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+--- Thread: BBC Sixty Minutes (/showthread.php?tid=1028)
BBC Sixty Minutes - JK1985 - 18-03-2022
BBC News and Current Affairs were originally two different operations within the BBC. BBC News was based at BBC Television Centre and BBC Current Affairs based at BBC Lime Grove. This caused problems, as both were very different in how they wanted their programming to operate.
It would not be until 1988 before they merged together and formed BBC News & Current Affairs, with their new HQ based at BBC Television Centre, which is why BBC Breakfast Time moved out of BBC Lime Grove in 1988 and settled into Studio TC2 at BBC Television Centre.
Sixty Minutes in London and the South East was terrible. Since Nationwide started, the regional news for London/SE was always presented by the Nationwide team, as this region had no dedicated regional news service until 1984. In 1982, they tried to make it look slightly better by launching "South East at Six", but it was still presented from the Nationwide studio.
When Sixty Minutes launched, any notion of a proper regional news programme for London/SE went out the window, the main presenters simply continued on whilst the rest of the country got their own proper regional news programming, whereas London/SE viewers were treated to "SOUTH EAST" as the title for their regional news, hosted by the likes of Nick Ross from the main Sixty Minutes set.
Only when Sixty Minutes was axed in 1984, and with the launch of the Six O'Clock News did London get their very first properly dedicated regional news show "London Plus".
BBC Sixty Minutes - Newsdog - 18-03-2022
The scheduling of the local news was very strange. ‘Points west will be at roughly 8 minutes to 6’.
Does anyone know how Sixty minutes did the national weather? On the clip I saw from the first edition they talk about a presenting the weather on a new way?
BBC Sixty Minutes - Markymark - 18-03-2022
Newsdog post_id=73933 time= user_id=1461 Wrote:The scheduling of the local news was very strange. ‘Points west will be at roughly 8 minutes to 6’.
It was kind of like that with Nationwide too. The regional news got going after the Nationwide opening titles and preamble
Newsdog post_id=73933 time= user_id=1461 Wrote:Does anyone know how Sixty minutes did the national weather? On the clip I saw from the first edition they talk about a presenting the weather on a new way?
I don't think anybody (myself included) had the stamina to watch to programme to very end to find out !
BBC Sixty Minutes - Steve Williams - 18-03-2022
JK1985 post_id=73928 time= user_id=1347 Wrote:BBC News and Current Affairs were originally two different operations within the BBC. BBC News was based at BBC Television Centre and BBC Current Affairs based at BBC Lime Grove. This caused problems, as both were very different in how they wanted their programming to operate.
Easy to forget these days when it's all very much about One BBC that in the past there were distinct departments of the Beeb, physically separate as you suggest and often competing for stories and resources. There was benefits to this approach, presumably it sharpened everyone up to have this competition, and it allowed for a wider range of voices and perspectives, but there was endless duplication and it didn't always lead to the most coherent offering on air. Jenny Abramsky, who ran BBC radio news in the nineties, used the example of when The World At One started by saying that a postal strike was continuing, and then linked into a news bulletin which completely contradicted that and said it was off, because news had it as an exclusive and didn't want to tell current affairs as they were rivals.
Even after news and current affairs merged, there was still the events department which in the nineties was responsible for coverage of things like the 50th anniversary of D-Day and VE Day, and the Hong Kong Handover. I remember reading in Private Eye that the Head of Events didn't like any of the news presenters and demanded to choose his own to present the coverage, with John Tusa as anchor, even though a year before he'd made a high-profile departure from BBC News and got in the papers for really slagging off John Birt. But of course all the news people had to be there too, to cover it for the news programmes, so again there was pointless duplication.
Steve Williams post_id=73730 time= user_id=1326 Wrote:I think she went back to Black on Black after Sixty Minutes, and in the 1985 Virgin Television Yearbook, which I mentioned in another thread, she contributes an article reviewing the year's children's programmes, and the "about the authors" bit in the book says she was now a freelance broadcaster and was also working in education, so seemingly she decided to move into that area full-time.
I've now gone and actually got the book out, rather than try to remember its contents, and it says that Anderson presented Black on Black, then after "a brief spell on Sixty Minutes" she returned there, but she was now a full-time lecturer at what was then Oxford Polytechnic and is now Oxford Brookes University.
BBC Sixty Minutes - Steve Williams - 18-03-2022
Newsdog post_id=73933 time= user_id=1461 Wrote:The scheduling of the local news was very strange. ‘Points west will be at roughly 8 minutes to 6’.
Does anyone know how Sixty minutes did the national weather? On the clip I saw from the first edition they talk about a presenting the weather on a new way?
Yes, in the Radio Times the regional news was billed as being at 5.53 - https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/service_bbc_one_london/1983-10-25#at-17.40
I mean, if anything illustrates what was wrong with Sixty Minutes it's the fact they were prepared to promote something as being on at 5.53, what a ridiculously unmemorable time to actually refer to on air and in print. But again that's an example of the endless compromises they had to make with three different departments, all considering themselves the most important, so rather than just saying the regional news was within Sixty Minutes, they had to be specifically billed, even when it was at the least memorable time imaginable.
As for the weather, a clip of that from the first programme has just appeared...
https://youtu.be/wNGuwiKfEF4
Like Breakfast Time, this was one of the first examples of electronic graphics, but unlke Breakfast Time, there wasn't a weather presenter but one of the presenters having to gingerly read it out. Nobody liked this and so in the revamp in January they brought back the proper weather presenters, and it was also moved to follow the national news rather than awkwardly squished it at 6.15, which also allowed the regional news to start at the slightly more memorable time of 5.55.
I mean, 5.53! What kind of a time is that to promote anywhere?!
BBC Sixty Minutes - Markymark - 18-03-2022
Steve Williams post_id=73937 time= user_id=1326 Wrote:Easy to forget these days when it's all very much about One BBC that in the past there were distinct departments of the Beeb, physically separate as you suggest and often competing for stories and resources.
Yes. Didn't Live Aid suffer from a similar mentality between the Events and the Music depts of the BBC ? I've heard stories of the two bidding against each other to produce the coverage ?
BBC Sixty Minutes - Steve Williams - 18-03-2022
Markymark post_id=73941 time= user_id=1078 Wrote:Yes. Didn't Live Aid suffer from a similar mentality between the Events and the Music depts of the BBC ? I've heard stories of the two bidding against each other to produce the coverage ?
Well, I do know that Bob Geldof initially approached Tyne Tees to cover Live Aid, what with his links to The Tube through Paula Yates, but they took one look at his plans and told him he would be better off going to the Beeb.
Live Aid was produced by Whistle Test, although David Hepworth said it was the biggest thing they'd done by miles and it was akin to asking Radio Cambridgeshire to produce the General Election for the network. But Whistle Test and Top of the Pops were produced by two different departments for most of their existence, Top of the Pops was always produced by light entertainment and Whistle Test had come on air through the presentation department as it had spun off from Late Night Line-Up. Presentation Programmes was a bit of an odd department which made a bit of everything, although when I interviewed Bernard Newnham who worked there for many years a while back, he said the Beeb were not that bothered about that as long as it was making decent programmes and they treated it a bit like an in-house indie producer.
Even in the era we're seeing now on BBC4 Pops was still a light entertainment production while Later with Jools Holland, which started in 1992, came from the Arts department. They weren't all brought together until 1997 when the Music Entertainment department was set up, looking after all pop music coverage on TV and radio.
BBC Sixty Minutes - Markymark - 18-03-2022
Steve Williams post_id=73946 time= user_id=1326 Wrote:Markymark post_id=73941 time= user_id=1078 Wrote:Yes. Didn't Live Aid suffer from a similar mentality between the Events and the Music depts of the BBC ? I've heard stories of the two bidding against each other to produce the coverage ?
Well, I do know that Bob Geldof initially approached Tyne Tees to cover Live Aid, what with his links to The Tube through Paula Yates, but they took one look at his plans and told him he would be better off going to the Beeb.
Yes, I saw that story too. Apparently Tyne Tees said they had no route to offer a stereo radio simulcast, so that was the last nail in the coffin. I remember reading a letter in Broadcast, where the director of the AIRC (Association of Independent Radio Contractors) said (paraphrasing) 'Hang On, no one spoke to us !'
I doubt whether the then ILR companies would have been able to give over 18 hours of airtime, but Capital and the other big ticket ILRs might have tried to co ordinate something. The ILR network at that time had no national quality stereo distribution network anyway (as those of us of a certain age, and distance from London will testify with the Network Chart Show)
Maybe not a total co incidence that in 1987 Tyne Tees produced a Queen Concert from Wembley for C4, and the entire ILR network provided the simulcast stereo sound via a very technically imaginative satellite distribution rig
BBC Sixty Minutes - Inspector Sands - 18-03-2022
JK1985 post_id=73928 time= user_id=1347 Wrote:Only when Sixty Minutes was axed in 1984, and with the launch of the Six O'Clock News did London get their very first properly dedicated regional news show "London Plus".London Plus was from Lime Grove so presumably a lot of production team and crew were ex-Nationwide and Sixty Minutes,
Between the end of Sixty Minutes and the start of London Plus the South East got South Today which covered London & South East news too. I think the same thing happened before Sixty Minutes launched too
BBC Sixty Minutes - London Lite - 18-03-2022
Inspector Sands post_id=73982 time= user_id=1003 Wrote:JK1985 post_id=73928 time= user_id=1347 Wrote:Only when Sixty Minutes was axed in 1984, and with the launch of the Six O'Clock News did London get their very first properly dedicated regional news show "London Plus".London Plus was from Lime Grove so presumably a lot of production team and crew were ex-Nationwide and Sixty Minutes,
Was that also produced by Current Affairs as I don't think BBC South East as it was didn't have an established team until Newsroom South East launched from Elstree?
BBC Sixty Minutes - JK1985 - 18-03-2022
I was told that London Plus was a dedicated team for the region, just based at Lime Grove until Newsroom South East launched in 1989, when they moved to BBC Elstree.
BBC Sixty Minutes - Richard - 19-03-2022
Newsdog post_id=73933 time= user_id=1461 Wrote:The scheduling of the local news was very strange. ‘Points west will be at roughly 8 minutes to 6’.Yes, probably giving rise to BBC NI’s Scene Around Six
BBC Sixty Minutes - Richard - 19-03-2022
JK1985 post_id=74017 time= user_id=1347 Wrote:I was told that London Plus was a dedicated team for the region, just based at Lime Grove until Newsroom South East launched in 1989, when they moved to BBC Elstree.
But wasn’t NSE a completely separate team from London plus?
BBC Sixty Minutes - Markymark - 19-03-2022
Inspector Sands post_id=73982 time= user_id=1003 Wrote:JK1985 post_id=73928 time= user_id=1347 Wrote:Only when Sixty Minutes was axed in 1984, and with the launch of the Six O'Clock News did London get their very first properly dedicated regional news show "London Plus".London Plus was from Lime Grove so presumably a lot of production team and crew were ex-Nationwide and Sixty Minutes,
Between the end of Sixty Minutes and the start of London Plus the South East got South Today which covered London & South East news too. I think the same thing happened before Sixty Minutes launched too
They also bused down to Southampton presenter Fran Morriston, to be co presenter (with Bruce Parker) of what was a totally weird and underesoursed programme. Coupled with the facilities at Southampton that were held together by wet string, goodness knows what Londoners made of it!
BBC Sixty Minutes - Inspector Sands - 19-03-2022
Markymark post_id=74058 time= user_id=1078 Wrote:They also bused down to Southampton presenter Fran Morriston, to be co presenter (with Bruce Parker) of what was a totally weird and underesoursed programme. Coupled with the facilities at Southampton that were held together by wet string, goodness knows what Londoners made of it!Thing is that it was summer and an Olympic year which helped them get away with it. That was also the reason why there was such a big gap between Sixty Minutes and its replacement.
All the clips I've seen of the South East bits of Nationwide and Sixty Minutes they barely had any regional news in them anyway, they seemed to do a lot of city/business news. I suspect anyone wanting regional news would have been watching the other side