UTV have stated on Twitter are running a News Special at 12.30 in place of "Loose Women".
I suppose, given that it was a morning flight from Belfast City, the vast majority of the passengers would have been business commuters from the North.
The TV3 News update during the Midday show was extended until the first add break as opposed to its usual 2 minute update. The Program returned with Elaine Crowley the Midday presenter with guests visible in the studio who were not included and had left the show by the next add break. The TV3 News ticker was used, but the astons were in the pink Midday theme. When the show returned after the next add break Elaine Crowley had moved over to the TV3 News desk and presented a tv3 news special with Geraldine Lynagh which used the correct graphics and astons. The special contunited until 14:10. The bubbles ident was played reminding us that we had just seen some great animals and the great chat would continue with Ellen. I would imagine those who don't realise that tv3 continuity annoucments are pre-recoreded would think that its not sensitive to say great chat will continue after a somber news special where people had lost there lives. Its not unusual to see Emmerdale at Primetime to have a clean ident playout beforehand, surely the ident could have gone out clean, if there was no one available to record an announcement.
The schedules for next Saturday's election coverage are out:
RTÉ One: Election 2011 with Miriam O'Callaghan, Pat Kenny, Richard Crowley, and Brian Dobson.
11:00-13:00, 14:00-18:00, 18:35-21:00, and 21:35-02:35. The late afternoon and early evening are where the declarations start coming thick and fast! Incidently this is the first election I can remember in about twenty years where Pat Kenny has formed part of the results team and the first I think without either Brian Farrell or John Bowman.
TV3: Vincent Browne's Election Count
15:00 - 17:00, 23:00-01:00
It was noted in one of the newspapers last week, that next Friday's late late is to be
recorded on account of Studio 4 be occupied as the main election studio. Be interesting
to see what type of setup they will use. Prob be 3 circular desks with a stand-up area with large plasma screen
in the middle like the last two election studios.
TG4 studio for the elections as shown during the leaders debate is a non-fussy,
classy enough looking set, one they should carry over for theirdaily evening news compared to
the current CSO background studio.
Disappointing that TV3 isn't doing more coverage - Presumably the show won't have a news gathering function, but rather an analysis style reflecting on the results that they get off RTE.
Yes it will be great to have Pat Kenny behind a desk as part of a team after all these years. What a novelty! It's where he's at his best.
Studio 4 can look superb during election coverage. With an established good quality election set formula and associated hardware, I doubt much money will be spent on anything new given the swinging cuts sweeping across RTÉ at the minute. The only thing that tends to let the election presentation down is distinctly dubious jib operation, which is often jittery when creeping across the floor and lacking in fluid timing before and after ad breaks. Hopefully this year a greater effort will be made.
An interesting related piece in yesterday's Irish Times. Here's hoping it doesn't affect production values.
WIRELESS BROADBAND provider Airspeed Telecom will be enabling video coverage of Election 2011 for RTÉ News live from the main political party press rooms and count centre locations throughout the country with its LiveLinx technology.
With coverage from more than 40 count centres on the day RTÉ will be using LiveLinx in eight of these locations and there is presently a permanent link installed in the Fianna Fáil press room, used for press party conferences.
LiveLinx, a joint venture company between Airspeed and Digital Space, is a high-speed IP video service with fixed camera units that allows for multiple live feeds straight to the newsroom without the need for a camera or technical crew present.
“Internationally the broadcast community has been slow to adopt IP as a technology,” said Liam O’Kelly, managing director of Airspeed. “Satellite will always have its place but new encoding technologies mean that IP video is more reliable and not as bandwidth intensive as it once was.”
It is very straightforward: the customer has a camera set up in a fixed position on premises, which is hooked up to Airspeed’s high-capacity licensed wireless link. The interviewee stands on a fixed spot in front of the camera and live footage is encoded in industry standard MPEG-4 and transmitted to its destination, for instance the RTÉ newsroom.
Airspeed’s first foray with the LiveLinx service was with stockbroking firms NCB, Davy and Merrion. This installations fed directly into the newsroom:
“Economic and financial stories are amongst the top three in every news bulletin and it costs money sending out a camera crew, presenter and satellite truck each time an expert analysis is required,” said O’Kelly.
While Airspeed has already delivered signals to the UK using LiveLinx, O’Kelly says there is further interest from media companies including Bloomberg, Sky and CNBC.
“As time goes on it looks as though UK media organisations will avail of this kind of service to broadcast content from Ireland back to their newsrooms.”
BBC Northern Ireland providing rather brief (some may even say pointless) coverage of the election on Saturday . . . a 15 minute Newsline Special on Saturday at 5.45pm on BBC Two, and then a 20 minute bulletin on Sunday at 5.35pm also on BBC Two.
Kudos for their effort to at least cover the election, but I would have thought a more substantial programme of analysis and reaction, perhaps post-Ten O'Clock News on Sunday evening, would be more appropriate. Or even an extended Politics Show opt-out.
Incidentally BBC Radio Ulster have a two-hour election results broadcast from 2.05pm on Saturday.
BBC Northern Ireland providing rather brief (some may even say pointless) coverage of the election on Saturday . . . a 15 minute Newsline Special on Saturday at 5.45pm on BBC Two, and then a 20 minute bulletin on Sunday at 5.35pm also on BBC Two.
Kudos for their effort to at least cover the election, but I would have thought a more substantial programme of analysis and reaction, perhaps post-Ten O'Clock News on Sunday evening, would be more appropriate. Or even an extended Politics Show opt-out.
Incidentally BBC Radio Ulster have a two-hour election results broadcast from 2.05pm on Saturday.
Have BBC NI or UTV ever given special coverage for the South's general election?
Typical shoddy production values on the final Leader's Debate tonight.
Within minutes of going on air, Miriam's double mic pack had to be replaced with an additional lapel mic off camera.
Miriam's earpiece is audible the whole way through the production.
Camera exposures are erratic and unmatched between shots.
Appallingly shoddy camera movement.
Bad lighting of desk.
Poor desk design, with Eamon Gilmore straddled between Miriam and the other guests, with resulting poor shot opportunities and muffled lapel mic audio.
All basic principles a broadcasting student would avoid like the Plague. For a regular production it's bad enough - for a flagship election programme it's simply shocking.
The few positives include a handsome desk surface and snappy vision mixing.