[matthieu1221]

Battle for No 10 on Sky News next Wednesday. Live from Grimsby. In depth interview followed by questions from the audience.

Looks like they changed the format a little! Was originally billed as a Town Hall with both Sunak and Starmer on at the same time if I recall correctly. I wonder if yesterday's terribly formatted debate made them change their minds. The in depth interview sounds promising.

[Brekkie]

I always understood they would be separate events with Starmer and Sunak.

[RhysJR]

After being kept hidden for over a decade, Jonathan Charles is returning to news presenting to anchor an election night show for Radio News Hub - which I think means this show is availble for syndication by community radio station in the UK and globally. Nice to see one of the classic face of BBC News channel and BBC World News return to the world of news presenting.

radiotoday.co.uk 

Jonathan Charles to host live election programme for radio stations – RadioToday
Radio News Hub is to broadcast a live eight-hour show on election night from Col…
  Source: radiotoday.co.uk

[James2001]

Also, whenever the 97 election has been shown, it's been the "clean" version without the results graphics or any other captions (though you can see them on some of the monitors in the studio), which makes things somewhat harder to follow. Is that the only version that exists, or just that it was the first version they pulled out and they've used every time since? Every other election they showed had the original graphics, but when they showed 2001 election, the picture quality wasn't great, looked like it was from a composite source and with a fair amount of analogue tape drop-outs (so presumably recorded to Beta SP rather than a digital format), I'm guessing that might be the only way the "dirty" version was recorded as it wasn't seen as a priority to archive (I presume the clean version survives in higher quality), the first few minutes of the post-breakfast coverage were from a clean version as well until the graphics suddenly cut in.

Speaking of which, this user's uploaded the entirety of the 1997 BBC election coverage, recorded off-air with the original captions that are missing from the BBC Parliament/iPlayer versions (albeit with brief gaps for VHS tape changeovers):

www.youtube.com 

They've uploaded the 2001 coverage as well:

www.youtube.com 

Looks like this was the first time they kept a running total of seats on screen- something it's hard to imagine election coverage without now.

Also interesting the Newsroom South East bulletins at the beginning and end of the day two video are uncropped 4:3, rather than cropped to 14:9 as it usually was at the time (and the opts during the Breakfast coverage are)- the bulletin after the 1PM news still uses the 14:9 titles though (and there's several 14:9 clips from the main election coverage sprinkled though the post-Breakfast bulletin).

[Mike]

I think most of the regions that were showing in 14:9 at that time were just two black bars overlaid onto the 4:3 picture, I wonder if it's a simple case of Elstree forgot to overlay it?

[James2001]

I guess that's possible. The Elstree studio was in its dying days at this point, only a couple of months away from the move to Marylebone (where it was proper 16:9), then the London (or LDN as it rather ridiculously was at first) and South East split a few weeks after that.

[Ash101]

After being kept hidden for over a decade, Jonathan Charles is returning to news presenting to anchor an election night show for Radio News Hub - which I think means this show is availble for syndication by community radio station in the UK and globally. Nice to see one of the classic face of BBC News channel and BBC World News return to the world of news presenting.

radiotoday.co.uk 

I do wonder what the point of something like this is.

How many listeners will it have realistically? I’d expect most people who are staying up will have the telly on. If you’re listening in bed or wherever, the BBC’s coverage or Times Radio have got to be better equipt options?

[mark]

And apparently it's coming from College Green. A bit harsh to make Jonathan stay outside all night, unless they're forking out for a portacabin. Will there even be that many people around overnight in that area? I don't remember it featuring heavily on past election nights.

[Stooky Bill]

And apparently it's coming from College Green. A bit harsh to make Jonathan stay outside all night, unless they're forking out for a portacabin. Will there even be that many people around overnight in that area? I don't remember it featuring heavily on past election nights.

No it isn't as nothing really happens there, or indeed Westminster itself overnight.

The spotlight moves there in the morning when the Prime Minister returns to number 10 to either form a new government or leave office. Even then nothing happens in Parliament or College Green - despite the fact that it's all about electing people into Parliament, it's not actually involved in the election.

Even on July 5th I don't there will actually be any MPs yet, as they're not sworn in, let alone have their commons passes. Those that have won will mostly be in their constituencies, there's no need for them to come to London except if they're part of the new cabinet

[Spencer]

I do wonder what the point of something like this is.

How many listeners will it have realistically? I’d expect most people who are staying up will have the telly on. If you’re listening in bed or wherever, the BBC’s coverage or Times Radio have got to be better equipt options?

I think a lot of small and community radio stations just want to be seen to be doing something, even if they know realistically very few people are listening. Plus there will still be a few people on shift work in places like factories and petrol stations who have the radio on, often without being able to switch stations. RNH also provides a service to English speaking stations abroad, where I could see the coverage might be appreciated.

I wonder if they’ll provide opt points for stations who are wanting to insert updates on local results.