Blue Peter

I have to say I love the new music and graphics package. I only wish there were some presenter credits, along the lines of "With..." as in pre-1999.

Althought we've not heard if properly, if you listen carefully I think they have retained a bespoke closing theme music. It certainly sounds different to the opening.

Oh dear. At least Mark Curry knew he was corny lol

I think the new graphics and studio etc are good. I think the reason they didn't put the presenters in the graphics is because if one of the leaves, or a new one joins then they don't have to edit them at all. I like the 'On Today's show . . .' voiceover and clips in the titles which have been left out for a few years now. The Blue Peter website is an vast improvement on the last one and good to see that they are using the logo more effectively now.

I was just wondering if the show goes out live, as live?

I'm looking forward to tonight's show (4.35pm, BBC One) to see how the new presenters are doing on their 3rd show on the second week!

Traditionally BP was always live if it was in the studio.

However more recently some shows have been live and some pre-recorded (not sure if the recorded stuff is as-live or edited) to allow fewer studio days (and thus save money)

I just had a look at the Blue Peter website and it on Andy's page his status says 'Andy's in South Africa'. That could be some clue that the show may be recorded. It's obvious that he is there filming some items for the show.

I think it's filmed 'as live' as it looks like it is.

I would imagine now there are just the two shows a week they probably do the Tuesday one "live" and then film the Wednesday show afterwards to air the next day.

I wonder if they'll stick with three presenters in the studio now - two didn't work last year IMO.

I can't get used to Blue Peter having a title sequence at all.

In my day the graphics stretched to

BLUE
PETER

on the lower left side of the screen. But I suppose I haven't been in the target audience for the best part of quarter of a century...

Just to let you all know that the website has gone 3D . . .

www.bbc.co.uk/bluepeter

There is a Blue Peter Quiz on BBCi now. It's on Freeview via the red button on BBC1 and The CBBC Channel.

Not sure about Sky/Virgin etc. Can someone check?

A bloody tough quiz though - not one you can bluff your way through. Plenty of chances to catch the reworked theme though.


And a good show tonight too with the two newbies having a bit of a fall out.

Richard Marson's new book on the history of BP (which is absolutely brilliant) gives away a few snippets about the recording schedule. In the late sixties more or less every episode was pre-recorded, including of course the Lulu episode.

More recently, in the late nineties they used to film the Wednesday show straight after the Monday one, and when Steve Hocking arrived he changed the schedule because everyone hated doing that. Then when it went five days a week on the CBBC Channel in 2004, they had an exhaustive schedule with the Monday show live on BBC1, the Tuesday show live on CBBC and repeated the next day on BBC1 and the Thursday CBBC show recorded on Monday morning (the other shows weren't studio-based).

Oh, also, neither of this week's shows were live, they were specials from the expedition.

It is a brilliant book isn't it? I'm surprised he's got away with a lot of what's in there - although it isn't a BBC book it may as well be to the average customer, with the BP logo (the one that's just been dropped but still on the annual this year), BBC logo etc with just "a personal view" to cover the fact it's not an official history.

The presenter pages are really honest about their failings - the Romana one makes especially good reading!