Forum for former BBC staff

Forum for former BBC staff
http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl >> News and Comment >> Radio 4 News and the Pips. http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1420895968 Message started by JonW on Jan 10^th, 2015, 1:20pm

Title: Radio 4 News and the Pips.
Post by JonW on Jan 10^th, 2015, 1:20pm

I notice that after the Today programme and the pips , the start of the the news at 9 o'clock is often clipped.
'BBC News at' is missing , just 'news' is heard at the start.
There is no gap between pips and start of announcement so it can't be a late 'fade'.
Any ideas ? Thanks , Jonathan Walker. ( T.O. 27 ! )

Title: Re: Radio 4 News and the Pips.
Post by chris west on Jan 12^th, 2015, 11:09am

I get increasingly upset at the Today prog getting someone reasonably interesting on the last slot of the show, then cutting them off clumsily in mid flow, to try to avoid crashing the pips. They crash them anyway. O tempus o mores.....

Title: Re: Radio 4 News and the Pips.
Post by Annual Increment on Jan 12^th, 2015, 11:20am

What is worse is when BBC TV News plays anything up to 2 minutes of "play out" music before an on the hour bulletin-coupled with on screen shots of silenced reporters mouthing into cameras and pointing....

Title: Re: Radio 4 News and the Pips.
Post by JohnW on Jan 13^th, 2015, 10:22am

Chris,

I used to partake of a daily survey of 'listeners likes and dislikes about radio programmes' where I regularly complained - for years! - about the way that Today especially seems to have a fixed time-slot mentality, where an interview gets ingloriously terminated with "I'm sorry, we've run out of time" and suddenly that's an end to it - whether it's running up to the pips or not! It irritates the hell out of me when they do that!

The programme can be the most wonderful way to understand what's happened in the world whilst I've been in the land of Nod - until they go into 'fortune telling' mode (something which TV News is especially "good" at!) when they tell me just what so-and-so is going to say at some point later in the day. Of course they're keen to show that they've been so entrusted, perhaps with sight of the speech or even just a quick briefing by someone's PA; indeed, sometimes I wonder if it warrants the various politicians travelling around the country to deliver these speeches when the gist of what they want to say has been aired long before they've even hit the road (or track). To me, that's not 'News' in the true sense of the word.

I'd rather not go back to the days of Jack De Manio: Bill Hardcastle in his prime perhaps(!) but maybe this form of News forecasting is what our present editors want. Ah well.

Title: Re: Radio 4 News and the Pips.
Post by Annual Increment on Jan 16^th, 2015, 9:51am

Indeed-and isn't it funny that whatever top dog is interviewed on the Andrew Marr show on sundays mornings always seems to make the headlines throughout sunday and even monday a.m. on both Radio and TV. Surely this proves that there is usually no news at weekends(unless a disaster or a crisis) and if there is plenty of homegrown actuality about-then available air time dictates that MUST be used?....still I suppose it's better than a "fill up disc"