Forum for former BBC staff

Forum for former BBC staff
http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl >> News and Comment >> Our Weather ladies + their Mic/Earpiece equipment http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1483975961 Message started by JohnW on Jan 9^th, 2017, 3:33pm

Title: Our Weather ladies + their Mic/Earpiece equipment
Post by JohnW on Jan 9^th, 2017, 3:33pm

I'm moved to pass comment on this subject after watching the lunchtime weather item on the 1300 News today (Monday).

The very lovely Louise Lear was wearing a dress - with what appeared to be a bag of spanners stuck down the back!
It was (very obviously) the wireless packs for her earpiece and her Mic, but I can't help but comment that she needs someone to properly arrange these smallish packs so they don't stand out 'quite so' when she turns 3/4 to look at the screen showing us the back of her dress.

She's not alone in this, as Sarah Keith-Lucas is often also similarly "blessed" by such poor arrangement, although she tends to wear a jacket top.

I realise that an external 'body belt' able to hold both packs (Transmit and Receive) is not an 'acceptable' solution to this problem of "dress" (since it wouldn't 'hide' the wires for a start!) but perhaps Costume might be asked to make something suitable for the ladies to wear "under their clothes" which they could slip on after the FM has checked the function of the Tx/Rx packs, allowing the ladies themselves to feed the mic cable to the front and pin it there as appropriate.

Title: Re: Our Weather ladies + their Mic/Earpiece equipment
Post by Roundabout on Jan 10^th, 2017, 2:39pm

Totally agree though I suspect there are probably no staff available these days to take care of the fine points of appearing on live news TV. However the subject does remind me of the early days in Southampton BBC studios before the days of radio mics. etc in the 60s as sound operator I had to fit one of the old lavalier mics to a female presenter who for one evening only had to stand in front of a chart instead of sitting at the newsreading desk. It involved threading 20 feet of cable down her dress and retaining the top of her lowish cut top using double sided sellotape from the Eic's office!!