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Why do these clumsy night-time BBC One/BBC News Channel handovers keep happening?

Posted on 23rd October 2021
By CF Voice
Last updated on 3rd July 2023
Filed under Opinion

Regular readers will know this is one of our longstanding bugbears.

For some reason, BBC One usually puts zero effort into ensuring a professional transition to the BBC News Channel when it wraps up for the day.

The BBC schedulers obviously don’t help the situation by having BBC One’s programmes finish up at all sorts of random times each evening.

However, sometimes the schedulers unwittingly gift BBC One Presentation with a scenario that lends itself to a tidy handover to the BBC News Channel. Yet the Presentation team squanders the opportunity.

I have no idea where the blame lies here: directors, pres editors, media planners or schedulers. And no doubt the cause varies from day-to-day.

This is one of the top channels in the country – it doesn’t matter what time of day it is (in fact, most of these handovers are usually much earlier). The important thing is – the end result looks utterly incompetent. Please…sort it!

Here’s such an example, from the early hours of this morning. The conditions were perfect for joining the News Channel neatly, bang on the hour…but instead, we got this clumsy transition:

VIDEO: BBC One handover to the BBC News Channel. Announcer: Ashleigh Whitfield. TX DATE/TIME: 23rd October 1.57am. COPYRIGHT: BBC.

Although BBC One Scotland and BBC One Wales took the network junctions last night, BBC One Northern Ireland was still up and about. And what a difference we have here. An extra trail inserted and a full News Channel countdown sequence aired, to take us up to 2am exactly and the perfect transition to live programming on the News Channel.

VIDEO: BBC One Northern Ireland handover to the BBC News Channel. Announcer: Michael Higgins. TX DATE/TIME: 23rd October 1.58am. COPYRIGHT: BBC.

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Tags: Ashleigh Whitfield, BBC, BBC News Channel, BBC One, BBC One Northern Ireland, BBC One/BBC News Channel Handover, Michael Higgins, Playout

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