June has now come and gone; a firm launch date still hasn't been announced but is now reportedly set to be sometime in September. Here are a few new details from various media sources:
* N1's main evening newscast will be produced separately for each country. In other words, viewers in Croatia will get the version produced in Zagreb, viewers in Serbia will get the Belgrade version, and viewers in Bosnia will get the version from Sarajevo. N1's management feels that this localization is going to be one of their key advantages over AJB, which isn't localized at all, and has been criticized for being irrelevant to many viewers.
* The morning news will apparently also be country-specific.
* The rest of the day will consist of both joint programming and country-specific programming.
* A flagship show titled
Pressing
will air at 8 P.M. and will be produced by all three regional production centers on an alternating basis (but always with input from the other two).
* N1 will have three different, country-specific websites.
With N1's launch just weeks away (but still no firm date), here's a cap of the titles for
Pressing
, the flagship talk and analysis program (I wonder how the BBC will feel about the term "Hardtalk"):
This is the 7 p.m. edition of the main news --
Dnevnik
-- as seen on the Serbian version of the channel:
(BTW, thanks to YT user Maki Balkan for the clips.)
Bosnia and Croatia get their own versions of
Dnevnik
, but the intros, sets, and graphics are identical.
And since we had discussed the issue of language on the previous page, here's an example of the minor differences between the Serbian, Bosnian, and Croatian forms of what was once called Serbo-Croatian as seen during country-specific programming:
And here's the intro to N1's culture/showbiz magazine:
Last edited by WW Update on 31 October 2014 5:26am
Here are some comments on the channel from a Serbian television forum (rtvforum.net), with my translations:
Quote:
The technology is superb, but the people who run it apparently don't have a handle on it. The difference in sound levels between the reports, the studio, and the commercials is about 9 decibels. The camera during the 7 p.m. news was focused on Maja's hands, and so on.
These technical glitches will be resolved soon, I'm sure.
A more serious problem is this hodgepodge of local [country-specific] and regional [covering all three countries] topics. If they wanted to attract a large audience, they needed to create three different versions. Of course, we in Serbia are interested in news items about Bosnia and Croatia, but to a completely different extent than in our own news.
Quote:
The evening newscasts are completely localized, and as far is the Serbian version is concerned, I think they're excellent. From what I've seen of the morning show, it looks OK. Minja anchored the second hour and they had live crosses to the other production centers, which doesn't bother me if it's done later on.
Quote:
On the whole, such a project would have been perfectly OK if Yugoslavia still existed, but we're now three completely different countries, with different languages, cultures and, naturally, different interests. If they don't fix this catastrophic decision, this channel won't have viewers in any of the three countries, and it won't have a choice other than to shut down. I had honestly hoped that their approach would be a lot more serious than this.
Quote:
I don't understand why we in Serbia get to watch these Croatian newscasts every 15 minutes, with a Croatian anchor and all Croatian stories that don't concern us at all.
Quote:
According to their website, N1 Info, which airs at 2 p.m., 3 p.m., 3:30 p.m., 4 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 7 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. should be produced separately for each country. The site even list the anchors for each country; I don't know why the Croatian edition is being aired in Serbia and Bosnia.
"Dnevnik" at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. is also country-specific (that's how it was yesterday), as is "New Day" between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m., but the rest of the programming is common.
And here are posts from a Croatian forum (forum.hr), again with my translations:
Quote:
The sound on "Dnevnik" is a catastrophe. The volume isn't adjusted at all and it sounds "mono." Šprajc is too quiet in the studio, and then the reports vary a great deal -- some are louder, others quieter. In other words, I had to work my remote throughout. I haven't done this in about ten years, even with local channels.
[...]
As far as the reports themselves are concerned -- they're OK, but nothing spectacular. They're a bit stodgy.
Quote:
I watched today's news at five or thereabouts. The anchor was in Serbia, and of course, the first two items were about Serbia, the third was about Bosnia, and the fourth was that today is a holiday in Croatia. Realistically speaking, no-one who wants to get informed will watch the news on N1.
Quote:
As far as N1 is concerned, I liked everything. I didn't manage to watch much of it, but what I what I was able to catch looked perfectly OK. The weather forecast is great. For now, it's super.
Quote:
Excellent. I watched Dnevnik and Pressing. I'd have to wait a few weeks before I'd be able to give it a final grade. I liked the fact that we in Croatia could, for the first time, see the different positions held by the presidents of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Quote:
I watched it... I'm not thrilled... The concept is similar to AJB's, and that doesn't interest me...
Quote:
I also don't like the amount of "regional content." I have nothing against Serbia and Bosnia, but news stories from there interest me as much as news stories from Cameroon and Libya. It would be OK if something important happened there, but having news from Belgrade in the first minute is just "WTF" for most viewers here. [...] We're dealing with two different "universes" that are difficult to bring together. AJB with its ratings is proof positive of that.
Last edited by WW Update on 2 November 2014 6:06am - 8 times in total
:-(
A former member
I think the channel is a waste of money. I don't think it's going to get a fantastic amount of viewers. But hood of CNN to try.
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