filming it in a police station incident room.
These days I suspect it is just a decent IP connection, also used for on-site IT. VOIP telephony is now routinely deployed on larger BBC location-based shows.
So the BBC is one again closing studio facilities that are actually needed? Great move.
Don't think Llandaff was exactly running at 100% utilisation - particularly since I believe they moved production of Pobl to their drama centre (which has lots of sound stages used by shows like Doctor Who.) One series of Only Connect was also shot at the drama sound stage site - presumably using an OB truck...
I guess the major issue is that the obvious cost saving you can make for lower utilisation studios is to not equip them with galleries, and design them with connectivity to an OB truck, so you can only hire the 'control room' (i.e. OB truck) when you need it.
However the actual major cost is the actual space the studio occupies - which costs the same whether it is in use or not - and TV studios don't offer the same return on investment as accommodation etc.
The reality is that studios increasingly need to be built in cheaper locations - not major cities with high land costs.
Ever since Nick left nine years ago the show has headed down a slippery slope of being over-dramatic and in some respects quite sensationalist... and that has been boosted somewhat since Jeremy and Tina have come in. I never really liked Kirsty Young's tenure as host for this same reason.
They could move the operation to Pacific Quay in Glasgow or MediacityUK in Salford if there is a concern for studio space. TVC's remaining three studios should be opening back up for use in a years time so they're always an option but granted three is not many.
They could have even used a Police Force's control centre to broadcast from or the call centre for Crimestoppers if they wanted to be 'in the action' in a confined space.
To be honest.... I'm still not over the loss of 'Don't have nightmares, Do sleep well.'
It's raining! Cue the umbrella and quite distracting spots of rain on the camera lens!
Can't see this format returning at all, I see they've turned up at the Thame Valley Police HQ this week too to prevent any potential guest appearances from local residents!
The idea of broadcasting live from crime scenes in weeks 1 and 2 of "new" Crimewatch did at least have
some
rationale behind it, albeit a tenuous and gimmicky one (not to mention the numerous practical questions the idea raised for future broadcasts).
But, hang on, broadcasting live from
the car park of a cop shop
? In the rain? What's the bloody point of that?!
I wonder if this was part of the original plan, or if they've had their fingers burned by the debacle of the numpties trying to get their faces on TV at the scene of the Stephen Lawrence murder last week.
