The Spotlight Thread

Much like most of the other regional news programmes. Two presenters (Teresa Driscoll and Justin Leigh) at a desk, reading the news. Standard BBC regional titles (the pictures). Red and cream studio. Craig Rich or David Braine doing the weather. Fairly relaxed style to the whole thing.

Any other questions?

Any humorous banter?

Erm, sometimes, depends who's presenting. Teresa and Justin are vaguely funny occasionally, Justin and Sophie struggle, Teresa and Andy aren't too bad while Teresa and Sophie seem to hate each other. To be honest my favourite couple is Justin and Natalie - some good banter, and good on-screen chemistry.

Any banter that does occur normally centres around the weather, whenever Craig or David get it wrong/predict good weather for a change.

Although as you don't watch the programme the names above won't mean much to you! Don't forget, you can watch Spotlight on www.bbc.co.uk/spotlight

What a shame, Justin back on Spotlight today - I was enjoying the Teresa/Natalie pairing!

Did anyone notice the strange announcement before the 6:00 News tonight? It just said "This is BBC 1 South West. Now time for the BBC News at 6:00". That was all, no presenter names, no nothing! I was hoping for someone exciting doing either the national news or Spotlight (hence no pre-recorded announcement suitable), but it was just George, Sophie and Justin as usual.

Just out of interest, what do viewers from other regions watching on DSat / on holiday think of Spotlight compared to other regions' programmes?

I know I was very annoyed!! And Justin was back!! Really wanted to see Natalie and Teresa together. I am thinking about the Spotlight open day! Anyone else thinking about going??

Katherine, my opinion on Spotlight at 6:30pm is it is a bit too newsy not much magazine issues.

Also has anyone else noticed why Spotlight plays out the old ending at the end of the programme. I mean the theme from 2000-2002 ( yellow panels and blue carpet.)

Yeah, I'm considering the open day - especially cos the lovely Lucie Fisher was in the trail they showed on the programme!!!

I suppose Spotlight is quite newsy, but it seems to work well. It never seems boring, for example. Maybe it's just because too much news happens in the South West.

As for the old music at the end - could it be an attempt from the Plymouth team to resist just a little bit of the corporate rebrand? The music they use at the end is very slightly more orchestral than in most regions - maybe a throwback from the fantastic lighthouse and glass desk era.

The music is not from that era. All the english regions used it when it wa the map titles era. I.E Yellow Panels and Blue Carpet!

Probably corporate resistance. It is well known that BBC South West do not like and do not want the corporate look. They held onto their lighthouse until the last minute (they were one of, if not the, last region to go corporate), they made a case for it's preservation (which I entirely agree with. In the south west, it was important for Spotlight to have it's own identity. People outside of the region do not understand this, and thought it would be stronger if it was associated with the national news, but then that only goes to show that people in London should not make decisions which affect Devon and Cornwall), and when they were brought into line they didn't let it go willingly, they were dragged kicking and screaming away from it.

To that end, they do still try to get subtle bits of resistance in where they can - and retaining the old music is part of this.

Link to all the looks Spotlight have had

TV Ark - BBC Spotlight News

My personal favorite was the 1999 look and the 1999 eclips day video

EDIT: the page appears to very slow to load!

And look at how good they all are - the only bad one is the 1988 computer generated look, but then almost everyone managed to create absolute monstrosities when let loose on computer animation for the first time.

The lighthouse look was classy one
http://www.nickyschiller.co.uk/Spotlightwide_WEB.jpg

I'm sure it was you bringing the class into that picture Nicky.

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