Which do you prefer: Your BBC Regional News or UK

I loved Manchester opt-out news.
But their only problem (I guess since Media360 it's changed) was the throw to Weather at the end of the prog and then the weather girly came onto the set to say good night - they continually crossed the line.

A ickle minor point in a vastly professional & well put together programme. It looked good too!

You're lucky Rob having NWT!!

Yes, they still to that.

Click on this and select:

http://uk.geocities.com/itsrobertuk

NWTGD for Gordon and Dianne (Weather)
NWTGS for Gordon and Sally (Sport)
NWTTD for Tony and Dianne


They don't go too far now, not like they used to. Sometimes, if Gordon tells the viewers something about Dianne, while the News at Six Sting is playing, you can hear her shouting 'Gordon' or 'You'!

The team has changed over the recent months:

Gordon Burns
Nigel Jay
Martin Henfield
Julia Sharp
Stuart Flinders
Julie Taylor
Tina Bangs

Oh dear. Tonight they ended by saying that putting a cat in the microwave isn't a good idea. Tony said 'Thats it from me and Dianne, bye bye' then about 5 secs later, Dianne said 'Goodnight'. The camera was still on them, so they started talking to themselves. Dianne said 'That was a terrible story wasn't it?' and Tony said 'Yeah I know', while they were both looking to and from the camera to see if they had returned to London! That was cheesy!

In the South West we get things like:
'The finishing touches are being made to the Devon county show....'
And:
'A ton of pig slurry has fallen into a river in Weymouth...'

But at least we get WESTCOUNTRY LIVE!!!!!

BBC Midlands is ONE OF the biggest BBC English Regions. When Newsroom South East  splits in two, I think that might make the Midlands THE biggest (Can anyone vouch for this?). However the BBC regional news we get is so pants!

Having seen East Midlands Today (by way of playing with a portable aerial), I find it to be of a far superior quality to MT - In terms of standard of journalism, appropriate seriousness/lightheartedness (as each individual news story requires) by the studio presenters, and in terms of the more cosmetic side of things (studio set; graphics; general technical considerations such as cutting between pre-filmed reports and live studio segments of the programme).

Midlands Today often overdoes the banter (especially when Nick Owen is present), it looks cheaply made, and the journalism is VERY slack.

(Edited by SittingOvation at 9:38 pm on Aug. 7, 2001)

Midlands Today don't even have a sting!

Midlands Today used to be really good, since the split it seems to have slowly gone downhill, and when Alan Towers left I was devestated!

I think EMT is great!

I must say, unlikely as it is Anne Davies and Quentin Raynor are a good pair for presenting the programme, the chemistry between them is excellent and they make amusing remarks at the right points.

Also, when the get to the soft area, well its all systems go for banter! It really is excellent!

BTW, the programme is broadcasting in 16:9, but sadly none of the cameras (Studio or OB) are 16:9 but astons got to the end of the 16:9 frame. So they are broadcasting in 16:9, they just haven't got the cameras on 16:9 yet.

I think Nottingham will be the next to go proper 16:9

I would have said that BBC North (Leeds) is similar in size to the BBC Midlands (Birmingham) region and at it is received from places as far as Settle in the northwest and King's Lynn in the southeast - Ideally we would have 2 seperate regions, with one for Leeds and another based on Hull and broadcast from Belmont (near Louth, Lincs). BBC North serves just under 6 million viewers - I think that' pretty average, though.

Maybe it could split into Look North and East East Midlands Today!

I know that East Midlands Today only has one transmitter (Waltham) and is therefore a very small region.

But I get the impression that Points West is probably also a one-transmitter region, as it looks quite small to me (am I correct, and where is/are the transmitter(s)?)

Just as I have raised the issue of which is the BIGGEST English region (BBC), I would also be interested to know which is the SMALLEST (It must be either EMT or Points West - but I image whichever one wins will not do so by a great margin...) lol JACK

Imagine if the Cambridge opt-out service for Look East broke away to become a fully-fledged separate region! What the bleep would THAT be called?

'BBC Western half of the East'
'BBC South East Midlands'
'BBC West Anglia'

Actually that third suggestion is fairly sensible...

(Edited by SittingOvation at 1:19 am on Aug. 8, 2001)

Indeed! EMT is a one transmitter region broadcasting from Waltham at 250kW, but the Waltham transmitter has a large reach and covers quite a large area.

Points West is also another one transmitter region broadcasting from Mendip at 500kW, so EMT should be the smallest region with a lower power than Mendip, but Waltham signals get around very well, so its hard to tell exactly how big the region is. The actually region ends at the Leicestershire border but it goes into large parts of Warwickshire and Coventry which is Midlands Today country.
Sadly, Warwickshire never gets a mention on EMT, then again it never does on MT!

So its hard to tell which is the larger region.


Also, talking about region splits, I wouldn't of put the Oxford transmitter on the BBC South region, I would of added it to the Midlands and given it an opt out, like it has now.
Then again, its probably better with the South because Midlands Today probably wouldn't cover it very well. Although I wouldn't exactly call Oxfordshire the South. Not when its compared with places like Southampton.