Newsroom South East split

I'm afraid it just the TV transmission system!

Crystal Palace reaches into parts of Essex.

Transmitters can be calibrated so that they radiate only in certain directions but this doesn't make much difference.

I can receive from Crystal Palace which is 96 miles from where I am! Its the just the way the UHF signal works!

TV transmitters are stupid. Here in sunny Southend, we are supposed to get BBC East and Anglia. But the Crystal Palace transmitter is by far the strongest, so we end up with BBC South East/London and Carlton/LWT. But the broadcasters don't seem to know that, and we are always left out.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/newsroomsoutheast/oxford.shtml

The Newsroom South East website explains that 'Kent is also to get its own news programme, when Newsroom South East relaunches as London Live next year.' Relaunches as 'London Live'. Surely that'll be the title? Mind you, that was last year when they wrote it!

Cheers, Asa

I thoguht it was confirmed that it would be called London Live, so it will intergrate nicely.

Hopefully the news will be better when the split happens, I live to the north of London, and while it's better than London Tonight, it's not great.

The rumour I hear is that South East Today will look all new, with new titles. (I think I have already seen the studio rehearsals when a line from Tunbridge Wells was available on the internal news centre 'ring main' at TVC... )

Tunbridge Wells has, perhaps, the easier task, as it is an entirely new centre, whereas BBC London seems to be a transfer of staff from Elstree... This must make piloting, and moving to new ways of working very difficult. I may be wrong about this.

I also hear rumours that the Marylebone High Street studio - the new home for BBC London TV - will initially replicate the existing Newsroom South East 'look' by using CSO techniques...

So it may be that the London launch is a bit softer. Firstly launching the new location and gallery working style, and then relaunching the programme and 'look' a little later. I hear rumours that the current studio plan is quite different to the Lambie Nairn 'window on the world' used in all the other regions. Maybe that is causing the delay...

Very intriguing... Does this mean it will end up like UK Today with only one camera shot and no wide views? And will it be in 16:9?  And will they bother to update the titles?  I doubt the last one, somehow.

(Edited by RW at 3:18 pm on June 26, 2001)

Hmm... Well Marylebone High Street is supposed to be 16:9 (and Tunbridge Wells is working in 16:9 - UK Today are already running TW packages cut for South Today and Newsroom SouthEast in 16:9...)

However 16:9 kit is generally operable in 4:3 mode at the flick of a switch, so they could stay 4:3 for a while.

They could also convert their titles to 16:9 via 14:9 (as they currently are broadcast on DTT), but run the studio cameras in 16:9....

I would imagine that they will have a number of static studio backing shots stored on still-store, and will DVE & CSO in the London River shot in the same way as Southampton and Plymouth do (They don't have a projector in their sets either) Newsroom SouthEast Breakfast is done like this currently - the entire backing is CSOed from the Elstree DTL studio. They have made their lives easier by going down to single-headed presentation, as this will reduce the number of shots required!

(SE Today from TW is also single headed...)

The vision mixer being installed at Marylebone, Tunbridge Wells (and also ordered for the Leeds re-fit) is a very modern and sophisticated device so should easily be up to the job of doing this.

Who will be presenting London Live when it starts - and what do you mean by the 'Leeds re-fit' - are we going to be getting a new studio in Look North?

According to someone I emailed, the new London Live will be in 16x9.

I think they will definitely have new titles, perhaps the reason they didn't change them when Oxford went to opt-out of South Today, was because they are holding out for these new ones.

I think that all the regions are now 16x9 but most simply use a cropped 4x3 image. And I'd imagine the titles will be BBC Corporate England style but with a different map and title at the end.

Yes, all regions have been 16:9 since October, but as noggin said, London and Tunbridge Wells should be the first to show a genuine 16:9 image and not just 4:3 cropped.

And if the London show is to remain as Newsroom South East at first, I'm not sure that they would bother to re-do the titles to remove Kent, as they didn't went Oxfordshire left the region, especially if the London Live relaunch follows soon after.

Sorry to disappoint but this is definitely not the case.

Currently the only News Nation or Region to properly broadcast in 16:9 is Wales Today from Cardiff. (Discounting UK Today for BBC England that is!)

All of the other regions are running 4:3 studios. These are converted to 14:9 pillarbox on 16:9 digital services (as many News reports are also converted on BBC One/Two) On 4:3 analogue services the studio outputs are masked with black bars so that they appear to be 14:9 letterbox.

I understand that Tunbridge Wells and Marylebone High St are being built to be 16:9 - and have seen 16:9 material from TW.

I would imagine that Leeds and Norwich will be 16:9 when they move to their new homes.

Nottingham would be relatively easy to upgrade also, as it is based around a digital component studio - though I think it's studio cameras would need to be replaced, as I think these are 4:3 only.