[Brekkie]

But it’s usually not is it?

And surely you only needed to *hear* the speakers?

Most of what people say is delivered in how they say it. At something like the Nottingham Vigil it was about connecting with the emotion in their face as much as the words that they said, and on a more day to day basis with politicians speaking for example how they say things is often as important as what they say. I thought news nowadays wanted to connect to viewers on a more human level, and seeing how people express themselves is a huge part of that.

That argument is somewhat undermined by some of the changes that BBC News has made:

[*]Removing the second, descriptive line of text from the lower-thirds. 
[*]Reduction of most stories to a single four- or five-word headline, which is often left on screen for several minutes at a time. 
[*]The frequent deactivation of the ticker/flipper, replacing it with nothing but a URL. 
[*]Displaying nothing but the same three or four headlines on a loop on the ticker, on the rare occasions when it functions (rather than 6 or 7 major headlines, along with sport, business etc); or using it to endless cycle contact information that is already shown on screen in pushback. 


You're right -- news is about information, but the BBC's actions have shown that text -- at least on the lower thirds -- is no longer considered an essential part of how they share that information with the audience. 

BBC News has greatly reduced the functionality, usefulness, and the value, of the lower-thirds in recent months. Just how useful is it to audiences to introduce a story, play out the package, return to the studio, and chat with a guest -- several minutes of on-air time -- showing absolutely nothing on screen but the same four-word story title? And while showing them no world headlines or anything else on the ticker except the URL? 

As a result of the BBC's changes, the lower thirds are now, quite literally, a waste of space.

You've summed up what I wanted to say perfectly - the strap especially is just there for the sake of being there rather than to provide useful information, and the same with the empty flipper and empty logo bar too. They're not enhancing the information the viewer gets in any way at all. The push backs can be useful for summarising info in a press conference or parliamentrary announcement for example, but increasingly just being used for the sake of being used too.

Considering the decision has been made to basically just have one line of info on screen most of the time with no additional text offering further clarification and no flipper with any meaningful information they probably should have took the opportunity today to tweak the lay out to reflect that. The straps on This Morning and Packed Lunch for example are largely completely pointless and unnecessary, but they're of a size where they're easily legible and not obstructing the picture.

[LDN]

The strap is red on the News at One on the news channel for names/titles but remains transparent black on BBC One.

Why? Just why?

BBC One viewers don't even get the new full-width red BBC News 'bar' at the bottom, never mind the full-red supers.

ibb.co 

bbc-news-lower-thirds-one-vs-nc hosted at ImgBB — ImgBB
Image bbc-news-lower-thirds-one-vs-nc hosted in ImgBB
  Source: ibb.co

It's almost as if they knew viewers on BBC One would quickly complain if they were presented with what looked like breaking news graphics popping up on screen every time someone gets name-checked. It would be distracting, confusing, unnecessary. It would look like a mistake, something that needs to be fixed. 

And yet, no such considerations for viewers on the BBC News channel. 

And worse, we're now back to the bland old days of BBC News design, in which breaking news was almost apologetically highlighted on screen by little more than the use of a very slightly different shade of red. 

This whole never-ending exercise in 'refreshing' the look of BBC News has been one long miserable failure of imagination, and of design and brand leadership. What a sad thing to be said of one of the world's leading broadcasters and most respected news organisations.

[Brekkie]

Couldn't decide which thread it would be better in, but here's the first sports bulletin from the new studio.
Quite liking the visual style, probably quite obvious it's come from the Sports side instead of the News side, quite intrigued to see how it expands to Sportsday later this evening, but the almost isometric type playing fields for each sport are really nice already, especially when used for backgrounds like the cricket ones.
www.youtube.com 

I know Sportsday has always somewhat done it's own thing and been a bit of a hybrid between news and sport but I wonder if we're beginning to see them phase out yellow as the prominant brand and move towards teal, something that they've been slowly but surely doing on the website over the last year or so.

[Robinho02]

How have we got to the point, where on the UK feed of the News channel, the sport presentation/studio/content/everything is vastly superior to the actual news?

Sport seems well resourced, proper bulletins, reporting, nice opening titles, a fab looking new studio.

News has none of that. It has a junior journalist sitting in front of a screen in a busy newsroom and only airs when there’s breaking news anyway.

I’m very glad sport is well resourced and looks good. But it seems… weird.

[AaronLancs]

Most of what people say is delivered in how they say it.  At something like the Nottingham Vigil it was about connecting with the emotion in their face as much as the words that they said, and on a more day to day basis with politicians speaking for example how they say things is often as important as what they say. I thought news nowadays wanted to connect to viewers on a more human level, and seeing how people express themselves is a huge part of that.

Well said. One thing hat people need to remember is that when we are being talked to we are also looking at how they are talking to us. I may say the following:

Well that didn't go as I was expecting.

I can say that aurally in one of a million different ways but only when you look at my face you can see the expression and facial context behind it. Because this can be said either in a sarcastic tone or after being given utterly devastating news. So that is why when we hear someone speak at a major event we also vitally see them.

[harshy]

It’s a shame considering the effort they put into the Salford operation but team NBH are letting them down big time, I saw that new red breaking news graphic it’s far too bright red now.

[Worzel]

Sportsday mode...

The only thing that doesn't work is how they display the sport headlines.

It's been inspired by BBC News, but doesn't use Reith Serif and the location and letter spacing is all off. Why is the BBC Sport logo so small as well?

Also, does the presenter spin their own camera round? 

[AIB01WB]

twitter.com 

[oscillon]

Have they forgot to put a space after the colon or they decided not to do it for the text not to become even smaller?

[TVenthusiasm]

The new Sportsday opening and closing

up.metropol247.co.uk