Whether this actually works in practice, whether these changes really do change viewers’ perceptions of the news they’re watching, or whether this is a classic case of over-thinking by too-clever TV professionals is the question. How much better to have him pacing about to emphasise the importance of the bulletin. In the view of the senior news managers at the BBC, it’s possible that Edwards sitting at a desk was simply too “static”. So the changes that have been made to the BBC news studio have an ulterior motive: to enhance the authority, importance and urgency of the news.Īnd perhaps it’s “urgency” which has given us this latest iteration of the BBC News at Ten. Set design is a low-level exercise in psychological manipulation we are being conditioned, in part by the set itself, to accept that what we are seeing and hearing is true, real and important. For a breakfast news show it might be intimacy and warmth (hence the sofas) but for the main evening news it’s all about authority. The question is, should it matter to the rest of us? The design of TV news studios is now a mature art form the look, sound and tone of a set are carefully designed to project certain attributes. In BBC terms this really matters because it considers the News at Ten to be the most important news bulletin of the day (which is why Edwards is paid over £400,000 a year to read it). I can imagine the sort of agonised internal process that delivered this new look. Edwards has said this “gives us a platform which allows us to tell stories in a much more vibrant, creative and impactful way”. Many people working in TV think of little else.Īnd so it is that Edwards has been ejected from his desk and now paces around the studio on a “curved catwalk” against a backdrop of giant, interactive screens (and sometimes a virtual door of 10 Downing Street), while robotic cameras glide silently on hidden tracks. There is a huge mystique surrounding sets, lighting, graphics, and all the nuts and bolts. But within the TV business there is a fascination, bordering on obsession, with how the news looks. ![]() This tended to work well for most people, who, after all, tune into the news to know what’s happened in the world. ![]() ![]() The news has had a revamp.įor years now we have been accustomed to seeing Huw Edwards sitting at his desk, arms folded, ready to deliver the BBC’s version of the day’s events. Perhaps that’s a cheap shot on my part, because this enjoyment was not meant to come from the content of the bulletin but its appearance. Unfortunately the headline story was an Orla Guerin special about the ruthless destruction of Ukrainian cities by Russian artillery, so “enjoyable” was not the word that immediately sprang to mind. The BBC unveiled its shiny new set for the BBC News at Ten on Monday night, promising that the new format would be “more enjoyable” for viewers.
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