[Worzel]

Will also be interesting to see what design they come up with for the virtual studio A 'newsroom' render to fit in with the new style sets. The current design has always looked visually quite poor in comparison to everything else.

[MLehon]

Today's BBC News on BBC 1 at 1pm had Ben Brown in E and Joanna Gosling in C with the World Bulletin on the News Channel.  Interesting that it was the World Bulletin that was signed for the hard of hearing rather than the more UK news based bulletin.  Admittedly the BBC1 bulletin was shorter than usual but I'm sure those who rely on this daily service would rather have been informed more about the UK and technically a junction or trails could have been used for the News Channel to rejoin the World bulletin.

[Critique]

How much use does Studio A actually get these days? Even when News first moved to NBH in 2013 it wasn’t used a huge amount; off the top of my head it was home to an hour of the news channel each day, weekly pre-records like Hardtalk, Newswatch and the Webscape bit of Click, ad-hoc VR explainers within news reports (although I don’t think they were frequent and I haven’t seen one in years) and the Jeremy Vine bit of election coverage.

Of the above, I think Newswatch is the only thing that regularly still comes from Studio A. The VR bit of election coverage seems to have been limited to UK general elections only in recent years, and that’s really the only thing in the above list that needs a proper VR set-up.

Everything else could be (and pretty much has been) filmed in another studio, which begs the question of whether there is still a need for the green screen space, especially when the graphics behind it look increasingly dated (and never looked that fantastic in the first place!). In a time of cuts, perhaps A is the studio now worth mothballing?

[DTV]

How much use does Studio A actually get these days? Even when News first moved to NBH in 2013 it wasn’t used a huge amount; off the top of my head it was home to an hour of the news channel each day, weekly pre-records like Hardtalk, Newswatch and the Webscape bit of Click, ad-hoc VR explainers within news reports (although I don’t think they were frequent and I haven’t seen one in years) and the Jeremy Vine bit of election coverage.

Of the above, I think Newswatch is the only thing that regularly still comes from Studio A. The VR bit of election coverage seems to have been limited to UK general elections only in recent years, and that’s really the only thing in the above list that needs a proper VR set-up.

Everything else could be (and pretty much has been) filmed in another studio, which begs the question of whether there is still a need for the green screen space, especially when the graphics behind it look increasingly dated (and never looked that fantastic in the first place!). In a time of cuts, perhaps A is the studio now worth mothballing?

I've seen it used for the odd report from the science teams in recent years, but its only regular use these days is Newswatch (though Outside Source also uses its gallery). A's peak was in mid-2013 - when it was being used on a daily basis for HARDtalk, BBC London, the 8PM summary and the 21:00 hour on the BBC News channel - but two of them left for other homes within a year and the other two were gradually dropped.

I can't say I'd be sad to see it mothballed - its 'explainer' usage has always seemed more gimmicky than useful and more of its long-running sets have been downright poor than passable. Newswatch could easily find another home and there are several alternative arrangments possible for a 'back-up' studio. I also can't pretend I wouldn't be happy to see the VR election night segments axed for a variety of reasons. Ultimately, as you say, it is barely used and doesn't look that great - I don't the BBC would be losing anything by losing the set-up.

-

As a side note, with two of the five main studios likely to be down to no or limited usage within a year, I wonder if we'll see them used by the language services? - certainly save them occupying large amounts of office space. Also might be quite nice to see Newsnight not just moved back to a main studio but have its own set for the first time in 2006.

[Worzel]

How much use does Studio A actually get these days? Even when News first moved to NBH in 2013 it wasn’t used a huge amount; off the top of my head it was home to an hour of the news channel each day, weekly pre-records like Hardtalk, Newswatch and the Webscape bit of Click, ad-hoc VR explainers within news reports (although I don’t think they were frequent and I haven’t seen one in years) and the Jeremy Vine bit of election coverage.

Of the above, I think Newswatch is the only thing that regularly still comes from Studio A. The VR bit of election coverage seems to have been limited to UK general elections only in recent years, and that’s really the only thing in the above list that needs a proper VR set-up.

Everything else could be (and pretty much has been) filmed in another studio, which begs the question of whether there is still a need for the green screen space, especially when the graphics behind it look increasingly dated (and never looked that fantastic in the first place!). In a time of cuts, perhaps A is the studio now worth mothballing?

I've seen it used for the odd report from the science teams in recent years, but its only regular use these days is Newswatch (though Outside Source also uses its gallery). A's peak was in mid-2013 - when it was being used on a daily basis for HARDtalk, BBC London, the 8PM summary and the 21:00 hour on the BBC News channel - but two of them left for other homes within a year and the other two were gradually dropped.

I can't say I'd be sad to see it mothballed - its 'explainer' usage has always seemed more gimmicky than useful and more of its long-running sets have been downright poor than passable. Newswatch could easily find another home and there are several alternative arrangments possible for a 'back-up' studio. I also can't pretend I wouldn't be happy to see the VR election night segments axed for a variety of reasons. Ultimately, as you say, it is barely used and doesn't look that great - I don't the BBC would be losing anything by losing the set-up.

-

As a side note, with two of the five main studios likely to be down to no or limited usage within a year, I wonder if we'll see them used by the language services? - certainly save them occupying large amounts of office space. Also might be quite nice to see Newsnight not just moved back to a main studio but have its own set for the first time in 2006.

I don't know why a lot of people take issue with Newsnight being in 54D? It's more than suitable for the type of programme Newsnight is with 3-4 different presentation areas (the sofa covers aside!).

I never liked Newsnight in studio E. Covid aside it didn't suit the programme at all and the move to 54D was certainly welcomed by me.

[Yorksman]

Useful to have someone of Matthew Amroliwala's experience on the BBC News Channel tonight with the Pele coverage.

[Deejay]

Reception is above Studio E so to say “there’s nothing above it” is nonsense. It’s as high as it can possibly be. Admittedly that’s not very high, but what they wanted at the time was a view into the live newsroom (the much heralded “largest newsroom in Europe”) so that view, combined with the trundle cam and shots weather presented live from the balcony made the News Channel absolutely own that space.

Things have moved on and Studio E is now arguably a much smaller part of the current BBC News Brand.

The plans are currently for it to be re-imagined along with other studios in the building, to be part of the new BBC News in the future.

[London Lite]

London was in B for the evening bulletin, but back in D for the late.

[Steve in Pudsey]

A was used by London while D was refurbed. It's gallery runs Outside Source. I imagine it's still the contingency location for Politics Live if there are problems at Millbank.

It was also used at times by the Marr show to pre-record interviews during the week at times when it wouldn't be possible to use B.

I can't see any real value in mothballing it, although upgrading the VR to BBC Sport quality would be a big bonus.

[Omnipresent]

The nightly paper review on BBC News will no longer run from 3 January prior to the merger of BBC News & BBC World News:

www.bbc.co.uk 

BBC News Update: The Papers - Media Centre
HomepageAccessibility linksSkip to contentAccessibility HelpBBC Account Notifica…
  Source: www.bbc.co.uk

Although I think broadcast media devotes too much air time to reviewing newspaper front pages - this will no doubt have a negative impact on viewing figures.