Daybreak - the launch onwards

Well looking on some video's earlier on the Daybreak website, I noticed that when they were talking to a guest about the NZ earthquakes, they had video of some of the destruction etc on the TV.

I suppose there just trying a few things out, see if it looks good.

Well I suppose they could use it for things like that - showing events/clips to the guest instead of having a split screen, they can just have a wide shot.

But I still think it looks odd

Kate and Dan today!

The screen just looks like it has been wheeled on and it just happened to stop where it did. Showing guests something on a screen that is in-vision adds nothing at all. There are plenty of screens dotted around the studio for a guest to watch clips on, and if that fails they could always place a monitor down by the presenters sofa (out of vision). It just looks cluttered and when you've got windows, you don't want to block them too much.

Meanwhile the ratings have fallen again to 600,000 whilst BBC Breakfast remains with 1.6m viewers. It might be half term but Daybreak has lost 200,000 on average (a quarter of its overall audience) whilst Breakfast has only lost 100,000 which is only a small fraction. That must be quite alarming.

It's not half term right across the country either. Some were on half term last week.

I like the frameless TV (is it the same as the old Five News one?) but it looks very odd in front of the windows. They bang on about the amazing view from their studio but we never see it!

Same sort of thing as FIVE News and GMTV 2009 onwards they had two!

the screen may have been used as a distraction from the autocue and people reflections in the glass so they can have the blinds up earlier or remain up

Why would that be a distraction? People don't gaze into the screen in the studio if it's there like confused sheep, they will still see the reflections.

Not like it's the first time...

If reflections were a distraction they'd just slightly change the camera angle as they did on the first day during Tasmin's first news bulletin.

Perhaps the reflections is why they've opted not to use the view as an actual backdrop in the way that London Tonight and Loose Women did when they were in that studio. On a slightly different note I'm wondering whether they'll remove the wooden wall behind the guests when its light at 6am again (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Nquk0pE4Ew).

That's a lot easier to do for a simple set-up like Tasmin's. When you have a sofa set shot from multiple angles, with lots more lighting and multiple cameras with prompts, it gets much more difficult to control reflections.

The simple answer is that you need more light outside than inside to reduce them - if you have a bright studio inside, and a dark world outside, you get terrible reflections, as the windows effectively turn into mirrors.

You can solve reflection problems on a single shot of a single presenter by changing angles a bit - it's a lot more difficult (if not impossible) if you've got 4 or 5 cameras shooting a 2+2. Covering up the windows is the only real solution if you can't properly light the exterior stuff.

London Tonight, when they were in that studio, had far fewer shots, and were able to frame them a lot more carefully as a result.

If you look at The One Show in the dark hours, they put lots of light on the buildings and trees that they have as their backdrop outside, to try and reduce the reflections - though they don't get rid of all of them.