[Phil Ander]

Mapperly

I am afraid the midnight handover last night made the station sound amateurish.

I don't see why Janice can't fade out the news bulletin when the guy is finished given that the show is live.

The news readers were part of what made Radio 2 the station it is.

The mess that is the handover was wholly predictable.

[The Magic Monkey]

Or, why can't the newsreader just read to time, like the Radio 1 newsreader does on the joint bulls; etc etc etc etc

[wilson500]

Originally Posted by RadioRob

... Janice used to have a quick on-air chat with the midnight newsreader at the end of the bulletin. One effect of the sudden cut off and absence of chat last night was to make me think her prog was recorded.

When the changes came in last week, Janice said "no more chats with the news reader for me".

I guess the introduction of the automation is the reason for the introduction of pips at 7pm. It gets the evening schedule off on time without Drivetime over running as it often did.

[Mapperley Ridge]

Originally Posted by Phil Ander

Mapperly

I am afraid the midnight handover last night made the station sound amateurish.

I don't see why Janice can't fade out the news bulletin when the guy is finished given that the show is live.

The news readers were part of what made Radio 2 the station it is.

The mess that is the handover was wholly predictable.

I can't really disagree with you on that one. It does seem odd that live shows have to deal with the same sort of automation that recorded shows have. Is Feeback back on Radio 4 soon? I reckon it's worth a discussion on there. And maybe Radio 2 will listen if enough people start mentioning it.

[SteveBentley]

Is the midnight news shared with 6 Music? That might be the reason for constraining the timings in this way.

[lundavra]

Surely there must be the proverbial "Big Red Button" to override the time-out? Major stories have broken at night and it is quite possible that it could happen just before the news. They presumably might go into a rolling news format but need to make the hourly bulletin open-ended whilst something is being set up.

[Mark C]

Originally Posted by Mapperley Ridge

I think you are being somewhat disingenuous to the pool of journalusts now being used. Many have years of presentation exprience and would know exactly what do do in the event of a breaking news story - or if they had to fillmin due to a technical fault. In the event of a really big story, the reins would be taken up by Five Live, as that's the news network.

But Radio 2 is not a news network. Sure, if something major happens it should of course be mentioned ASAP on the network, but that's all, the listeners told to tune to R5 etc, and the programme in progress allowed to continue (unless the content is deemed unsuitable in light of the news).

[Bandspread199]

Originally Posted by SteveBentley

That seems really daft. If you have live presenters handing over it should be as easy that

• Outgoing presenter plays news jingle and fades up news studio
  
• Incoming studio fades up either news studio or outgoing presenter's studio
  
• Outgoing presenter offers control of network, incoming presenter takes control
  
• Incoming presenter fades out news at end of bulletin and starts the show.

this shouldn't need to be automated.

I think you would find there would be horrendous technical problems if BOTH announcers faded up the news studio! In the 70s at Radio Forth it was a sackable offence!! The outgoing presenter played the jingle then faded the news in and out before leaving the studio, The Incoming DJ could then fade up the master in his studio and start his prog.

[SteveBentley]

That sounds like a scenario where both desks are live at the same time rather than switching between them?

What I've described is what I believe to be standard procedure at Radio 1 (which has a very similar technical infrastructure to Radio 2) and similar to how every BBC local radio station flips between its studios.

[The Magic Monkey]

Originally Posted by SteveBentley

That sounds like a scenario where both desks are live at the same time rather than switching between them?

What I've described is what I believe to be standard procedure at Radio 1 (which has a very similar technical infrastructure to Radio 2) and similar to how every BBC local radio station flips between its studios.

Your way is slightly wrong, as you can't have the news booth faded up twice.

There are many ways of skinning a cat, but you can't have the same source on air twice before cutting studios. The outgoing studio would just fade up the next studio, which would have the news booth output on it.

[Mapperley Ridge]

Originally Posted by Mark C

But Radio 2 is not a news network. Sure, if something major happens it should of course be mentioned ASAP on the network, but that's all, the listeners told to tune to R5 etc, and the programme in progress allowed to continue (unless the content is deemed unsuitable in light of the news).

That was the point I was making in my earlier post. Breaking news is for Five Live. In the event of a major disaster (or a Category One obit) all BBC networks would join together anyway, so the automation issue wouldn't come into it.

[Andy Walmsley]

Originally Posted by wilson500

I guess the introduction of the automation is the reason for the introduction of pips at 7pm. It gets the evening schedule off on time without Drivetime over running as it often did.

This also applies to Sunday nights and it is, I guess, a plus point to come out of this. Radio 2 evening programmes on the iPlayer would often get cut-off but the David Jacobs show from last night didn't, for once, cut him of before he'd had time to say goodnight.

The midnight news bulletin isn't shared with 6 Music.

[lundavra]

I got the impression just now that Janice Long is finding the system quite funny because it is so bad! She started with "I think he was going to say that the next news is at one o'clock" because he got cut off as the newsreader started saying it.

I wonder if many of the more experienced people told the beancounters that it would not work?

[Barney06]

Originally Posted by Andy Walmsley

Oops! It's happened at midnight again - start of Janice Long's show last night. Cut off reading the weather but Janice quick on the button.

Happened again tonight , during the midnight bulletin .

[simon243]

Originally Posted by lundavra

I got the impression just now that Janice Long is finding the system quite funny because it is so bad! She started with "I think he was going to say that the next news is at one o'clock" because he got cut off as the newsreader started saying it.

I wonder if many of the more experienced people told the beancounters that it would not work?

There's no reason why it shouldn't work if the newsreader talks to time. IRN manage it 24 hours a day 7 days a week (usually!) - I suspect it's just teething problems with people getting used to a new way of working. They'll get used to it soon enough.

[Mapperley Ridge]

Very true Simon. It's all too easy to blame the automation, or the decision behind it - and immediately say "that's the result of the cuts". But this is a big operational change for presenters and newsreaders. I'm pretty sure that none of the journalists want to go over time and have their out cue words cut off, and equally the presenters want to provide the best possible sound.

If it's still frequently happening in a fortnight then maybe it's an issue. But right now it's really only a discussion point for a few anoraks. Me included!

[Harris Tweed]

Even with an automated system, just a second or two's overlap would help avert this (and is easily manageable).

The human eye/ear aren't capable of timing to thousandths of a second, and in any case, a small overlap is natural to avoid a gap as you fire off a jingle on the back.

[Robert Williams]

Originally Posted by Harris Tweed

Even with an automated system, just a second or two's overlap would help avert this (and is easily manageable).

The human eye/ear aren't capable of timing to thousandths of a second, and in any case, a small overlap is natural to avoid a gap as you fire off a jingle on the back.

On BBC Sussex and BBC Surrey, they often split the news between the two counties which means the bulletins have to last exactly the same length, so they have a bit of music which bubbles up in the last few seconds which gives the newsreader a bit of leeway.

[Mark C]

I heard a nice pregnant pause tonight at 19:02:57 to 19:03:00.

Sounds great, another incremental step towards making Radio 2's station sound as robotically sterile as its commercial rivals

[wilson500]

The way studio switching often works in local radio, outgoing studio fades up the news at the start of the bulletin.

Incoming studio also fades up the news and takes control during the bulletin.

if there is no news, incoming studio will fade up the outgoing in the last minute or so and take control. Goes horribly wrong when the outgoing studio also fades up the incoming!

The Radio 2 solution would be allow a ten second overlap on the outgoing programme and news, and the incoming programme and news. That will allow smooth transitions.

[lundavra]

Originally Posted by simon243

There's no reason why it shouldn't work if the newsreader talks to time. IRN manage it 24 hours a day 7 days a week (usually!) - I suspect it's just teething problems with people getting used to a new way of working. They'll get used to it soon enough.

I would rather the newsreader "talks to" the amount of news. If there is a lot going on then that can easily exceed three minutes. Other times there might be little happening.

[Fayecorgasm]

Dont know about the midnight news but Moira Stewart has just made a complete horlicks of the 7am news

[Mark C]

Originally Posted by Fayecorgasm

Dont know about the midnight news but Moira Stewart has just made a complete horlicks of the 7am news

She often does, she's only human. My bugbear with her is she cannot ad-lib, or even say anything coherent when thrown a curved ball, as regularly evidenced by her chats with Evans.

[Fayecorgasm]

Originally Posted by Mark C

She often does, she's only human. My bugbear with her is she cannot ad-lib, or even say anything coherent when thrown a curved ball, as regularly evidenced by her chats with Evans.

No shes not a natural for radio , I don't dislike her but this morning she couldn't get a sentence out coherently

[Mark C]

Originally Posted by Fayecorgasm

No shes not a natural for radio , I don't dislike her but this morning she couldn't get a sentence out coherently

It's worth noting that back in the 1970s she was a Radio 2 newsreader, and I think also one of the rota of 'You, The Night, and The Music' presenters ?