[Brekkie]

Presumably Maryam Moshiri is on duty for midnight.

[Reith85]

I don't want to stand accused of repeatedly bashing the merged BBC News channel but it continues to be inferior in several respects, in my opinion. Leaving aside the poor and misjudged presentational aspects of the channel, I've been watching large chunks of it this weekend and I've been left rather saddened by it all. I know we're currently in the "lull" period between Christmas and New Year when not many are watching television, but across all the times I've been watching, I could not name one single presenter who was familiar - at least to me, in the UK. Tuning into the channel now is like a game of "Guess Who". This isn't to say they are necessarily bad presenters - it would just be nice to tune in from time to time and see some familiar, trusted faces, as one did before the merged channel was a thing. And it's a reflection of how tardy the BBC is as an organisation that, as the clock ticks into 2024, they still haven't resolved the issue with Martine Croxall et al.

There are also questionable editorial judgements being made. T
For example, they've just aired the Sydney New Year fireworks for about 3 minutes at 1pm (GMT). The person presenting (I couldn't name her) talked all the way through them with inane comments such as "Fireworks going off across the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the famous Sydney Opera House". I mean, why? We don't need this spelling out to us and it's not as if she was tasked with giving us audio-visual captions. They then cut the fireworks short after 3 minutes before returning to said presenter and pre-packaged reports. I switched to Sky News where they continued airing the Sydney fireworks uninterrupted for another 7 minutes before going back to Nick Quraishi (a familiar Sky News face, working throughout the festive period) in the studio. Increasingly, Sky News is making this merged BBC News channel look amateurish in the extreme.

I am not typing this to bash the BBC - more a reflection of how sad I am that here in the UK, the BBC has slashed its News Channels (both domestic and World) to an unrecognisable, often misjudged core. I hope 2024 sees the merged channel beginning to find its feet but I am not holding my breath.

[mccanmat]

Presumably Maryam Moshiri is on duty for midnight.

Nope it’s Nicky Schiller on news channel at midnight!

[rkolsen]

But, as I think was discussed previously, a 'half-revamp' doesn't really make any sense. Firstly, most of the cost of a modern news set is in the screens, so replacing the screens and nothing else is already a significant investment - might as well finish the job, especially considering every other BBC News set will now be in that style. Secondly, things like LED tiles only come in specific sizes, so there's no guarantee that a new videowall will fit exactly in the space of the old catwalk screens - creating either a gap or an overhang, which will look a bit bodged.

And, perhaps most crucially, not replacing 11-year-old fittings when you have the chance is a massive hostage to fortune. Finding replacement parts will get harder with each passing year, with certain features - like the curved LED panel on front of the desk rostrum - almost impossible to replace like-for-like. Installing new elements on top of a set that it already a decade old is just asking for trouble. Ultimately, given how long the new sets (primarily the LED elements) are expected to last, it makes more sense (including financially) to go for a completely new set than 'upgrade' one whose natural life has expired anyway.

There’s a curved panel infront of the rostrum?

[interestednovice]

BBC News still counted down to the top of the hour and went live straight to Sydney for the New Year. I believe previously the presenter went live at :59 to introduce the hour before the fireworks started.

Indeed, they used to have the “TOTH” at around :57 or :58, to properly introduce the broadcast before going straight to live fireworks. I suppose they can no longer do it because of ad breaks and complicated regional variations on the multiple feeds of the global channel. Still, bit of a shame.

Meghan did introduce very quickly and dropped the “Live from London, this is BBC News”, opting for a simple (and quicker) “Hello, this is BBC News” before crashing straight into the in-progress fireworks. You saw quite a lot of the display, but missed the midnight moment which was a shame!

[News76]

Nope it’s Nicky Schiller on news channel at midnight!

Then someone needs to the listings people that as Newsday is still down for 11:00pm according to the listings!

[Rolling News]

Nope it’s Nicky Schiller on news channel at midnight!

Presumably that’ll be a separate U.K. opt out as I believe Newsday is still coming from Singapore from 2300 GMT.

[DTV]

There’s a curved panel infront of the rostrum?

Yes, the half-circle knee-height panel that runs along the front-half of the rostrum. In Studio C, it's a double-sided lightbox; in Studio E, it's a low-res LED panel that is used for programme-specific graphics, though typically a red version of the globe pattern (similar to that seen on the 2014-19 Breaking News aston).

[Chud]

It feels like we are seeing a larger presenter list than we did before March. So many new faces have made their debut this year. Some are truly excellent.
Also, have we seen the last of producers in T-shirts presenting the UK opt? Haven’t seen that for a while.

[qwerty123]

The BBC NC is doing TOTH fireworks from Auckland & Sydney (so far).

Another new face presenting on the channel too, Meghan Owen, who is usually a reporter (both at the newsroom touchscreens and on location). It’s possible they are now appointing more presenter-reporter roles, or perhaps Meghan is just filling in?

I suspect Meghan was last minute cover. The first hour of her shift was covered by the early presenter and Lauren Taylor came on air early to cover the 12:00 hour (albeit with Meghan returning at 13:00 due to neither Meghan or Devina Gupta being seen as appropriate for the BBC One news (it is noticeable that many of those with non-uk accents are rarely allowed on BBC One even when on the early shift that typically covers the bulletin).