[aaron_scotland]

Simple things like this... The headline text position is not the same in these. (You may need to open each in a new tab and swap between to see what I mean)

[Juicy Joe]

It seems the ditching of the ticker is intentional rather than caused by technical problems. Looks like the ticker will not return as implied by this tweet:
twitter.com 

Well I can read the website address and time easily on my phone screen from this picture, even though this JPEG example is less than a 1/5th of my phone screen in size. So this argument doesn't hold.  But to waste/cover up all that picture with a white banner showing nothing useful is unforgivable. The time, website & BBC News logo should all be on one line if there's going to be no flipper. I do feel though a rolling news channel without a ticker/flipper is also unforgivable.

[DTV]

I expect it's somewhat a post hoc rationalisation for the fact that they have 'streamlined' the on-screen graphics operation, i.e., made people redundant. Does it really hold up, no - but it doesn't actually need to, it's just a bland PR answer that sounds better than 'we have no money'. I would imagine that if you asked why presenters are now operating their own Autocues, somebody would answer that it's about 'giving the presenter control over how the story is told'.

[Radio_man]

Robert Coxwell has done a full thread on the first week of the new channel

twitter.com 

He's also described the prospect of us watching a radio phone-in on the TV as "very compelling"

twitter.com 

[Kojak]

I expect it's somewhat a post hoc rationalisation for the fact that they have 'streamlined' the on-screen graphics operation, i.e., made people redundant. Does it really hold up, no - but it doesn't actually need to, it's just a bland PR answer that sounds better than 'we have no money'. I would imagine that if you asked why presenters are now operating their own Autocues, somebody would answer that it's about 'giving the presenter control over how the story is told'.

I do think it’s mad that the cuts have been made to such an extent that they can no longer afford to run a ticker! (Okay, I know it’s not quite that simple, but it’s certainly a pithy illustration of said cuts). 

What was wrong with having an automated ticker? I know the headlines on it were generally a bit dodgy, but that could have been easily rectified - just scrape the first paragraph from each article on the website, rather than the headlines.

[Gary McEwan]

Finally that god awful ‘BBC WORLD NEWS’ that was taking up most of the Lower Thirds on the world feed as now gone.

Although we’ve got no ticker/flipper, only bbc.com/news

[simon]

He's also described the prospect of us watching a radio phone-in on the TV as "very compelling"

twitter.com 

Well, at least someone's feeling optimistic about it...

I'll reserve full judgement until I've actually seen it but I just can't begin to imagine it working. I guess they're trying to promote audience-driven programming, making the viewers feel like they're part of the story. But audio only phone-in is unlikely to make for compelling viewing and if they get people to video call then that's a recipe for disaster. Having someone say a naughty word on air is one thing, but if someone whips out their bits on live TV that's a whole new level of embarrassment.

The visualised Met Commissioner interview worked really well - better than I expected - and I think that's the sort of thing that lends itself to the medium. Long-form studio interviews aren't wildly different to how it'd be done on TV, just fewer camera angles, but that's fine. And you gain quite a bit from the visuals, seeing their facial expressions and how they react to questions.

If 5 live launched a show like that, with one moderately big interviewee a week, that is the sort of visualised radio show that could be a real success and which would have a real place on BBC Two. You could perhaps have a 15-minute interview from the presenter followed by questions from the audience for the remainder of the hour.

[DTV]

What was wrong with having an automated ticker? I know the headlines on it were generally a bit dodgy, but that could have been easily rectified - just scrape the first paragraph from each article on the website, rather than the headlines.

Certainly, there must be a way of giving each web article an alt-headline that works for the ticker and then have the ticker automatically cycle through the ones on the home page. No need to actually involve anyone, you could even bulk it up with automated things like market data, etc.

Even if they genuinely believe that it is of no use to mobile phone viewers (who must surely be a clear minority of viewers), it just seems odd to just remove a service that can be done pretty much entirely via automation and which does have some value. (Though I do realise that this is far from the first decision within this transition that has made me go 'just seems odd to...').

[simon]

What was wrong with having an automated ticker? I know the headlines on it were generally a bit dodgy, but that could have been easily rectified - just scrape the first paragraph from each article on the website, rather than the headlines.

To be honest, for a little while the flipper hadn't been great anyway with out of date headlines being left up etc...

I don't miss it that much, personally. I wouldn't be too upset if it got taken out in a redesign. What I have really missed is the second line of the headline strap lending context to a story.

[i.h]

What was wrong with having an automated ticker? I know the headlines on it were generally a bit dodgy, but that could have been easily rectified - just scrape the first paragraph from each article on the website, rather than the headlines.

at least it means no one can accidentally proclaim that a certain northern football club are rubbish