It never ceases to amaze me how a local news programme like LDN can have so many mistakes in one bulletin, when they only do short simple bulletins, and a 24hr channel like Sky News can go all day doing much more complicated programming with barely a blooper.
If anyone saw LDN this morning when none of their VTs would run they will know what I mean.
Yes lantern, I do know what you mean. But let's face it, when BBC LDN was Newsroom South East they made hundreds of mistakes - so nothing's changed has it?! :
MP
MP
Slightly in the wrong place but it doesn't merit its own topic. Did anyone catch Moira Stuart's bloomer about 830 am this am when she said 'so sorry' before continuing
Speaking of local news mistakes, here's one from Look North at lunchtime today:
Peter Levy was doing an item on a children's music venture in the region and produced this classic: 'When I think of school orchestras, I think of children playing flutes, clarinets and the odd CRUMPET...er..trumpet!' Peter then lost it, laughing his arse off!
As if that wasn't bad enough, the next item he had to do was something about a police identity parade, where would you believe it, 'Police need to find 16 slim blondes in their mid-30s to keep in custody for an hour for an identity parade. Call Leeds police station or Paul Hudson...'
Paul then got the knife in with 'More crumpet! You've got it on the brain!' Peter offered a swift apology! Classic Carry On stuff!
It never ceases to amaze me how a local news programme like LDN can have so many mistakes in one bulletin, when they only do short simple bulletins, and a 24hr channel like Sky News can go all day doing much more complicated programming with barely a blooper.
If anyone saw LDN this morning when none of their VTs would run they will know what I mean.
Well Sky are still based on traditional 'old' technology, with high staffing levels. They run reports from videotape, have a vision mixer, a director, at least one sound supervisor, a camera operator etc.
BBC LDN and BBC Tunbridge Wells have been equipped with new technology, which allows the staff levels to be massively dropped, even lower than the levels used by News 24!
All reports are played out from computer controlled hard disc servers, and for short bulletins the sound and vision mixing is also controlled by an automatic system. This means that only the presenter and the director are needed to put out the bulletin, with no other staff. However if the technology goes wrong, there is little chance of recovering, whereas with lots of people you can normally cope somehow!
(However lots of people cost lots of money...)
LA
lantern100
So the question is. With the scraping of UK Today, what will happen when it all goes tits up like this morning.
0720 this morning
1 min in to LDN- Anchor ' I am sorry we are having a few problems with our technology so we will pass you over to UK Today, with more storys from around London and the South East'
Cut to UK Today part way through package about school dinners in Scotland!
Working at the sharp end of tv production myself I hope the technology continues to fall over, often and embarrasingly!
In the days before UK Today, BBC Southampton was the backup for BBC Elstree.
It was not uncommon to see Pauline Brandt (BBC South breakfast presenter) instead of the BBC South East presenter on the network at 0627 on Monday mornings...
On one occasion both Southampton and Elstree were unable to go on-air (neither had a presenter ISTR). In that case Norwich should have been available as a backup - but they couldn't route the right signal to London in time, so the opt was cancelled. There were complaints from almost every other region - who were sitting there ready and waiting to opt-out!
It never ceases to amaze me how a local news programme like LDN can have so many mistakes in one bulletin, when they only do short simple bulletins, and a 24hr channel like Sky News can go all day doing much more complicated programming with barely a blooper.
If anyone saw LDN this morning when none of their VTs would run they will know what I mean.
Well Sky are still based on traditional 'old' technology, with high staffing levels. They run reports from videotape, have a vision mixer, a director, at least one sound supervisor, a camera operator etc.
BBC LDN and BBC Tunbridge Wells have been equipped with new technology, which allows the staff levels to be massively dropped, even lower than the levels used by News 24!
All reports are played out from computer controlled hard disc servers, and for short bulletins the sound and vision mixing is also controlled by an automatic system. This means that only the presenter and the director are needed to put out the bulletin, with no other staff. However if the technology goes wrong, there is little chance of recovering, whereas with lots of people you can normally cope somehow!
(However lots of people cost lots of money...)
Is this the Carry on Columbus system you are takling about?
Well BBC LDN and BBC Tunbridge Wells do use Columbus, but so does News 24 who provide UK Today, as well as BBC World and BBC Breakfast. It is also used by BBC East Midlands Today and HTV West news.
Columbus (and the Omnibus system it runs on) is a versatile set of tools - it all depends on what you want to do, and how you want to do it. Columbus can control astons, still stores, lighting, remote cameras, VT machines, video servers, vision mixers, sound mixers, DVEs etc. Whether it is a good idea to do this for specific programmes is another matter...
For example - News 24 don't use Columbus to balance their sound, as it can't easily balance the sound on DTL interviews, phonos etc. For the same reason, neither do BBC LDN at 1330, 1520 or 1830. They do use Columbus to balance sound at other times, though.
News 24 used to use Columbus to control an automatic ped down and zoom in at the top of the hour (flags era, second set/studio), BBC London do not have remote control cameras, so don't use this facility!
The bottom line is - if you have a few people around, and Columbus (or ENPS which partially controls it) goes wrong, you can normally cope. If you only have one person - you probably can't reach all the buttons you need to press to do the bulletin manually!
:
