New BBC Singapore studio

There are still delays with fibre due to coding/decoding. I guess that having the Singapore prompter operated locally cuts out latency, and also allows it to run a little early so Rico can start talking on Babita's last word to mitigate the delays a little.

It may also be technically awkward to switch between remote mode and local control in the time between Newsday and ABR segments.

If you're talking about the 5:30 pm ET WNA edition, I always assumed it's live because there are differences when compared to the first edition. If you're talking about the repeat at 6:30 pm ET (the 5:30 edition), I don't recall them ever using the word 'live' at any point in that edition so there are no contradictions if they rebroadcast WNA. They do point out in the first edition they're live though. Another guess could be they treat it like a US network newscast because they don't indicate the network newscast was recorded from earlier when aired in the MT, PT or Hawaii Time Zones.

Is it just me or does the orange look really dull when compared with the London studio?

How many times a day does WNA broadcast? I thought it was just the once at 11pm CET/5pm ET?

In North America it's airs from 5-6PM ET and the second half hour airs again from 6:30-7:00pm which competes against the major network newscasts. Up until a few months ago they reran the second half hour from 8:30-9:00PM ET. All back half hour programming that airs in the rest of the world is preempted in North America from 6:00 PM until 11:00 PM where they rerun recorded programming. On Tuesday they ran Click, The Travel Show and Pop UP Nairobi in those timeslots.

About a year and a half ago I tweeted Rico Hizon wondering why ABR was not on air and I got the impression that there's not much of a demand for Asia Business News and World Sports here.

I can't help but miss the dialogues now between London and Singapore and it feels like two half shows being put together. It was better when they interacted more with each other.

I see the Twitter telling people who's presenter it is account is back.

I don't like the way the wall is being used in Singapore, because the studio backed into the skyline which is nice,

On the other hand it allows the talent to rehearse independently of London, and to make changes more easily. It also means you have the same way of working for both co-presentation and local presentation (where Singapore do their own thing)



200Mbs for 8 cameras via low latency codecs doesn't sound great. That would be 25Mbs per camera - which is a bit on the low side unless you use Long GOP encoding, which will add a lot of latency. Or is the 2x100Mbs figure separate to the 8 camera circuits?

The BBC trialled 100Mbs PER CAMERA AVC Intra stuff for IP production, and I think SVT and NRK used similarly high bitrates for their London 2012 studios, which had individual cameras, and reverse vision feeds, fibred back to Stockholm and Oslo where the shows were cut. NBC use similar techniques for their Olympic Today Show broadcasts - and have done since at least Beijing 2008.

Very true.


I'm not sure about the specifics. The article mentioned that they used dual 100Mbps pipes that were used for everything on their network. From the viewing perspective the cameras look compatible to the main studio feed when they do cross talks. One company, VideoLink*, uses the same camera as the the bureau requires a 10 Mbps connection to send the HD video back and their picture quality is pretty good - but CNBC's is better. So I don't think 15-20 Mbps is that far off especially when ENG and bonded cellular use the same rates.

I thought for the Olympics NBC sent back the less prominent sports and had them produced back in Stamford (previous Studio 8H @ 30 Rock). Today and Nightly News had their own control room in Sochi and London.

*VideoLink is a company that has their own insert studios and uplink trucks but they also provide a service, ReadyLink, that allows organizations to have their own insert studios. The ReadyLink studios are frequently used on the US cable networks and a few independent contributors actually have the camera system installed in their homes.

Anyway sorry for getting off topic.

It would be interesting to see what they'll do for the titles if Newsday were to be broadcast from Singapore and Washington instead (US election related events) or from Singapore and some other place (such as the Hong Kong protests) as they have done it in past.

Or London and the US? I remember one time it being presented from Des Moines, IA and London for the Iowa Caucases last time round.

It feels like it's an insert into the title sequence the live shot with the voice pre-recorded so I guess you could change the tag to the location and Mishal Hussein saying "Live on location in … and live from our studio in London" and then carry on as normal.

I like the new Newsday and the tweaks to the content, with more references to online content available and some social media interaction. It does make for a more rounded "show" which must make it a bit more appealing as a breakfast programme in the Asian market.


Part of me does miss the simplicity of the old format though. It was an easy watch for me, and the on-screen handovers between the two presenters - with the classic nodding from the other, making it suitably different to most other hours.

We're getting less of Rico's trademark "That's right, Babita" as they introduce and share the script.

That said, they really excelled last night with the breaking news about the China port blast. Good use of bureau staff (as correspondents were unavailable due to travelling to the site) and some pulling in of duty staff in London to give an update. This was supplemented with latest pictures, and an eyewitness interview (although the interviewee wasn't particularly descriptive).

It's easy to think a programme anchored across two locations like this might fall apart a bit during breaking news, with short notice changes being made during the show - but they really pulled it off well, lots of interaction and sharing the burden.

It did seem like Babita was leading a litte, but then I suppose that London is really such a centralising newsgathering operation at such times, so it's understandable.

Overall, yes, I like the changes a lot - I can only see Newsday gaining in popularity.

Anyone can shed some light on Newsday's history? When did it start and was it then that Babita transitioned from presenting business to becoming the main London anchor of Newsday?