[harshy]

I don’t understand how under this creative director bbc network news looks so good yet the news channel now looks so c*ap.

[ginnyfan]

Since no one at the BBC wanted this merged news channel, I'm starting to think the whole crapfest was done totally on purpose.

[News76]

Since no one at the BBC wanted this merged news channel, I'm starting to think the whole crapfest was done totally on purpose.

Yep that really is about the size-and we all know what the soultion is just that the BBC News department cannot see it.

[interestednovice]

I don’t understand how under this creative director bbc network news looks so good yet the news channel now looks so c*ap.

Not to be a downer, but even network news could look better still!

Studio B’s refit looks great overall, but the physical elements are the best. The on-screen set graphics, especially around the desk area, are very poor and the graphics package in general has also been botched together. The whole thing leaves the otherwise amazing physical space feeling cold and clinical. Ideally, I’d like to see a creative director on top of that.

Personally, I just cannot accept the way the ElectricFriends cameras look either - you have this beautiful physical studio, but rarely get to see it properly without Daleks zooming around tracks all over the place, making it cluttered - and it’s all quite difficult for presenters to walk around.

[mouseboy33]

I know we are all feeling a bit disappointed with the current presentation of BBC News. Of course some view the corporation as infallible. I dont hold such views. We all know the journalism is good. But realistically it can be presented better than it is.

Since license fee money is always an issue it seems to me the incremental changes are not worth the money. Im sorry. Most viewers, 99% hardly notice anything. I think you can ask anyone if they BBC logo has changed, probably every one will say no its exactly the same. Yeah we know why it was changed for technical reasons but that one change is symbolic of the barely perceptible graphics changes that are made over the years that no one notices, but us. Its design by committee that results in these watered down boring looks. I think its time. Its time for a complete change of everything. This actually should have happened when the merger took place. Not just those (Im sorry to say) plain boring programme title slides they started using. Just pretty much everything needed to thrown out. BBC News needs a new everything. How the programmes are presented, the programme structure. The strange silent graphic interstitial that pop up in the breaks. The programme open then the redundant 2nd open, which wastes time. Just get on with it.

I know they are trying to loosen things up a bit, but unfortunately the BBC has a style of presenting (to me) that is very cold and detached. Not sure that will ever change, its just BBC DNA thing. I think there needs to be training on vamping during a breaking story. Its actually painful to watch some presenters stumbling and fumbling their way thru a story thats breaking. Because they are seemingly so frightened to make a speaking mistake, it seems or sound too casual. Well... like a normal person. They always seemed robotic. Someone mentioned the timing of interviews that get rudely cut-off, thats an issue that I dont like. But one of my pet-peeves is the circling back to a top story halfway thru a newsblock. Sometimes the hard breaks are unnecessary.

I think that somewhere down the line. The channels will be split again. Maybe not full time channels but maybe a paired down domestic channel that operates at certain hours of the day. We know it was an economic decisions, but geez this was not dont very well....lets just be frank.

[Stuart]

I think that somewhere down the line. The channels will be split again. Maybe not full time channels but maybe a paired down domestic channel that operates at certain hours of the day. We know it was an economic decisions, but geez this was not dont very well....lets just be frank.

I think you're more likely to see the end of the UK opt. National bulletins will still continue on BBC One as they did before the NC was created.

[Spencer]

Not to be a downer, but even network news could look better still!

Studio B’s refit looks great overall, but the physical elements are the best. The on-screen set graphics, especially around the desk area, are very poor and the graphics package in general has also been botched together. The whole thing leaves the otherwise amazing physical space feeling cold and clinical. Ideally, I’d like to see a creative director on top of that.

Personally, I just cannot accept the way the ElectricFriends cameras look either - you have this beautiful physical studio, but rarely get to see it properly without Daleks zooming around tracks all over the place, making it cluttered - and it’s all quite difficult for presenters to walk around.

And not wanting also to be a downer, so I’ll just say Breakfast titles - and leave it there.

[Brekkie]

I know we are all feeling a bit disappointed with the current presentation of BBC News. Of course some view the corporation as infallible. I dont hold such views. We all know the journalism is good. But realistically it can be presented better than it is.

Exactly - agree a complete refresh is overdue rather than a tweak here, a tweak there which essentially leaves it still looking the same as it did in 2008, but without the consistency or care it seems.

And though of course it is the journalism that matters how that journalism is presented matters too.   That includes allowing reporters the time to compile reports too rather than have them standing outside building for hours going straight to air when there really is little more to add than the initial headline.

[AaronTV]

I know that there is a tendency by many in this thread to overstate the reach and importance of the channel, but to suggest it is watched by less than 100,000 people (during an unspecified period) is as much an understatement in the other direction. Evening slots alone typically average that and, cumulatively, it reaches around 2m viewers per day - more than the News at One. It might not really possess agenda-setting powers, but that's more to do with it being a secondary outlet for the BBC rather than because of its audience - which tends to disproportionately include so-called 'opinion formers'.

I'm also not sure what financial viability has to do with it. As far as I know, the only UK-based news channel to ever turn a profit was BBC World News. Sky News seem to manage to do alright with agenda setting, despite being heavily financially reliant on the rest of Sky.

‘Cumulative daily reach’ is one of those figures that sounds impressive but doesn’t really mean anything in terms of actual viewers. 

Although I appreciate there was a lot of desire in forums such as this and in the industry to see the services remain separate, I think the reality is that nobody outside of these groups has noticed the channels have merged. 

The fact that there has been little outcry or commentary in several months suggests to me the previous UK only channel was watched by a fairly small group of people outside of breaking news. 

To most normal people, the BBC News channel is the same as it’s ever been and looks like it - an anchor sat in front of the BBC newsroom. 

The way that the vast, vast majority of people consume BBC News has not changed since the merger, so it makes complete sense to me to merge the channels and still provide a rolling service, but in a way that stops financial cuts affecting the quality of what most UK viewers see. 

As has been alluded to above, I do think there is a potential that the look and feel of the channel is not as good as it could be (even on a reduced but still pretty vast budget) because the merger was widely disproved of internally, so nobody really wanted it to work in any case as opposed to trying to make the best of it. 

The best thing senior management could probably do to that end is emphasise that the merger is here to stay and there will be no further separation of the services, as clearly UK viewers are, on the whole, being served just as effectively as they were before.

[harshy]

People must have noticed that’s it’s blindingly red that’s enough to put most people off, or the people watching it for long periods have lost their remote control.

I noticed Washington seems to gone back to basics approach and now means they don’t utilise the components of the studio either like the screens to do the interviews, this channel is a presentation joke.