05-03-2023, 01:55 AM
All part of the pretence, for the average Joe viewer, that nothing has changed I suppose!
Also, this is the BBC we are talking about. They don’t like to change too many things at once!
During the transition, the “new channel” arrangements have already started but the idea is for nobody to notice this. WN viewers have now had a loosely mock-Studio E background for a while now, NC viewers have largely seen Studio E or Studio C in the same mock mode for the vast majority of the time lately, even with the increased levels of simulcasting.
From Monday, to the extremely casual viewer it will appear as though nothing has changed on the NC as they will be in the same studio with presenters largely drawn from the “pool” of NC and not-headline WN presenters who also appear on NC since they don’t have their own show. So familiar presenters in a familiar studio, with no changes to graphics or sets. A very slight level of changes editorially, but probably not immediately noticeable compared to, say, the 10am fudge hour last week.
For WN viewers, the change is potentially more noticeable as it appears that there will be no branded shows. However, the branded shows do go on hiatus over Christmas and New Year, so do not continuously appear, and it will really only be like that. They’ll already be used to the brand “BBC News”, so will hardly notice it, and again I am assuming that there will be no immediate change to graphics so the BBC World News name will still show in the lower thirds, etc. The presenters will not be the normal WN “A team”, but will largely be people known to them. The background, superficially, looks similar and if viewers had already seen the 10am fudge hour then it will be totally familiar.
This essentially hides the merger from both audiences in the short term and frees up Studio C in the daytime for continued experimentation and piloting of the “new channel’s new style”. They then have the whole day in there, except for the hour used by the live channel so the BBC News at One can continue unchanged from Studio E (again, making UK viewers especially believe nothing is going on). This is no big deal as they obviously don’t really need the entire day free to pilot the new channel.
Because they still have two sets of staff, they have a full crew available for Studio C (the former WN crew) whilst the former NC crew cover the merged channel from Studio E. This allows for lots of flexibility.
Longer term, my speculation is that they will probably continue to have two crews on hand in some sense, as it’s likely that they will need a “channel crew” and a “BBC News at One crew”. The News at One crew is then probably available to help out with potential UK-opts on the UK-exclusive “stream” of the channel for large parts of the day, if needed. Presumably, the lack of this flexibility during the time pilots are ongoing is why we have heard that there will be no ability to opt-out from the WN feed in the UK during this next month.
Also, this is the BBC we are talking about. They don’t like to change too many things at once!
During the transition, the “new channel” arrangements have already started but the idea is for nobody to notice this. WN viewers have now had a loosely mock-Studio E background for a while now, NC viewers have largely seen Studio E or Studio C in the same mock mode for the vast majority of the time lately, even with the increased levels of simulcasting.
From Monday, to the extremely casual viewer it will appear as though nothing has changed on the NC as they will be in the same studio with presenters largely drawn from the “pool” of NC and not-headline WN presenters who also appear on NC since they don’t have their own show. So familiar presenters in a familiar studio, with no changes to graphics or sets. A very slight level of changes editorially, but probably not immediately noticeable compared to, say, the 10am fudge hour last week.
For WN viewers, the change is potentially more noticeable as it appears that there will be no branded shows. However, the branded shows do go on hiatus over Christmas and New Year, so do not continuously appear, and it will really only be like that. They’ll already be used to the brand “BBC News”, so will hardly notice it, and again I am assuming that there will be no immediate change to graphics so the BBC World News name will still show in the lower thirds, etc. The presenters will not be the normal WN “A team”, but will largely be people known to them. The background, superficially, looks similar and if viewers had already seen the 10am fudge hour then it will be totally familiar.
This essentially hides the merger from both audiences in the short term and frees up Studio C in the daytime for continued experimentation and piloting of the “new channel’s new style”. They then have the whole day in there, except for the hour used by the live channel so the BBC News at One can continue unchanged from Studio E (again, making UK viewers especially believe nothing is going on). This is no big deal as they obviously don’t really need the entire day free to pilot the new channel.
Because they still have two sets of staff, they have a full crew available for Studio C (the former WN crew) whilst the former NC crew cover the merged channel from Studio E. This allows for lots of flexibility.
Longer term, my speculation is that they will probably continue to have two crews on hand in some sense, as it’s likely that they will need a “channel crew” and a “BBC News at One crew”. The News at One crew is then probably available to help out with potential UK-opts on the UK-exclusive “stream” of the channel for large parts of the day, if needed. Presumably, the lack of this flexibility during the time pilots are ongoing is why we have heard that there will be no ability to opt-out from the WN feed in the UK during this next month.
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