[News76]

Well the way things are going (and events do move fast these days) i can see us saying Auld Lang Syne to this Channel completely before too long as much as it saddens me to say this.

[House]

I think I preferred it a week or so ago when they were showing guide dogs every night after the 10.

It's obvious Newsnight is just a tool used by the BBC to fill up the amount of "UK news hour" quota on the domestic feed, so to fulfill their narrative "The UK audience is still getting lots of UK news in the new service".

With Nicky Campbell Everyday launching on Apr 17, the UK-only hours on weekdays are as follows:

0600-1100 (5 hrs)
0955-1000 (5 mins)
1030-1100 (30 mins)
1155-1200 (5 mins)
1300-1400 (1 hr)
1355-1400 (5 mins)
1655-1700 (5 mins)
1730-1900 (1 hr 30 mins)
1955-2000 (5 mins)
2155-2310 (1 hr 15 mins)

That's a total of 9 hours and 35 mins of UK-only hours on the new BBC News channel. Impressive! Don't the numbers look very sexy to top management on paper? Next time when someone complains on Newswatch about the lack of UK news, they can just bring up this number to defend their narrative.

Surely you’ve double counted 35 minutes here - the first 5 mins and 30 mins won’t be shown once Nicky Campbell’s show takes over?

[ALV]

Ticker briefly returned during Sportsday at 2345 on the World feed... However, Red Bee faded out the ticker a few minutes into the programme, and then replaced it with a ticker-less DOG.

There were no technical problems with the ticker, it wasn't frozen or whatsoever. The RSS news headlines on it are up to date.

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Surely you’ve double counted 35 minutes here - the first 5 mins and 30 mins won’t be shown once Nicky Campbell’s show takes over?

You're right! It was my oversight. Just edited it.

[AJB39]

Ticker briefly returned during Sportsday at 2345 on the World feed... However, Red Bee faded out the ticker a few minutes into the programme, and then replaced it with a ticker-less DOG.

There were no technical problems with the ticker, it wasn't frozen or whatsoever. The RSS news headlines on it are up to date.

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Surely you’ve double counted 35 minutes here - the first 5 mins and 30 mins won’t be shown once Nicky Campbell’s show takes over?

You're right! It was my oversight. Just edited it.

Yes it was the first time I’ve seen a functioning ticker on the World feed since the new operation launched on Monday. It didn’t last long but it proved it’s possible. Hopefully we’ll see the ticker back full time on the UK and World feed soon.

[Reith85]

This merged channel reminds me of what BBC News is reduced to when its NUJ members are on strike.

[Kojak]

I actually think much of the content over the past few days has been okay. Not fantastic, or even necessarily great, but certainly all right. It definitely needs work, but overall I don't think it's been that bad.

The presentation, on the other hand... ghastly. No other word for it. Absolutely atrocious. I certainly don't blame anyone at the coalface, because they're by and large just doing their jobs as best they can (in what I'd imagine is a very febrile atmopshere). The higher-ups, though... just who signed off on those titles? Who on Earth thought it would be a good idea to simulcast Newsnight, when they know that its timings never dovetail cleanly with what's on either side of it? Who decided to plonk 5 Live on for two hours in the morning?

I do still think - and I have said this time and again, as have you and others on this forum - that there could have been other ways. It's probably fair to say most of us here understand why the BBC has done what it did, as much as we largely dislike it. It was always going to be a difficult task to try and combine two very different news channels into one, and to equally satisfy international and domestic audiences. But... it was (and is) doable. Not that we've seen much evidence of that so far this week - in their traditional and inimitable way, the BBC seem to have come up with a fudge that has annoyed everyone.

But there has been some rather odd and iffy editorial calls as well.

Throughout the whole Paul Murrell story breaking this morning (and correct me if I'm wrong) not once did a Political Correspondent appear on air? It was largely handled by 2 general news reporters in the Glasgow newsroom, initially on the phone and then DTL. For example, previously we'd have seen Nick Eardley, Ione Wells, Vicki Young, Ian Watson or Alex Forsyth appear from Westminster. Yet no one from the Political team did, which even though it is Easter holidays, stuck out like a sore thumb.

Shoving that story way down the running order (which they did on the channel) in the afternoon is just the way of igniting the touchpaper on accusations of political cover-ups/bias etc by general viewers who haven't twigged the channel is World News in all but name. What happens if the next alleged scandal involves a member of the other main parties? It's just asking for trouble.

I think that's the issue with it being a combined channel - there seems to be a tug-of-war as to whether (and which) international or domestic stories get priority. Though I'd argue that the husband of the de-facto leader of the Scottish independence movement being arrested could have been a big story worldwide (although he was later released without charge). So quite how they are deciding which stories go where in the running order is a bit beyond me. You'd think the SNP story would be the sort of thing the breakout stream was made for - but presumably there was no one there to do it, as they would have perhaps been preparing for the blood verdict later?

It seems also that the powers that be are a little confused about what the new BBC News channel should be. Do they want it to be a sort of extended World bulletin each hour, with lots of interviews and lives - or are they going to drop everything and busk whenever there is a breaking story, a la Sky News? At the moment we've seen both approaches, often at the same time! 

I'd like to think there may be some sort of reversal in the near future (albeit, given tight budgets, a very limited one!). They could have so easily kept the One team on for a couple of extra hours of UK-only news. Hey, maybe this will happen after the inevitable backlash. If it carries on like this (and I'm not saying it will, by any means - it's only been three days, after all!) I can't see it going down at all well.

[ALV]

Seems like the 0100 hour of Newsday is produced directly out of Singapore's gallery - The headline strap doesn't have the BBC News DOG, there's no over the shoulder graphics, the lower thirds font styling is weird, there's no DOG on the outro... everything is out of place just like ABR. Seems like a pilot to me.

The ticker however is generated from NBH on both the UK and World feed. So the TX path is Singapore -> NBH -> Red Bee on the World feed.

[Jeff]

Look at all that talent and experience.

How the hell did we end here-This whole relaunch has been an unmitigated disaster and unless Ofcom finally wake up, there's not a thing we can do it about unless the BBC themselves realize  that one news service was never a good idea regardless of money.

If you ignore the expected over-the-top hyperbole in this thread over the last few days, the unified channel's editorial decision-making hasn't been too bad. While there are aspects where finding the right balance and making tweaks are still required, those things will likely happen and improve over time.

The overwhelming majority of issues are from a presentation/logistical perspective and nearly all of them should have been noticed, discussed and addressed during the rehearsals.

[oscillon]

Finally no panel on Sumi's overnight show at 2am! She just had one pundit to interview on two separate topics. The rest of the half-hour is your good old news bulletin. Mariko Oi made a reappearance as well in her role as a correspondent.

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Whoever did the DOG for Christian's special report, did they not know what channel the report will air on?
How come the DOG in a report to be broadcast on BBC News overlaps with the BBC News traditional lower thirds (identity + ticker)?

Or was the original intention to show the thing on Panorama or Newsnight?

Returning to Christian Fraser's investigation, I noticed that whoever edited it together, apparently was aware to some extent of the lower thirds. When a piece of interview from another outlet with hard burnt-in subtitles was shown, they actually letterboxed it, so the subtitles did not get overlapped by the white ticker (though still overlapped by the semi-transparent upper stripe).


So, it seems to be a consient decision not to put its own DOG too high and let it overlap with a semi-transparent part of the lower-thirds.

The remaining question is - why? It runs for almost 15 minutes (The Context later had a short discussion), did not appear on Newsnight, so The Context is the only place they have shown it...

Also, for the record, the main part of the presentation in this investigation was done in Studio B, not as a documentary-style voice-over.

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UPD. Regarding both topics above - Christian's report was actually repeated in full (!) in the 3am DC bulletin

[AntandDec_Fan]

Who did the morning shifts today? I gather Celia Hatton was on from 08.00 to 10.00 CET and also did Breaking News opt outs. Was Victoria in her early morning slot? The rest of the day was as usual, with Maryam in for Matthew.

Just trying to see who else is appearing. Clearly the fab group in Martine's photo does not seem to be scheduled at the moment.

Unless I imagined it, it was Sally Bundock.

It was Victoria Fritz doing 5.00-7.00!