Launch BBC News: Studio B

[James Vertigan]

All of those regions and not one wave from any of them! It's very Eurovision, that.

“It’s time for Small Talk… with your host Huw Edwards!”

[all new Phil]

Technically it looks great. Some of the execution feels a little off - the lighting feels too bright and the newsroom background doesn’t look quite right - but I’m sure we’ll see some tweaks. I’ll echo the comments that it’s a shame to see old branding when we know something new is around the corner - back in 98/99 (whenever it was we first went beige) we only initially saw the new branding on the network bulletins before it rolled out to regions, News 24 etc and it feels like that’s how it should be done this time round.

More interesting I think is the pivot towards ‘explainers’ - I predicted this might happen given the success of Ros Atkins’ videos and I think they’ve pretty much built the set around this premise.

Disagree with the comments about this making ITV News look dated. I don’t think that’s the case at all, if anything BBC News has come up to ITV’s standard of presentation but I don’t think they’ve necessarily exceeded it.

[Josh]

[AxG]

All of those regions and not one wave from any of them! It's very Eurovision, that.

“It’s time for Small Talk… with your host Huw Edwards!”

"And the 12 points from BBC South East go to our neighbours BBC London, congratulations!"

[Inspector Sands]

I quite like the screen with all the nations and regions on at the end, but couldn't help that think once they axe Look East Cambridge and South Today Oxford later this year they're not going to have a number of regions that fits neatly on the screen!

Possibly just lose London and make it one column narrower. 

The question is what happens when one region isn't doing a bulletin for whatever reason, when there's a technical issue or staffing shortage like recently when they've combined two regions

[all new Phil]

As expected, the spiral staircase wasn't used at all?  I thought Huw was going to depart by ascending with his coat over his shoulder.  Are studio correspondents joining Huw at the desk going to make their entrance via the staircase?

Space for a house band too I reckon.

[Andrew]

Wonder how exposed some of those regional presenters feel making it into the nationals!

Don't tell me that how they'll do it every night? It's a nice thing for an anniversary of something, but it's just too gimmicky to be a regular thing.

North West Tonight need to change their camera angle, as you could barely see their presenter (which I’m sure was Roger which is ironic considering he’s a national face anyway)

[Juicy Joe]

My observations

- It's a bit too clinical, they've managed to make a real studio look fake

- It needs another colour - probably some blue

- Not keen on the main desk shot very washed out - perhaps a behind the shoulder graphic would work there

- Huw doing the news like he's presenting a Powerpoint - please ditch this

- I prefer to not see the cameras it makes it look ugly, maybe we don't need to see him walking from the desk to the catwalk

- Catwalk screen seems positioned quite low

- The balcony area looks kind of bleak, like a grey bunker, maybe do something up there

The rest is fab-u-lous

From what you've observed, there's not much else left to describe as fab-u-lous. 

[thomalex]

My observations

- It's a bit too clinical, they've managed to make a real studio look fake

- It needs another colour - probably some blue

- Not keen on the main desk shot very washed out - perhaps a behind the shoulder graphic would work there

- Huw doing the news like he's presenting a Powerpoint - please ditch this

- I prefer to not see the cameras it makes it look ugly, maybe we don't need to see him walking from the desk to the catwalk

- Catwalk screen seems positioned quite low

- The balcony area looks kind of bleak, like a grey bunker, maybe do something up there

The rest is fab-u-lous

I agree with all of this. The new set is great, but it's not perfect. Apart from jacking up the curved screen a bit everything can be tweaked and some adjustments to lighting especially brightening the balcony area and dimming some of the presentation areas are needed. Hopefully the new branding when it finally comes about will introduce something a bit more dynamic than bright white for the various screens as well.

[DTV]

My overall review of the new set.

Things I like

• An overall impressive, cohesive design with excellent use of space - managing to include multiple presentation areas without becoming too cluttered.
  
• Good balance of using multiple textures/materials – not going down the route that some US sets do of attempting to have copious amounts of every material known to man in a way that just leads to a mess.
  
• Easy to see how the set can be used for different programmes such as elections. The decision to return to a horseshoe desk is a smart choice given these intentions.
  
• The graphics are nice and clean, with some smooth animations – although this is largely in a style we’ve already seen.
  

Niggles/Room for Improvement

• Could do with more colour, such as some blue ‘time of day’ highlights. Some parts of the set are a bit too white which just looks sterile.
  
• The ‘walls’ in the balcony level do look a bit flat.
  
• The joins on the grill-lightbox between 'floors' are a bit too frequent and obvious.
  
• Touchscreens are not at all necessary and the idea they are ‘modern’ was already out of date when they moved into NBH a decade ago.
  
• I understand what they are trying to achieve with the new presentation techniques, but they need to be a bit smoother. A bit too much umming and turning the presenter’s back on the audience.
  
• Not sure about the main section backdrops – we could do with a bit more newsroom and the side interview backdrop has strong ‘Studio A’ vibes to its half-hearted and unconvincing attempt at mimicking a real set of monitors.
  

Things I really don’t like

• Those cameras – please keep them out of shot!
  
• The Reith numerals in the titles don’t work. As I’ve said before, Reith could really have done with a display, titling font – the new numerals just look a bit cheap and undisciplined.
  
• The main desk section in particular suffers from the same problem as the Wales Today set – the backdrop is too bright relative to the studio lighting. This has the unfortunate effect of drawing your eyes away from the presenter which is something a good backdrop should never do.
  

Overall, a seven/eight out of ten and probably my third favourite network BBC News set of all time. Hope that if this design is rolled out everywhere it is a full 1999-style rollout, not the half complete attempt we had with the Barco sets or the barely begun rollout of the NBH-style sets.

[Worzel]

Huw walking over to the newswall there is proper TVF/TV live red meat.
I do wonder if like with most relaunches that sort of thing gets quietly shelved after a few months a la Sky News 2005 with presenters walking down stairs and running around the studio during the TOTH

It better not!

[IanJRedman]

Will weekend bulletins use this new set too, since they technically aren't - officially - the Six and Ten?

[CATV]

I would not have bothered with the second floor. Just had the main wall a little higher. Also I would have paid the extra for the rig to have the cameras from the ceiling.

[Worzel]

Regional opts

And that highlights just the mess and mishmash all the regional news sets look like at the moment!

[PATV Scunthorpe]

Was a bit confused reading a few of the posts saying about the regions having to rejig their running orders because the national weather has moved into the Ten.

The late Look North from Hull ends normally with Peter saying goodbye after the local weather so I never knew it was any different elsewhere.