[Andrew]

That headline sequence on the BBC late news was a good example why live reporter inserts are unnecessary.

The reporter live in India had about a 10 second satellite delay, and when she finally spoke all we got was “I’m live in India and I’ll have all the latest”

[bilky asko]

That headline sequence on the BBC late news was a good example why live reporter inserts are unnecessary.

The reporter live in India had about a 10 second satellite delay, and when she finally spoke all we got was “I’m live in India and I’ll have all the latest”

At the very least, it would work much better with a silent shot of the reporter, with their presence explained by the newsreader.

[aaron_scotland]

That headline sequence on the BBC late news was a good example why live reporter inserts are unnecessary.

The reporter live in India had about a 10 second satellite delay, and when she finally spoke all we got was “I’m live in India and I’ll have all the latest”

I'd have expected them to record intro's like that then have the actual report live.

[Rolling News]

They also used the short titles too which was completely out of sync with the rest of the intro making the whole thing look extremely amateur.

[RhysJR]

They also used the short titles too which was completely out of sync with the rest of the intro making the whole thing look extremely amateur.

If anyone missed it
twitter.com 

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When was the last time BBC News devoted two 45 minute slots for an interview with a PM, President, statesmen, Nobel Prize winner or someone of real significance?

Granted I'm not an avid viewer, but that does sound to me like the mission statement of Hardtalk. Looking at their webpage, in the last few weeks they have interviewed the likes of the Presidents of the Czech Republic and the Seychelles, Hungary's foreign minister and the opposition leader of South Africa. Admittedly, it's not a list of A-listers, but it appears that programme frequently features longform interviews with people who fit into the above categories and is shown often across the schedule.

[Radio_man]

Granted I'm not an avid viewer, but that does sound to me like the mission statement of Hardtalk. Looking at their webpage, in the last few weeks they have interviewed the likes of the Presidents of the Czech Republic and the Seychelles, Hungary's foreign minister and the opposition leader of South Africa. Admittedly, it's not a list of A-listers, but it appears that programme frequently features longform interviews with people who fit into the above categories and is shown often across the schedule.

When was the last time Hardtalk interviewed a prominent UK MP or UK government minister? 
It's predominantly a program for longform interviews with international figures, buried away on iPlayer and late night showings on the news channel. 
Aside from Laura K, there's currently no program on the BBC where UK politicians and ministers can be interviewed at depth and held to account. 
It'll be interesting to see how this is handled during the election next year, as in previous elections Andrew Neil has done election interviews with the party leaders for the BBC.

Rob Burley has a point in these tweets

twitter.com 

[thePineapple]

When was the last time Hardtalk interviewed a prominent UK MP or UK government minister? 

Wes Streeting (Shadow Health Sec) was on recently-ish, but considering UK audiences don't really watch it, I don't think politicians really value it. Besides, it's a worldwide program so not really the place, so I agree that there's a void for interviews and UK politics coverage in general - there's only Kuenssberg, which is one hour a week and often devotes ~20mins to arts/culture. I think it's a byproduct of far-reaching cuts that programming and politics in general has been cut - there's no money for the 'niceties' of the past. As you say, that's going to be awkward going into election season.

[AaronLancs]

With HardTalk. Would it help if they did an additional airing at say 6:30pm or 7:30pm to raise its profile more in the UK? Just wondering.

[Brekkie]

When was the last time BBC News devoted two 45 minute slots for an interview with a PM, President, statesmen, Nobel Prize winner or someone of real significance?

When is the last time someone of such significance granted the BBC an interview?  Government ministers often try to avoid a 5 minute grilling on Breakfast nowadays.   And worth noting Amol has had a series of 30-45 minute interviews airing on BBC2 in recent weeks.  


A bit of news snobbery going on here I think.  Nobody is denying it's irrelevant to global viewers and across the week, even across the day, overdone by BBC News from a UK perspective.   But it is arguably the biggest media story of the year and the interview was with the person at the centre of it, not an axed former colleague or someone they interviewed 10-15 years ago who still has a vendetta.   The general viewer will be far more interested in it than an extended interview with a foreign president or UK government minister.

It was 45 minutes of already produced content aired on Friday night in what is a low key slot for News channels with a 15 minute follow up.

If they'd edited it down to 30 minutes and filled a back half hours with it, probably more than once, would we even be having this conversation?



And yes there is the issue of it overshadowing the covid inquiry shenanigans but that sort of thing of the BBC not headlining Tory controversies is something they've been accused of doing for years.   If the Schofield story hadn't been running they'd have likely led with the India crash anyway on the news channel at least.

[sjhoward]

I suspect that’s more the uk politicians don’t like to be scrutinised for those sort of lengthy periods!

Perhaps I'm being too generous, but I think it's more subtle than that. It is not at all uncommon for TV interviews to be clipped down to a few seconds, often on the basis of something embarrassing happening or some other occurrence that is irrelevant to the purpose of the interview. This can make them unduly risky.

Long interviews with politicians still happen, just less often on camera than was previously the case. For example, it's not at all uncommon to see politicians sit down for long-form print interviews (think Sunday newspapers or news magazines or Lunch with the FT) and, perhaps a bit less commonly, long-form radio interviews (think Political Thinking with Nick Robinson). Outlets that a politically aligned with the politician are also less likely to give them a rough ride, of course.