The Daily Politics

There seemed to be an odd problem with The Daily Politics today. Andrew Neil is in a studio in Belfast and he was interviewing two people. The camera started off showing Andrew Neil and the screen with the programmes logo on it, when the interview started it wobbled and zoomed (in-vision) to a close up on Andrew Neil. He asked a question and we heard the interviewees answer, but we didn't see them. It seems that the director could only take one camera feed, so we just got a close up shot of Andrew Neil. After a while, the camera wobbled zoomed out (again in vision) and we got a long shot that showed Andrew Neil and the interviewees. A few seconds later and the problem was resolved, not only did they cut to a different camera but they also put graphics on screen including a 'live' bug that probably should have been there since the start.

I'm sure it will be on IPlayer in due course.

Edit: Just watched it back. There seemed to be a sound issue too. Andrew Neil was much louder than the interviewees.

Did see that

However generally I must say I find The Daily Politics an excellent show. Shame it's rather hidden on BBC2 and not on BBC1, but I guess the daytime shows are more popular

The show isn't on IPlayer yet but the interview (including problems) is available here... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_daily_politics/8454230.stm

EDIT: It is now on IPlayer. This has the benefit that you can see Andrew Neil wondering if he is still on air when his massive face appears on the screen in London after the interview.
http://bbc.co.uk/i/q2wbx/?t=5m10s

The BBC's studio at Stormont does not have a gallery of its own.

When used for Stormont Live on BBC 2 NI, the feeds of the three cameras in the studio are fed back to the gallery in Broadcasting House in Belfast where it is directed and vision/sound mixed.

As the end credits named a "Stormont Director"... and the programme went out between midday at 12:30 (i.e. not clashing with BBC Newsline at 1.30)... I would guess the Stormont segments were directed from the gallery in Broadcasting House in Belfast.

The fault was probably due to either one of the feeds between Stormont and BH Belfast failing, a problem with the mixer in BH Belfast, or perhaps even due to a direct feed of one of the cameras being sent to Millbank in error instead of the output of the gallery.

The odd camera move would have been due to the camera operator thinking that the gallery had cut away to another shot, so that s/he could reframe for the interview.