BBC BRISTOL

Last week, me and for other students from Bath Spa University's Broadcast Media course where given the opportunity of a whistle-stop tour through the department responsible for BBC Bristol's 'Points West' daily news program.


It was very enjoyable and an eye-opener. The tour started in the main (open plan) offices that contained the news reporters, presenters, internet/ceefax reporters workstations.
The first thing that hit you when you first entered this huge room, was the 'Hustle and Bustle' of the place - it was immediately obvious that a lot was being done, and at a very rapid pace.



I found the first talk we had with the Weather Presenter particulary interesting. The Weatherman is responsible for producing his own segment - including content, scripting and graphics. The vast amount of information regarding the weather is gained from the MET Office, and fed into the Weatherman's server. It is then his responsibility to then strip out what is nessercary to the Region, and to produce the appropriate graphics to get across this information to the viewer in the best possible way. The Weather is a very important component to the regional news, as apart from being of high interest to the viewer, it is also the most flexible in regards to its duration. If the show is running a few minutes ahead or behind, it is quite easy, or should I say easier, to take from or add to the weather. As a result of this the Weather presenter is not 100% of his shows duration and absolute content until very close to broadcast time.
The regional Internet news (and Ceefax) offices where also very Interesting. The man we spoke to at the time (I forget his name) explained how they would constantly scan for news coming in to their servers (from a few sources), and how they would decide what they were going to use. The news story would then be edited by him - to maybe change poor grammar and/or spelling, or to shorten the length of the piece in order to allow it to fit into its alloted space on the net. I found this process very impressive - in regards to how streamlined it was, as it allowed the news story's to be processed from the BBC's servers, edited for content and length and then posted on the Internet and Ceefax in a matter of minutes. I was also very impressed when I was told that this role did not require even basic knowledge of web-coding protocols such as 'HTML'.
I also did not realise that BBC regional online news was constantly moving 24 hours a day (which it is).

After speaking to these departments, we were then ushered into the BBC Radio Bristol. I have to say, I was very suprised to see how small this department was! It consisted of a modest reception area and just Two studios. The presenter who was live on-air saw us from his studio and invited us in for an uber-mini live interview! - at which point Will (one of us), choked with embarrassment, almost forgot his own name! After our 15 seconds of fame, we were taken into the next studio which was not being used, and an off-duty presenter explained the setup to us.
They were using very simple analogue desks, the reason being that the easier simpler it is - the less can go wrong. The music itself was called up on a computer which itself was feeding from a server - and the playlist's were pre-made. That was that, there really was nothing else to it, very simple indeed but it obviously does the job well!

One thing of interest that was pointed out, was the presence of a blue light above the studio door. I'm sure that anybody reading this blog will be aware of the commonly found 'On-Air' red light found in radio stations and recording studio's, but the Blue light is only used in the event of a death in the family. In this situation all normal programming stopped, and all air -time would be focused on this event.
Just below the blue light, was a CD (in it's jewel case) that was mounted to the wall and labelled "Emergency Music". As the name suggests, this CD contained several hours of music and inbetween 'jingles' to keep the station at least on air in case of emergency.
From here we where then led into the 'Points West' studio. Again, like many of the other departments I visited that day, I was suprised by its small size. The studio would be instantly familiar to anybody that has seen the news show on television, whats suprising (at least to me) was the amount of space between each of the studios main parts (Main presenter chair, Interview couch and table, and the Weather) I think that the clever use of camera placement gives the viewer a false impression that the studio is a lot bigger than it is in reality. For example, if the main news presenter was to have stood up from where his seat is and walked forward just a couple of paces - he would have been touching the camera's, and most definitely 'off-set' ! . The amount of lighting equipment present on the studio was also impressive, you could barely see the ceiling through a brick wall of industrial lighting rig.


As by this time, it was getting very close to the lunchtime news broadcast, we were quickly guided through to the gallery. This is where all the magic happens.
I was quickly introduced to another method that I was completely unaware of. Close to broadcast time, when the presenter and gallery have final scripts/cues, they choose to quickly pre-record the opening headline being readout by the presenter. This also allows both parties to make any last-minute changes to the script.
When the show starts these headlines are played back, and the presenter picks up live once they have finished. The atmosphere in the gallery was very professional. I instantly picked up that although (as with any live broadcast) the pressure is high, it was being dealt with properly.
In fact, it was quite bewildering being in a gallery for the first time, as you didn't really know where to look!
At the end of the news show, as normal, was the weather - it was interesting seeing the man we had just spoken to minutes earlier going out live on air with the graphics and scripts he had just shown us.

All in all, it was an extremely interesting day, and I certainly learned a lot. As with my previous trip to the BBC, it has only strengthened my desire to join myself as a runner when I finish University in 2009.

Hope you enjoyed reading! - feel free to comment...;)