[nwtv2003]

Nobody has been pretending that the views are real for quite a long time.

It's a depiction of their location in Salford, and a recognisable view in their region. It's not meant to be a view from a window.

To be fair the new North West Tonight view is accurate as if looking towards the Quays and Manchester from Trafford Wharf Road, albeit at a higher level. And it’s actually accurate in comparison to the Breakfast view which is edited.

I used to like Granada’s old view where the cameras were located somewhere on Regent Road in Salford but looking directly towards the Quay Street studios.

Having seen it more properly now, it does look a little distracting, but I can get used to that. I’m the sure the night shot will look good on screen later on.

[harshy]

It looked all right to me, the only thing was the low lighting grid seems very low its a good job Roger Johnson isnt any taller, i think they done a great job with it, colours seem accurate as well unlike Leeds with their screens with a cold white balance and you can tell they are using the official graphics engine that powers the lowers thirds, despite a great attempt for the newly upgraded regions, theres something about the lower thirds in these regions isnt quite right but it is in the official lower thirds.

[Stuart]

A BTS look 'for the Pres Cafe fans' from Russell Sheath

x.com 

It's very kind of Russell Sheath to provide that for us.

I already knew that the studio area was bigger than we thought, but I didn't realise that the IKEA sets were quite so small. It's not as though they had to shoehorn it in there. The only issue was ever going to be the height to the lighting grid, and they seem to have got around that easily enough.

However, it does demonstrate even more that there are some lovely large regional studios in the likes of Newcastle, Bristol and Southampton with a lot of unused space within them.

I suppose the advantage is that they all look the same to Joe/Josephine on the tellybox.

[chris]

But why do they need to all look the same? Who watches Look East and Look North?

[steve]

But why should they NOT all look the same? Who watches Look East and Look North?

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(Given the cost savings I’m sure they’ve got from buying so many similar bits of kit and having one team installing them)

[chris]

But why should they NOT all look the same? Who watches Look East and Look North?

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(Given the cost savings I’m sure they’ve got from buying so many similar bits of kit and having one team installing them)

Because not all the spaces are exactly the same - as we’ve seen there is an element of bespoke design to fit the spaces, so could the team not have a bit more flexibility?

On NWT, it’s an improvement on that terrible set from 2011 but has the same problem as the rest - a shoebox that feels reminiscent of the BARCO look from nearly 20 years ago,

[Joe]

I suspect the advantages of consistency are more about the graphics that go on the screens than how many metres of screens there are.

[London Lite]

Once Plymouth is completed, it'll only be London and the Channel Islands which won't have identikit sets of the English regions, although I wouldn't mind the IKEA set in D which would look a lot better for Politics London than the current set.

[Stuart]

But why do they need to all look the same? Who watches Look East and Look North?

It's known as a 'corporate image'. Banks don't have different signage at their branches, any more than BBC regional news programmes want to have different persona for their viewers.

People actually travel around for business purposes or on breaks in the UK, so they would view different regional programmes. I guess it's good to see something familiar.

Some ITV regional news sets are slightly different because of their studio size, but essentially the identity is always the same sort of design. I know when I watch '+1' that it's the Central version, because the corners next to the screens are different to those in Bristol. But I'm a pres geek.

[Chud]

Once Plymouth is completed, it'll only be London and the Channel Islands which won't have identikit sets of the English regions, although I wouldn't mind the IKEA set in D which would look a lot better for Politics London than the current set.

I quite like D the way it is. Can’t see that changing to a regions design.