BBC News: April 2022 onwards

[DTV]

Given the recent change to Studio B, the imminent changes in the Nations - and eventually Regions - as alluded to by Clean Feed. Could this be a 'proper' reason why any revamping or rebranding is being waited on until next year? To kind of make sure all concerned are singing from the same design or technical hymn sheet - to use the certain vernacular.

Just that given from what has been alluded to is the Nations getting upgrades this year and the Regions in a phased approach probably next year. I may be spitballing here but does this seem a decent way of looking at why the new look won't be introduced until everything is in place. Certainly if one is looking at it from a BBC One perspective.

I doubt it because the regions will likely have their sets updated over a period of months, if not years - it's not something that usually is done in all regions at once.   Therefore there will never be a set date where everything is ready - and if your waiting two years for the last regional set to be done to rebrand the national news that is very much a waste of time.

Fundamentally, of course, there is no particular barrier to having all regions introduce new sets at once. If you're doing it anyway, it doesn't actually cost more to do it all at the same time and what one region is doing doesn't affect what another one is doing. It would, though, be a massive logistical nightmare - if, for instance, one of the sixteen regions falls behind schedule, do you delay the launch in all regions or just that one? Plus the work will vary hugely between regions - some sets will be larger and some studios will use the opportunity for technical upgrades. Plus you have to create satisfactory temporary set-ups for all the regions.

The closest the BBC has ever come to doing an all in one day set change were the September 2002 set refreshes - when all the English regions (bar London and South East) had their 1999/2000 sets repainted, refurbed, etc. to coincide with the new red and gold titles. The 1999/2000 rollout itself is the only time the BBC has actually installed new sets of a similar style in every region - that rollout took eight months from the first sets (nations, SE) to the last two (East Mids, Look East).

Since then, it's been more ad hoc and less consistent. A few regions got 2003-style 'light-up' desks, but only really Wales ever got a full 2003-style set. The Barco-style rollout took quite a while. Just talking about the 'true', standarised Barco-style sets, the first was Humberside (March 2009) and the last was Oxford (April 2014 (though Yorkshire's 2018 set arguably counts)). Even then there are five regions that never got one. Then you have the NBH-style rollout that never really got anywhere. Other than the nations and London, only the two Midlands regions, the South East and South West ever got sets that could qualify as NBH-style and only Spotlight's was a full, proper job.

Given both the past and the general state of the Reith rollout, I would be amazed if they did install new sets for every region on the same day.