[Moz]

I agree that - with the exception of Matthew, who is excellent - most presenters do seem bored and it’s lost any sense of pace.

Yalda is particularly bad. When I’d seen her before I’d been impressed, but now she’s just dull as ditch water. Doesn’t want to be there. Total yawn-fest.

[Rolling News]

It’s great seeing Matthew again and agree he is about the best and does an excellent job. But, it doesn’t feel like the old days when I used to watch him on News 24. It feels like I’m watching him on a simulcast of BBC World News, a bit like on the odd occasion when they’d simulcast with Global. It just isn’t the same.

[Studio7]

I agree that - with the exception of Matthew, who is excellent - most presenters do seem bored and it’s lost any sense of pace.

Yalda is particularly bad. When I’d seen her before I’d been impressed, but now she’s just dull as ditch water. Doesn’t want to be there. Total yawn-fest.

Can you blame her? I’d be bored too, having gone from presenting hard-hitting international news to having to interview some three-bit showbiz reporter about Pip Schofield. It’s pretty poor. 

Now, Tanya Beckett, OTOH, was excellent on last night’s Context. Very very engaging. dare I say she’s better than the regular host?

---

It’s great seeing Matthew again and agree he is about the best and does an excellent job. But, it doesn’t feel like the old days when I used to watch him on News 24. It feels like I’m watching him on a simulcast of BBC World News, a bit like on the odd occasion when they’d simulcast with Global. It just isn’t the same.

It’s not the same because Jane Hill isn’t sat next to him. 

[Andrew]

I think you hit the nail on the head for me. Some of the presenters seem bored when they are presenting. I dont expect them to be bouncing around or jumping about, but geez. You look back say at the old Flag era and there was some peppier presenting. Now its just library hush-style of presenting. Sometimes toward the end of the sentence I dont even hear what was said.

Is the self-operated autocue a factor in this? Presenters are limited in adding flair because they are having to do more.

The channel seems to be running on a shoestring. They've 'merged' but the quality and resource is below what each single channel used to have.

The dullness of the presentation (being desk bound etc) compared to what these presenters worked with just a couple months ago can't help this.

The old ITN News Channel was more interesting than this channel and they were desk bound with a single camera, so it shows it can be done. And ITN ran the channel on a budget of about 12p

[DTV]

The old ITN News Channel was more interesting than this channel and they were desk bound with a single camera, so it shows it can be done. And ITN ran the channel on a budget of about 12p

I think the thing is is that you can be presentationally 'basic' or you can be slow-paced and spend ages on each story/item, but both together is a bad combination, particularly as it makes each more noticeable. Presentation-wise, the old ITN channel, as you mention, and BBC World from twenty years ago were both largely based on a small number of static camera shots, but they were also very fast-paced - so the energy meant that it didn't really matter as you didn't spend that long looking at the same thing.

But with the current BBC News channel, the fact it devotes a fairly long time (5-10 minutes) to several stories each hour makes the fact that it consists almost entirely of a static studio shot, a series of static talking heads and split-screen B-roll incredibly apparent. Even when they finally move onto the next story, it's the same split-screen templates still up and another four-minute interview from the same newsroom positions. As I think I described it a few weeks ago, it's a very unvisual channel at the minute - most of the content wouldn't be out-of-place on a visualised radio channel.

[Studio7]

I think another key difference is both ITN and BBC World were very much fixed bulletin-based, whereas the new-style BBC News is kind of one big long never-ending bulletin. With the half-hour bulletins the former were based around, you kind of HAVE to be fast-paced to get all the stories in. The News Channel is the complete opposite, very meandering and going around the houses.

A good idea might be to go back to that style on the hour and then have all the analysis and interviews in the back half hour. That way you’ve kind of covered both bases.

[DTV]

I think another key difference is both ITN and BBC World were very much fixed bulletin-based, whereas the new-style BBC News is kind of one big long never-ending bulletin. With the half-hour bulletins the former were based around, you kind of HAVE to be fast-paced to get all the stories in. The News Channel is the complete opposite, very meandering and going around the houses.

A good idea might be to go back to that style on the hour and then have all the analysis and interviews in the back half hour. That way you’ve kind of covered both bases.

That's certainly part of it, but News 24/the old News channel was also not so much a fixed bulletin and still managed to be quite pacy for many years, though it did slow down quite a bit towards the end. I'm also not too sure about piling up the slower bits in one half-hour - BBC World tried out something similar around 2005 with BBC News Extra, but it wasn't that successful and World News Today ultimately found a better way of doing that kind of thing.

Ultimately, it's that kind of WNT/mid-00s-mid-10s NC template that I've always thought worked best - they 'analysed' and did interviews, but only on a few stories each hour, and usually largely different ones hour-to-hour - plus, when they replayed interviews, they were edited down. The issue at the minute is that the interviews are too frequent, often too long and are too often repeated in full - which is just really slowing. Plus, the newsroom/correspondent interviews are just inefficient when compared to packaged reports (or even old-style DtLs) - as they're unscripted, they're taking much longer to impart the same information in as less visually engaging way.

[Andrew]

They probably think it’s cheaper that way - run half as many stories but spend ages rambling on about each one, means fewer reports need to be made

Even if they do have an interview with a correspondent or a third party down the line, they should be much snappier, not 5 minutes. This COVID era style, three people in boxes all looking down the barrel of the camera doesn’t help with how static the channel seems. You basically get hours of that format every night.

[interestednovice]

The old ITN News Channel was more interesting than this channel and they were desk bound with a single camera, so it shows it can be done. And ITN ran the channel on a budget of about 12p

I think the thing is is that you can be presentationally 'basic' or you can be slow-paced and spend ages on each story/item, but both together is a bad combination, particularly as it makes each more noticeable. Presentation-wise, the old ITN channel, as you mention, and BBC World from twenty years ago were both largely based on a small number of static camera shots, but they were also very fast-paced - so the energy meant that it didn't really matter as you didn't spend that long looking at the same thing.

But with the current BBC News channel, the fact it devotes a fairly long time (5-10 minutes) to several stories each hour makes the fact that it consists almost entirely of a static studio shot, a series of static talking heads and split-screen B-roll incredibly apparent. Even when they finally move onto the next story, it's the same split-screen templates still up and another four-minute interview from the same newsroom positions. As I think I described it a few weeks ago, it's a very unvisual channel at the minute - most of the content wouldn't be out-of-place on a visualised radio channel.

I think you’ve hit on something there!

Horrifyingly, perhaps they want it to be less visual so simulcasts of Politics Live or Nicky Campbell’s abysmal phone-in are less noticeable.

Whatever next, BBC World Service folded into the channel as well?!

You can see Tim Davie now: “It’s one service, two mediums: it’s a really exciting opportunity to bring the best of the BBC’s dynamic (read slow) reporting to our audience in all new ways - reimagining content so whether you can see it, or not, it gives you the context you are looking for and helps us explain stories to audiences in a whole new way”!

[DAL1189]

I honestly don't mind the Nicky Campbell phone in, but I don't think it should be on the News Channel. Stick it on BBC2, and use the news channel to show what the rest of the world is showing. (of course, this would defeat the point of showing the phone in simulcast of 5 live anyway)