- Sam Taylor
- 22 Jan 07, 05:03 PM
Usually they ask you just to change one thing at once - this time they wanted to go further. News 24 and World were getting a new system to play out their on-screen straps and captions - so why don't we also change how they look, sound and behave? And while we're at it, what about new titles and whole new look for all our other graphics as well?
It's been months in the making, so you can imagine the relief at 0500 this morning and again at 0830, when we finally saw both a new on-screen look and a brand new technical system working happily on both Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World and News 24.
Every channel wants to regularly refresh the way it looks on screen - TV graphic styles go out of fashion quickly - but this time we wanted a classic look: more room on screen for the pictures, fewer things getting in the way, and a clean, crisp style that ties in with the red and white of the set. We also had the chance to use new technology to introduce moving backgrounds to our breaking news straps, and new 3D icons for reporters who are joining us by videophone or webcam.
A team of graphic designers have been working on the new look for months, while another group of experts paved the way to introduce the playout system. My job's been to feed in requests from the channel teams - and as the deadline approached, to make sure everyone knows what's about to happen.
Of course you can't plan for everything, so it was great to launch News 24's new five-digit text number (61124) on the same day. We got plenty of feedback within minutes - much of it very positive about the way things look. However, we also got plenty of people saying the live 'bug' and the location strap at the top left of screen couldn't be seen fully on their TV. It looks like in our quest to maximise the amount of space on screen we've gone a little too far 'north', and we'll make some adjustments over the next couple of days to bring it back into view.
Moving the clock out to the left though was a conscious decision - most viewers have the option to watch News 24 in widescreen, even on a conventional 4:3 television (by selecting 16:9 on their Freeview or satellite box setup), and we wanted to use all the available space so it's easier to read the ticker. But rest assured, we'll be watching the feedback and reaction very closely - just as our viewers have been watching extremely closely today.
Sam Taylor is evening editor of
- Peter Barron
- 22 Jan 07, 04:37 PM
Guido Fawkes, an anonymous chronicler of political plots, conspiracies and has been on to me about Friday night's programme, on which we led with a story about an embarrassing email sent from one Tory to another in which he referred to a Labour agent as "the cripple".
Was it a conspiracy or bias that we didn't lead with the story of the arrest of Ruth Turner, one of Tony Blair's aides, in the loans for peerages case? Neither, but I don't rule out the possibility that it was simply a misjudgement. The loans story is one which Michael Crick has been reporting on avidly over several months and he continues to dig away.
On Friday - although the arrest headline was sensational - we didn't feel we had sufficient new information or pictures to distinguish ourselves from the rest of the news output, so we led on our own original story and did Ruth Turner second.
Peter Barron is editor of Newsnight
- Richard Porter
- 22 Jan 07, 10:16 AM
We've made some changes and we'd like to know what you think. Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World and Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ News 24 have a new on-screen appearance - the results of months of planning and thousands of hours of hard work by a brilliant team of designers, directors and programmers. Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World has also made some changes to its bulletins, aiming to offer a clearer structure and more space for analysis and debate. The results are on air from today - and since it's all intended to improve the service to our viewers, we want to get your opinions on what we've done.
The on-screen graphics have been changed for a number of reasons. One is internal - we're introducing a new software system (known as VizRT) and it gives us the opportunity to introduce some new features. But the biggest reason was that we felt our existing appearance was beginning to look a bit tired and it was time for an update. The new look is slightly more subtle - it takes up a little less screen space and moves the channel name further down the screen to sit alongside the rolling "ticker" of news headlines. (By the way, the little box with the channel name on it is known as the ...which I think stands for Digital On screen Graphic but I'm bound to be corrected by someone).
The captions, which we use for identifying interviewees and also for giving information about stories, have new colours and a slightly different font. And we've also moved the "locator" - ie the strap which tells you where a correspondent is - up to the top left of screen.
The overall effect is much crisper and cleaner, and I think gives the channel a more contemporary feel. We operate in a very competitive environment and it's important that we support the substance of our journalism with the style of our presentation and production. For that reason, we've also made a number of other changes. There are new titles sequences, with remixed music....and these will appear on all the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Television News programmes, so that means the One, Six and Ten O'Clock News on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ One in the UK as well as News 24 and Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World.
On World we've also changed the way in which we do headlines at the start of each hour - there will be more of them and the first thing you'll see will be the image from the story, rather than the presenter appearing in vision. Again, a very small change, but one which we think will give us a little more punch.
And lastly on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World, we've made some changes to what we call the "running orders" of our news bulletins. From now on, there'll be a clear structure which starts with a core news bulletin in the first one-third, has space for analysis and discussion in the second third, and finishes with Sport and Features in the final third. Partly this is the result of what you, the audience, have been telling us during extensive research over the past year.
Many viewers said they were confused by our structure and wanted us to label things more clearly. I also wanted to bring a bit more pace to our news bulletins and ensure we cover more stories from more parts of the world - taking full advantage of the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ's global reach.
So from 0500 GMT this morning that's what we're doing. And we very much hope you like it.
Richard Porter is head of
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