[ginnyfan]

Since it's Friday, after 5 days of this new channel, I'll post a few thoughts.


- WORLD: As sad as it is to lose the iconic BBC World branding, the new channel is really not that different and in many ways a great improvement. The biggest change is that we actually have more rolling news and the channel feels more alive. We still have the same weekday presenters, in similar slots. In fact, the new schedule is much better. I love having Yalda in primetime. I haven't watched news at that time since Hala Gorani left CNN and Yalda is in Hala's league of great international journalists. Matthew is the best at rolling news/breaking coverage and having him in the 3 hour afternoon slot makes total sense. Lucy is equally experienced and in control in her early afternoon shift. I was a bit skeptical about Maryam but she's totally won me over and the minced meat bit was lots of fun. She can easily replace all others, any time of the day. Getting rid of shows that lost its purpose (OS) was a good decision. It's great that DC is getting more airtime with new presenters (Sumi already feels like a long time BBC person) and more focus on US news in their primetime makes total sense. The graveyard shift has a purpose now. Karishma in Singapour has made Newsday watchable again, after she took over the show, and I'm glad she's continuing in the merged channel. Early mornings with Sally & Victoria V continue as well, since there's no point in changing the winning team. 

- UK : While I understand the sadness and disappointments many domestic viewers feel about losing their beloved BBC News Channel and presenters, I don't think things are as bad as some make it out to be. Some of the presenters will surely return, they are just having a much needed break. I think the channel managed to strike a good balance of international and domestic stories, and we already got the breaking news opt out team in action, showing that this can be done, despite many doubting it. They have a good system in place, by using the late morning presenter for the afternoon slot. We haven't seen opt-outs in the evenings yet, so maybe they have someone else on duty for those. Mistakes and problems will be ironed out overtime, as always on TV. Even GBN found a way out of its catastrophic debut. The worst thing for domestic viewers are all the useless simulcasts of national news programs and the upcoming radio fluff. Makes no sense at all but we know it's just to keep the domestic news statistics.

- STUDIOS: It's a lovely surprise to have E still with us and in fact, used most of the day. Studio C is much improved with the new backdrop. Using both of them is refreshing and brings nice variety to presentation. We just need more camera shots again, using the side screens etc. The newsroom/hostage reporters are also fine with me, they bring more info and context to the stories. Just need to make the camera shots a bit wider.

- VISUALS: This is the worst part, I guess we all agree on that. I don't care for graphics that much so I'm not affected by changes in that department. The flipper was useless anyway, so it doesn't make much change if it has the website on it all the time. But if that's to continue, they should just remove that white strap permanently.  As I wrote before, the biggest problem are the breaks, no music ident, silly filler used and awkward pauses and moments before and after. These really need fixing. The fact we did not get any new music or overall new look/identity is not a surprise since this wasn't announced. It's just more tweaks to the very old, 2008 look. I said it many times before, BBC News needs a brave, new look. A total change, like in 1999. Lose the beeps, peeps and the iconic music. Start something new! But that's probably not going to happen any time soon so we'll just have more tweaks of this overused look.

I like this black/red logo and the simple white background. It could have been used to build upon it for something new and different.



On to the weekend, let's see what happens there....