[chris]

While I think that broadly the 'unprofessional', 'amateurish' jibes are unfair, the alarmingly frequent cutting off of presenters, reports, interviews and now programmes mid-sentence is the one thing that has really made me go 'that's just not good enough'. You can maybe get away with an abrupt cut for breaking news, but otherwise it just looks terrible. And it hasn't just been opt or break releated, I've seen at least two ordinary in-bulletin reports that have cut back to presenter mid-sentence.

The Newsnight opt-in, opt-out situation is just the oddest bit of it - us dumbasses on here figured out the issue the first time it was mentioned (months ago), I just struggle to see how smart people with years of broadcasting experience couldn't have seen the problem and found a solution in the year of planning and month of piloting - especially when they are so obvious and simple - either a) don't simulcast overlapping programmes or b) if you have to, air it on a 15-minute tape delay and have a Sportsday fill the gap.

I’m sure plenty of BBC staff realised the issue with the opt and warned management. With so many against the merger, was it really in their interest to come up with a solution?

[Frances]

5 Live’s Nicky Campbell show has got a new jingle and the programme intro, instead of the 5 Live station ident, is played at TOTH.

It begins with Nicky’s brief introduction, then the hourly headlines.

[Stuart]

This is all looking quite messy this morning.

[*]random old title sequences with the 'red box'
[*]crashes into reports
[*]botched junctions between UK/International feeds
[*]still a URL instead of a flipper
[*]people interviewed from the pointless newsroom 'hostage seat' 20 feet from Studio E
[*]random 'LIVE' bug just before the throw to the UK weather


Come on, the BBC is better than this.

[Keith]

- The OPT IN/OUT moments must be addressed as soon as possible. The awkward presenter staring at the camera and waiting for a prompt makes the viewer cringe. Back in the era of The World Today they managed to streamline the opt in/out well, whilst also presenting UK news. A quick sting or graphic would be simple. If it worked back then... surely they will streamline this soon. The self-promoting presenter promos are lame. A break filler or market board would be better.

The use of a quick sting would certainly be the easiest way to give a clean opt-out point, rather than having the awkward presenter pause. In the front half-hour it could probably be done by the presenter doing a quick round-up of 2 or 3 other news stories in brief with the headline bed (or similar), followed by the sting. At that point international viewers could opt-out for a break, whilst UK viewers get a couple UK news stories in brief, before another quick sting for international viewers to return.

The opt-out points at the end of each half-hour seem to be fairly smooth as they just go to the weather, albeit without the interaction from the news presenter that they used to sometimes have (in the UK).

- Newsnight being simulcast on the news channel is just stupid. The clunky handover at the end was so poor.

Retaining the post-Ten sports update and running Newsnight on about a 15 minute delay would have been the best solution. That way Newsnight could end on the channel just before 23:30, with the option of a weather forecast or adverts to pad out to a clean opt-in point on the half hour.

If this is not practical and Newsnight has to be shown at the same time as BBC Two then having a sports update afterwards would help. This would allow for an adaptable length slot (depending on what time Newsnight starts) to cover up to 23:30 and give a clean opt-in point. Whilst they could opt to simply follow international viewers from 10pm onwards I'm guessing they're wanting/needing to rack up those 'UK opt-out hours'.

[Scratch_Perry]

You just know that "We're very pleased with how this week has gone" will be their line on this Friday's Newswatch - moved to the graveyard 11:30pm slot on the BBC News channel - when they wheel out Paul Royall or some other numpty who has the misfortune to remain at BBC News on there.

Newswatch isn't on this Friday as it's Good Friday.

[Stuart]

Newswatch isn't on this Friday as it's Good Friday.

It's not been a good week for BBC News, I doubt Friday is going to be any different.

[JamesG]

With Sturgeon’s husband being arrested, are we about to see the broom cupboard of breaking news swing into action?

[Worzel]

With Sturgeon’s husband being arrested, are we about to see the broom cupboard of breaking news swing into action?

I thought the newsroom DTL positions with the screens looked more like the broom cupboard.

[Stuart]

With Sturgeon’s husband being arrested, are we about to see the broom cupboard of breaking news swing into action?

No. They kept with the presenter in E in vision, who didn't realise she was still on camera and was fiddling with her hair during a voice only DTL from a correspondent who just had a strap showing her name.

I doubt any of this was of any interest to International viewers, but obviously relevant to the UK. It had to end abrutly because of an unannounced throw to adverts/UK weather.

This really isn't working, is it?

[Worzel]

With Sturgeon’s husband being arrested, are we about to see the broom cupboard of breaking news swing into action?

Hopefully better than how the main channel is covering it?

This is probably their first proper test of 'unexpected' domestic Breaking News on the new channel since Monday and its been handled pretty poorly. You'd expect a political correspondent to come on air, some decent B-roll footage or a still photograph to appear, allowing the presenter to dip out of vision. 

They did run some B-roll, mainly featuring Nicola Sturgeon but the clip was so short it kept stopping, going back to the studio catching Samantha Simmonds out. There was also some very, very bizarre language being used 'the media won't be able to talk too much about this' and 'viewers watching might be wondering why we're covering this?'.

They did get a Scotland Correspondent on the phone, not Zoom, the phone and they basically re-read out what Samantha had just said.

It wasn't terrible, but they've certainly handled breaking news of this nature much more seamlessly previously.