[Stooky Bill]

I think that Friday 16th December is likely to be the last full 30-minute evening edition of BBC regional news for this year, as I'm sure that BBC regional news minutes (number of bulletins and/or duration of each bulletin) are usually reduced during the festive fortnight.

In recent years at least, that has also generally meant no sub-regional split in South Today (with the pan-regional service often being presented from the Oxford studio). I assume similar usually happens for Look East?

The timing is therefore obviously a cunning way of quietly dropping the Oxford and Cambridge sub-regional services in a bid to avoid too much viewer backlash - i.e. going into the usual annual "no sub-opts" period that viewers are used to at this time of year... but this time never reinstating them in early January.

Yes there's normally a reduced service over Christmas, but it'll also be to avoid the Christmas technical change freeze. Presumably they'll want to make some changes straight away rather than leave till January

[southern_boy]

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twitter.com 

BBC One South HD is now testing on satellite. Anyone else think that whilst a big improvement, the picture quality for the supposedly full HD South Today is very soft?

[South]

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twitter.com 

BBC One South HD is now testing on satellite. Anyone else think that whilst a big improvement, the picture quality for the supposedly full HD South Today is very soft?

Having been watching in HD via BT IPTV for the last couple of months, I cant say I find that, however tonight's late programme was from Oxford, so was an upscaled picture rather than full HD.

[Deejay]

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twitter.com 

BBC One South HD is now testing on satellite. Anyone else think that whilst a big improvement, the picture quality for the supposedly full HD South Today is very soft?

Having been watching in HD via BT IPTV for the last couple of months, I cant say I find that, however tonight's late programme was from Oxford, so was an upscaled picture rather than full HD.

A facility they won’t have after Friday this week …

[Former Member 406]

I believe that the room in the BBC Radio Oxford building which is now the TV studio for the South Today sub-opt was originally the performance space for bands/musicians etc featuring on the radio station's output, and indeed still doubles-up for this purpose.

I wonder if they'll bother removing all of the trappings of the news set, or if some will remain indefinitely once the space reverts to being solely a radio performance studio.

[Deejay]

It was indeed the larger performance studio space, and the current TV Gallery was the control room (Cubicle) for it. The two together were known as “Studio 2” (BBC Local Radio naming convention was to make a distinction between studios - spaces with microphones in them but no other tech - and cubicles - spaces which had desks, tape machines, grams etc and microphones for self-op work.)

When TV moved fully to the Radio Oxford building in 2005, the original sound soak from the walls of Studio 2 and Cubicle 2 were almost all removed to maximise the space available for the set and the gallery equipment. This proved to be something of a mistake because the first set suffered from a very bright sound indeed. Over the years, heavy drapes and more modern acoustic treatment has been added to the wall surfaces and and this has all helped with dampening the acoustics.

The TV studio space doesn’t regularly get used by Radio Oxford for their band performances though, they have their own space in the former phone-in-area.

Given that the TV Studio will once again sound extremely bright if/when the set is removed, I doubt it will immediately find much use for Radio Oxford performances, and if the current plans go through, Radio Oxford’s output is to be dramatically reduced next year anyway (to Breakfast and Mid-Morning output only).

[DTV]

I wonder if they'll bother removing all of the trappings of the news set, or if some will remain indefinitely once the space reverts to being solely a radio performance studio.

I suppose the Oxford set could come in handy when the new set rollout gets round to Southampton - could be moved to Southampton's second studio for use as a temporary set.

[Pompeytv]

Late news was pan-regional tonight, with Geraldine Peers giving a little farewell speech at the end.

[DTV]

Pan-regional from Oxford must be a rarity outside of studio issues in Southampton and the occassional major Oxford-related story. I assume this will have been an editorial decision made by the main South Today team - not the first (and probably not the last) on air quasi-protest against BBC management decisions; quite understandable really, all for a bit of passive resistance.

[JAS84]

www.bbc.co.uk 

Regional BBC shows in Oxford and Cambridge end - BBC News
South Today Oxford and Look East (West) broadcast for the final time.
  Source: www.bbc.co.uk