[m_in_m]

I thought there would be a weather forecast by now before the 11am bulletin this morning.

Presumably there may not be a forecast available given they are live in Breakfast and the first scheduled one for the news channel is what 1130ish?

[Steve in Pudsey]

Wouldn't normally comment on what a presenter is wearing, but how has Jane Hill been allowed to present the One in a top that strobes?

[aaron_scotland]

Wouldn't normally comment on what a presenter is wearing, but how has Jane Hill been allowed to present the One in a top that strobes?

Seems like something a floor manager would handle, maybe they dont have floor managers anymore.

[simon]

I have been watching the overnight output of BBC News in Washington a few times already. It's presentation and output have not been too bad.

Although I have found one issue which relates to the live interview screens when it goes to another reporter or person outside of Washington.

The screens do have a habit of being a few seconds slower as opposed to when the live interviews go full screen on the main UK and World feed of the channel.

I was watching this issue unfold when Carl Nasman was interviewing Damien Grammaticas on some story at one of the big news screens from the newsroom at NBH earlier this week.

Why would an interview like that be a few seconds slow when it is being up linked between Washington & NBH?

Washington output used to be driven via a London gallery didn't it? If that's still the case, it would explain it.

To get any video feed on the screen in the Washington studio, it has to be sent from London to Washington, displayed on the screen, then the studio camera feed has to be sent back to the London gallery. That would easily account for a few seconds of delay.

But when they cut the feed directly to the gallery output (whether it's in boxes or full screen), it's no longer making the round trip from London to Washington and back so you get the 'undelayed' feed.

[Kojak]

It’s been nearly a month now since the two channels merged (two months, if we count that weird interim in March). I have to wonder what the overall consensus is here, now that the new arrangements have bedded in a little?

I will say that whilst I completely disagreed with the closure of News 24 (and still do!), I am not completely disappointed with the new ‘World 24’, if we want to call it that. I think the coverage of Sudan over the past few days has been exemplary, and I’d like much more in that vein, please! The UK opts are really quite decent considering the sheer lack of resources (though they’re obviously not as good as the old news channel, and probably won’t be for a long time).

There is ample room for improvement, though.  The simulcasts are generally not needed, in my opinion, unless they are signed. Just give us the world feed and have done with it. I think people would understand the demarcations between the bulletins and the news channel. And PLEASE stop opting into Newsday at 23:10 each weeknight. It’s rough and just looks slack - not even GB News would do that. 

Could we also do away with the ‘Around the UK’ segments? Just have the presenter read out some UK news in brief during world’s ad breaks - or even get the balcony person to do it. Again, the current arrangements look a bit slack. 

All is not lost, though - I suspect the new arrangements are here to stay, so they might as well make the best of them. I’m sure there are many ideas being thought up about how to improve everything - let’s hope they begin to be put into practice.

[DTV]

It’s been nearly a month now since the two channels merged (two months, if we count that weird interim in March). I have to wonder what the overall consensus is here, now that the new arrangements have bedded in a little.

This is all broadly my view too - it's a little rough round the edges and there are definitely some things that can be changed or improved (and I'm sure will be), but at its core it's a solid channel with the same journalistic quality as before. Maybe one day they'll be in a financial position to offer some bespoke UK content, but, given the position they are currently in, reasonable and better than it could have been.

[Brekkie]

So, is there any prospect of BBC News HD returning to Freeview in the foreseeable future?

As if it taking 13 sodding years for the regions to come to BBC One HD wasn't bad enough, and entire HD channel being removed from the platform is such a massive backwards step.

Freeview really is the poorest of poor relations, in terms of the march towards HD becoming the norm.

In theory there is room on the PSB3 Mux for another HD channel so now the rollout of BBC1 regions is done it might be looked at, although it doesn't feel like the loss it was a year ago now given how the little UK content on the channel is generally simulcast on BBC1/2

[Chud]

And we haven’t seen any “BBC World News” box branding during the last month, which is pretty impressive considering what a mix of titles we have seen. (From what I’ve seen anyway)

[Kojak]

It’s been nearly a month now since the two channels merged (two months, if we count that weird interim in March). I have to wonder what the overall consensus is here, now that the new arrangements have bedded in a little.

This is all broadly my view too - it's a little rough round the edges and there are definitely some things that can be changed or improved (and I'm sure will be), but at its core it's a solid channel with the same journalistic quality as before. Maybe one day they'll be in a financial position to offer some bespoke UK content, but, given the position they are currently in, reasonable and better than it could have been.

I forgot to add: I think the Washington bulletins are excellent, and I’d like to see the London and Singapore output start to adopt the same style in time. One of the few big and genuine improvements on the old channel.

[Critique]

I’d agree with others that it’s by no means awful, but there is certainly room for improvement.

I’m not a fan of the ‘Around the UK’ segments and would much rather it was just a quick read-through of a few UK stories. If the UK opt presenter is going to be on hand all day anyway, then they may as well go back to what they did twenty years ago and do the handover from the ‘World’ presenter to the UK presenter for a moment or two. The quarter past/quarter to breaks are only 1 minute long at the moment though so would probably need extending to two minutes to make it worthwhile - otherwise you’ve only really got time to summarise a few stories.

There have been more UK opts than I expected and they seem decently resourced (apart from the studio/set leaving something to be desired), but I don’t think they quite work at the moment. I know they’ve spoken about wanting to do single story streams for iPlayer and that the UK opts are one and the same, but when the UK opts out now it means that a story will get blanket coverage until the end of the opt. This often comes across as overkill, especially when things are delayed and they run out of things to talk about! Restructuring those opts so that, if needs be, they can take a breather for a round-up of other UK news, the odd weather forecast etc, would be a big improvement.

Above all though, the thing that I have been the most disappointed about is the decline in the technical quality of the output. There are a lot of sloppy opt in/out points, even when they’re regular, such as the 10 into Newsnight into Newsday, along with the constant pregnant pauses whenever World is opting to/from a break or pre-recorded programme. These pauses did not exist in the same way two decades back!

Likewise, the erratic behaviour of the ticker is baffling - turn it on or turn it off! I don’t think the single line story straps look good either, and they make the channel much less useful if you’re watching it somewhere without sound (such as an office, lobby etc). For breaking news I’ve also noticed that as they’re now restricted to a single line of text, they often just put whatever would have been in the second line of the strap as the ‘headline’, which means you end up with some very strange breaking news ‘headlines’ that don’t make sense without the context of the story (again, a problem for if you haven’t got the sound on or aren’t paying attention).

Finally, beyond the pre-set camera moves I’ve found that the output is much more ‘static’ than it has been traditionally. The catwalk gets only an occasional outing, the screens either side of the desk seem to be mostly unused and for the most part each hour (outside of interviews and VTs) is just a tight headshot of the presenter.