BBC News: Nostalgia

[Roger Darthwell]

I've managed to find some BBC World Service TV schedules from 1994 on a Finnish website. Here's an example and I have deducted 2 hours to account for Finnish time: https://www.hs.fi/kotimaa/art-2000003358698.html

18th August 1994:

5.00 BBC World Service News
5.25 Naturewatch
6.00 BBC Business Breakfast
7.00 BBC Breakfast News from London
9.05 Rough guide to the Americas
10.00 BBC News from London and Weather
10.05 Playdays
10.25 Why don't you
10.50 Cricket
12.00 BBC News from London and World Weather
12.05 Summer in the city
12.55 World Weather
13.00 BBC World Service News and World Weather
13.30 One foot in the past
14.00 BBC World Service News and World Weather
14.30 Cricket
16.35 Melvin and Maureen's Music-a-grams
16.50 Get your own back
17.05 Record breakers
17.30 Going for gold
17.55 World Weather
18.00 BBC News from London and World Weather
18.30 Open space
19.00 Here and now
19.30 Eastenders
20.00 Commonwealth games preview
20.30 Crime limited
21.00 The Real McCoy
21.30 Ways of seeing
22.00 BBC World Service News and World Weather
22.30 World Business Report
23.00 BBC World Service News
23.15 Cricket highlights
23.55 World weather
0.00 Commonwealth games opening ceremony
1.50 Worldview
2.00 BBC World Service News
2.25 World Business Report
3.00 BBC World Service News
3.25 Newsnight.
4.00 BBC World Service News
4.25 Top Gear

There are some other schedules from 1994 on the site but that gives you an indicative example.

It really shows how BBC World evolved into a rolling news channel quite slowly. As BBC World Service Television, it started out as a much more varied channel. I think I'm right in saying that it was in January 1995 that the channel was effectively split into two with the news and current affairs programming staying on BBC World and the other types of programmes moving over to the new BBC Prime.

You're a star [mention]itsrobert[/mention] Thank you for everything that you are doing!

[DTV]

It really shows how BBC World evolved into a rolling news channel quite slowly. As BBC World Service Television, it started out as a much more varied channel. I think I'm right in saying that it was in January 1995 that the channel was effectively split into two with the news and current affairs programming staying on BBC World and the other types of programmes moving over to the new BBC Prime.

That's a great find.

I think I'm right in saying that there were really two BBC World Service Television channels - the European channel (above) that was basically a BBC1/2 hybrid with added news and an Asian channel that was more news heavy. BBC Prime (in its early years) stayed with the BBC WSTV Europe model - even including simulcasts with BBC World - until, as Deejay mentioned, becoming more UKTV-ish around 1998.

The evolution of the channel in terms of news is quite interesting. When it was just BBC TV Europe, it simulcasted Breakfast, the daytime summaries, the 3 main news bulletins and Newsnight. After the launch of WSTV, it dropped the Nine in favour of WSTV News at 2000 UKT and launch World Business Report after Newsnight. By early 1993, WSTV News is moved to 2200 - incorporating WBR at half past and a 15-minute bulletin at 2300. Then, clearly, they added more News with the October 1993 relaunch.

[Roger Darthwell]

It really shows how BBC World evolved into a rolling news channel quite slowly. As BBC World Service Television, it started out as a much more varied channel. I think I'm right in saying that it was in January 1995 that the channel was effectively split into two with the news and current affairs programming staying on BBC World and the other types of programmes moving over to the new BBC Prime.

That's a great find.

I think I'm right in saying that there were really two BBC World Service Television channels - the European channel (above) that was basically a BBC1/2 hybrid with added news and an Asian channel that was more news heavy. BBC Prime (in its early years) stayed with the BBC WSTV Europe model - even including simulcasts with BBC World - until, as Deejay mentioned, becoming more UKTV-ish around 1998.

The evolution of the channel in terms of news is quite interesting. When it was just BBC TV Europe, it simulcasted Breakfast, the daytime summaries, the 3 main news bulletins and Newsnight. After the launch of WSTV, it dropped the Nine in favour of WSTV News at 2000 UKT and launch World Business Report after Newsnight. By early 1993, WSTV News is moved to 2200 - incorporating WBR at half past and a 15-minute bulletin at 2300. Then, clearly, they added more News with the October 1993 relaunch.

This BBC TV Europe seemed a lot like a simulcast of BBC One in all but name

[itsrobert]

I would love to find a schedule for the Asian version of WSTV. I wonder if they shared some of the same WSN bulletins with Europe but had extra ones of their own? I'm guessing that the Asian version also had Asia Today as part of its schedule. I'm pretty certain AT, like WBR, existed prior to BBC World.

[DTV]

This BBC TV Europe seemed a lot like a simulcast of BBC One in all but name

It largely was. It generally simulcasted with BBC1 - including taking South East regional news - unless they couldn't for rights reasons.

[Brekkie]

[quote=Newsroom post_id=65656 time= user_id=1342]
Not sure if this has been posted previously but it’s the first time News 24 appeared on BBC 1 featuring a very young Rob Watson (BBC World’s now Political Correspondent) during the throw to BBC World.

[Roger Darthwell]

This BBC TV Europe seemed a lot like a simulcast of BBC One in all but name

It largely was. It generally simulcasted with BBC1 - including taking South East regional news - unless they couldn't for rights reasons.

That's incredible, even though I think that simulcasting South East regional news was just a bit too much

[Newsroom]

[quote=Brekkie post_id=65707 time= user_id=976]
[quote=Newsroom post_id=65656 time= user_id=1342]
Not sure if this has been posted previously but it’s the first time News 24 appeared on BBC 1 featuring a very young Rob Watson (BBC World’s now Political Correspondent) during the throw to BBC World.

[Inspector Sands]

So quite a bit of generic half-hour programming like Top Gear and Holiday shown under the "Time Out" banner.

I have a feeling this was partly done because there were issues with having BBC programme brands sponsored. Although I might be confusing that with UKTV where even today they don't have 'Top Gear sponsored by...' it's always 'Motoring on Dave, sponsored by...'

[DTV]

I would love to find a schedule for the Asian version of WSTV. I wonder if they shared some of the same WSN bulletins with Europe but had extra ones of their own? I'm guessing that the Asian version also had Asia Today as part of its schedule. I'm pretty certain AT, like WBR, existed prior to BBC World.

Asia Today is listed as a short 10-minute programme at about 0330 in the morning in one of the Finnish listings from January 1993, so you are definitely right that it is pre-World.

I imagine that WSTV Asia was quite a lot like the overnight schedules but all day - the gist I get from the descriptions of the two channels is that BBC WSTV Europe was a proto-BBC Prime and BBC WSTV Asia was a proto-BBC World, though this is just an extrapolation of very vague descriptions and limited evidence.

Was the World studio CSO or real? Same question applies to the overnight coverage of BBC World on BBC `One when the Diana story unfolded. Maxine was clearly in the newsroom, Nick Gowing in the same position as that above.

I'm just curious as to what newsroom World was occupying having been there when the 9 and Summaries came from a real newsroom and as to where it was.

BBC World at that point had a small (fairly limited) position in their newsroom which was used for some bulletins - especially overnights which included a programme called Newsroom. The main shot was also used as a (quite dodgy) CSO backdrop for the main set in Studio N1.

I don't think we've ever pinned down where the World newsroom was within Television Centre, but it wasn't the same as the main pre-Stage 6 newsroom that was used for the daytime summaries and Nine O'Clock News. I have a feeling it was on one of the upper floors of the Spur, but don't hold me to that.

[DTV]

Looking through the old place, stumbled across this post

https://tvforum.uk/forums/post704619#post-704619

Quite a good summary of the schedules in mid-to-late-90s BBC World.

[DTV]

Dunno if this is of any help DTV but in late 95, I used to buy The Times occasionally partly to see the listings for BBC World and Prime.

They do have an archive but I don't know if TV listings from that time will form part of it.

The Web Archive does have text copies of The Times from that era (available from Google Search: "BBC World" "The Times" 1996 site:archive.org), but it has been transcribed using an automatic process that provides some interesting results. Eg here is 11th June 1996:

BBC WORLD _

News, on toa hour.

8.15am Panaama 0X0 Naiue 10X0
Tomorrow's Work! 1.15pm The Money
Piogtamma 2.15 World Busttt&s Report
2X0 Navnhour Asa and PadflC 3X0 Travel
Shaw 4.15 Panorama 5X0 Him '96 8XS
Panorama 9X0 international Festhra/ of lf»
Sea 12.10am NewsnigN 4X5 Under tea
Sun 5X0 Newsday

My assumption is that this reads

BBC World

News on the hour

0815 Panorama, 0930 ???, 1030
Tomorrow's World, 1315 The Money
Programme, 1415 World Business Report,
1430 Newshour Asia and Pacific, 1530 Travel
Show, 1615 Panorama, 1730 Film '96, 2030
Panorama, 2130 International Festival of the
Sea?, 0010 Newsnight, 0435 Under the Sea
0530 Newsday.

[DTV]

From the various sources discovered in this thread, I've managed to piece together the history of News on BBC World Service Television (Europe).

Probably from launch, and certainly by September 1991, news included simulcasts of Breakfast News, the hourly daytime summaries, the One O'Clock News, the Nine O'Clock News and Newsnight. In addition, there was the exclusive BBC World News at 1900 UKT which was preceded by a 15-minute World Business Report.

In early October, World Business Report moved to after Newsnight. With the BBC World News moving to 2000 UKT and the Nine O'Clock News being dropped in favour of the Six O'Clock News at the end of the month.

From March to June 1992, closedown was replaced by an overnight simulcast of BBC WSTV Asia (which had News and Business every hour). This appears to have stopped in June with WBR extended to 30 minutes at the same time.

A big schedule change then occurred in October 1992. An additional 30-minute World Service News bulletin was added at 1400 UKT, the 2000 UKT edition was dropped and they stopped taking Newsnight live. Instead, the main evening World bulletin was moved to 2200 UKT - which was followed by WBR at 2225/30, another WSN bulletin at 2300 and a delayed Newsnight at 2325/30. This continued with 25-minute news bulletins every hour (or 15-minute News and 10-minute Asia Today), followed by recorded back-halfs (including two repeats of an edited Newsnight) until the start of Breakfast News. I presume this was a return to an overnight simulcast with WSTV Asia.

This is largely how it remained until the creation of BBC World in January 1995. The only further changes were the addition of Business Breakfast in January 1993, the disapperance of Asia Today in late-1993 (though they may just have stopped listing it separately) and the fact that, from around April 1994, the 1300 UKT slot irregularly alternates between 'BBC News from London' (One O'Clock News) and 'BBC World Service News'.

[AaronLancs]

From the various sources discovered in this thread, I've managed to piece together the history of News on BBC World Service Television (Europe).

Probably from launch, and certainly by September 1991, news included simulcasts of Breakfast News, the hourly daytime summaries, the One O'Clock News, the Nine O'Clock News and Newsnight. In addition, there was the exclusive BBC World News at 1900 UKT which was preceded by a 15-minute World Business Report.

In early October, World Business Report moved to after Newsnight. With the BBC World News moving to 2000 UKT and the Nine O'Clock News being dropped in favour of the Six O'Clock News at the end of the month.

From March to June 1992, closedown was replaced by an overnight simulcast of BBC WSTV Asia (which had News and Business every hour). This appears to have stopped in June with WBR extended to 30 minutes at the same time.

A big schedule change then occurred in October 1992. An additional 30-minute World Service News bulletin was added at 1400 UKT, the 2000 UKT edition was dropped and they stopped taking Newsnight live. Instead, the main evening World bulletin was moved to 2200 UKT - which was followed by WBR at 2225/30, another WSN bulletin at 2300 and a delayed Newsnight at 2325/30. This continued with 25-minute news bulletins every hour (or 15-minute News and 10-minute Asia Today), followed by recorded back-halfs (including two repeats of an edited Newsnight) until the start of Breakfast News. I presume this was a return to an overnight simulcast with WSTV Asia.

This is largely how it remained until the creation of BBC World in January 1995. The only further changes were the addition of Business Breakfast in January 1993, the disapperance of Asia Today in late-1993 (though they may just have stopped listing it separately) and the fact that, from around April 1994, the 1300 UKT slot irregularly alternates between 'BBC News from London' (One O'Clock News) and 'BBC World Service News'.

One does wonder reading this what the then viewer of BBC World Service Television (Europe) must have been thinking with that many chop and changes in such a relatively short period of timescale.

[johnnyboy]

One thing I'd like to see more of is something itsrobert hinted to in the past but very little evidence of it exists.

Forgive me if my memory of what he said is quite hazy but, for a time, from the start of the second flag era when programmes were still presented from the virtual newsset, the backgrounds behind presenters were different and incorporated some of the flag motifs in use by the channel.

In Mike516's post in the blue place linked to above by DTV, he states that "October 1997 [was] the beginning of the 2nd flags era. BBC World and BBC News 24 started to simulcast overnights from April 1998."

Back in Apr 98, I stayed up all night and had the simulcast on (my best mate had just come out to me on a drunken night out, we went back to mine, and stayed up chatting all night with it on in the background - it and being a prez geek are the only reason I remember it). I am certain that the overnight that was on came from a non-virtual studio with the flag motif around it (perhaps the original N24 studio?).

So, the period [mention]itsrobert[/mention] described may have lasted from October 1997 to, at the very latest(?), March 1998. From the one example itsrobert could find, it looked a bit weird but I'd still like to see more of it. But YouTube doesn't seem to have anything other than that one clip.

Can anyone fill in this part of the story?