BBC News nostalgia, including BBC World

I have no recollection of Breakfast News in the 90s as I strictly grew up in an ITV household so had the delights of Eamonn and Anthea on the telly every morning. The only memory I have of 1990s BBC News is the theme tune to the Nine scaring me when it was on one night!
It was indeed a very cold look for a morning news programme, but I notice the blue in the virtual studio seemed to start off light and get darker as the day went on. Starting off light (with a touch of orange) at 6am for Breakfast News, but very dark by 9pm at night.

My main takeaway from this is how much better N8 looks than N6. How did we put up with the fake newsroom background for so long?

It was fine(ish) for the bulletins but for a rolling news channel it was lifeless. I know they had no choice to use N6 as they had to close a studio due to cost savings but they could have used a backdrop which didn't look like they were having a power cut, although to be fair there was an improvement when they added a tint of blue.

I remember the launch of the main channel at NBH, and the improvement was just so noticeable instantly. It came alive so suddenly - and 7 years later (imo) E looks good as new.

I've got some footage showing how they did that transition in TC7, immediately following an edition of Newsnight. You can see how they change the background from Newsnight to Breakfast News by way of blinds and curtains! Apologies, the picture jumps around a bit but you get the gist.



Another good clip here. BBC News & Sport from 1989. If you look at about 8 minutes in, you can see a very young Huw Edwards reporting!





The only minor difference I can remember is that it was a slightly more pink colour than blue. It was slightly warmer than the One/Six set but only just. Probably my favourite version of that set was as it appeared on the Nine. That was moody and sublime. But it was totally unsuited to Breakfast News.

The one thing I never liked about that era of Breakfast News was the slightly dischordian way the theme tune resolves itself. It's not a very relaxing way to start the day!

I do agree with you on the News 24 front. At the time we had a dual LNB analogue satellite setup, so I could watch World but my only exposure to News 24 was if I was up late enough, and really liked the style - it was clearly BBC, but a bit more laid back and modern, and it's a shame they didn't develop it further.

Were the N24 graphics overnight the same as the daytime ones, save for the '24' disappearing on simulcast bits? They weren't quite the same as World at the time.

A few other thoughts from spinning through that video:
The non-countdown countdown was a good interstitial, not quite as urgent and shouty as what replaced it, but still a decent gap-filller, and I like the way it rolled straight in to the title sequence. The music really is 👌 (even if it does sound like a crowd cheering at the end)

I'm sure I've said before (probably even in this thread) that the flags motifs on the glass in the newsroom stayed there till 2013.

Thst has got to be the only video on the internet of a non-grey Huw!

A rare clip of Michael Buerk presenting News 24 with Gavin Esler in November 2001:

And Jane Hill and Huw Edwards together - and to my knowledge one of the few time’s Huw has actually been introduced in a bulletin, rather than “Today at .. or Tonight at”

That N8 set looks huge though then they rotated it and it looked cramped. Does anyone know why they rotated it?

The South Today presenter is Pauline Brandt

Are we just not mentioning that - WTF were they thinking?