The BBC has launched its iPlayer App for iPad offering British programming to European audiences at a cost.
The brand-new video on demand subscription service will bring “The best of the BBC’s content” to initially 11 Countries at a cost of €6.99 a month (£6.14) or €49.99 a year (£44).
The app which will offer a mix of new and archived content will be available in the US and Canada before the end of the year.
Jana Bennett, BBC Worldwide President of Worldwife Networks and Global iPlayer, said “the app combines technical innovation with editorial creativity to transport users to the heart of the BBC and British television”
Subscribers will be able to access on-demand News & Documentaries, Entertainment, Drama, Comedy and a whole host of BBC classics at just under a third of the cost of the UK licence fee. The app differs from the UK version which offers a seven-day catch-up service.
John Smith, CEO, BBC Worldwide said “This launch is an important route to market in our strategy of pursing multiple platforms for our programmes and brands, taking British programmes to new digital audiences around the World.”
Users who have either 3G and a wi-fi connection can stream content, and the app also has a ‘download feature’, which allows people to download content while they have a connection, and watch it later offline. Users will be able to build a ‘personal library of shows’.
The app will initialling be available in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, The Republic of Ireland, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.
The iPad app launched today marks the start of a pilot phase for the service. The money earned from the app will supplement licence-fee income.
31 SureStart centres for young children have closed since last year’s general election, according to figures released under the freedom of information legislation.
The figures obtained by the New Statesman magazine suggest that less well-off areas have been hardest hit by the closures.
Funding for SureStart is being cut on average by £50 a child this year, with some of the poorest areas – including Hackney in London and Knowsley in Merseyside facing cuts of £100 a child. Wealthier areas including Richmond in south London , Buckinghamshire and Surrey will see cuts of just £30 per child.
Labour spokesman for women and equality Yvette Cooper said: “This is outrageous. David Cameron and education ministers promised us they were protecting SureStart. But now we know that is rubbish”
The network of 3,600 SureStart centres across England was a flagship initiative of the former Labour government, providing support and advice for parents of pre-school children in the hope of improving their life-chances.
After the coalition Government came to power, the budget for SureStart was merged into a new early intervention grant, which also includes funding for programmes related to teenage pregnancy, mental health and youth crime.
Cooper said ” SureStart is one of the best things the Labour goverment introduced – supporting young families at the beginning of a child’s life so they feel the benefits for decades to come”
I haven’t been able to follow these elections like I did the last but I have tracked them a fair bit, probably more than most voters in all honesty, and I’ll offer up these opinions for each race now that votes have closed.
It goes on a bit – a lot, in honesty – because I’ve gone into depth on the manifestos. Goodness knows not enough others have. I should also note that my own experiences and history in SUSU cause me to have priorities differing from those of most of the student body – I weight community cohesion more than booze-fuelled events, media and societies are important to me, sport less so.
PRESIDENT
Starting with the joke candidate, Derek Mallinson brings back memories of Dobbsy’s comedy-Marxist efforts from 2007. He made me smile, but I do fear him actually winning…
Joe Belcher has one overwhelming reason to vote for him – he’s put green issues at the forefront of his campaign, first and foremost in the manifesto. Not convinced about the practicality of university-wide mega-trips (or indeed their carbon footprint!) and I’m pretty sure the kettle-and-microwave plan got dismissed as implausible a long time ago. “Regular updates of Union activity” as its own publication? Right idea, wrong execution: make it a Wessex Scene supplement, it’s about the same frequency. “Look into the feasibility of franchising space on Campus to renowned brands that will benefit the student body”? That’s the deal-breaker for me, but it seems no more likely to happen in actuality than the last deal-breaking idea a winning candidate floated that I hated enough to vote passionately against (Bluetooth advertising, Adam Parker, 2008 VP Media & Comms). The rest? Big names at the Cube/West Ref, PAU space, keep the halls bars open, blah blah nothing to see here.
Martin Underwood frontloads his manifesto with the resident-baiting 3am license call and ‘big names on campus’. He then has the sheer chutzpah to put “Work with the local community to improve the Students’ Union Image” buried two-thirds of the way down the manifesto. How can a law postgrad, of all things, be so, so wrong on this? The rest is generic fluff, save for extra emphasis on postgrads as you would expect. The law background proves beyond reasonable doubt (see what I did there?) he will be a hard worker, and that’s frankly the best I can say about him.
Billy Fitzjohn has enormous name recognition, winning the Humanities Presidency through an immense Facebook campaign that was supported by O’Reilly. He could win in an O’Reilly-esque landslide here, but not if the voters have any sense. He’s bought the NUS affliation issue back from the dead (and by all accounts, it is dead), he’s repeated the call for an early Housing Week which wouldn’t improve the housing situation but would certainly damage the mental health of vulnerable first-year students left isolated by cliques. Not that he needs to worry as he is so clearly at the heart of one, but some students are left crushingly isolated in the first semester and this will make that a lot worse. As if that weren’t enough, though it is, he repeats the Underwood mistakes on The Cube with – incredibly – even less panache:
The Cube needs to survive and by utilising all of the Unions publicity and advertising ability, as well as keeping good relations with the local community, we can make The Cube more successful.
+ It’s in the Drink +
More drinks promotions at The Cube and hall bars. Ensuring that we are more reflective for the students of today.Not necessarily cheaper drinks on the whole, but one off nights of cheap promotions.
Oh, like the ones that even a Government in thrall to the brewing industry are thinking of banning. Highfield Residents Association, get ready, for you are about to get some serious ammunition. Unless…
Aris Tsontzos gets in. He puts the Sports Studies campaign obliquely at the forefront, places explicit emphasis on the importance of the handover period (although any handover procedure that allows Alex Tanfield to go from bumbling campaigner to genuinely worthy President in four months is already doing something spectacularly right), and above all recognises that proper market research is needed to get the best out of The Cube. He also explictly mentions the environment, albeit less prominently than Joe.
My hypothetical vote: Tsontzos, Belcher, RON, Mallinson, Underwood, Fitzjohn
My predicted result: Fitzjohn in a one-round landslide. No pressure, handover team…
VP MEDIA & COMMS
Starting with Tom Stacey, a candidate I know better than the others through my own media experience. He’s got the right idea to put media links with the student body at large first and foremost; exclusive announcements on Surge is a brilliant ratings-booster; more live SUSU.TV coverage is great if it’s practical, and he’d know if it wasn’t; he seems to combine the visionary-techie nature of Parker/Culley with a greater degree of pragmatism. How practical is putting a Scene issue in freshers’ packs, though? And uni-link distribution is a litter problem waiting to happen (not that there’s not enough problems with the Scene and litter as it is, but it’d be more public on the buses).
Dave Taylor has a neat bit of experience outside media that will make him useful in the role of deputising for Fitzjohnthe President. Promotional vouchers in the Scene? Like it. Good points on training and the phone lines for Surge, but not convinced about the webcam idea practicality-wise. Oh, you were doing so well, then you blather on about events and cheap booze, and you fell below RON in my hypothetical vote. Blast. Still, he has good ideas in there.
Maximillian Hughes-Williams is going on the ‘one media’ philosophy, drawing the various arms of student media together. I have less idea than I would like as to how practical that can be, but it is innately appealing. SUSU.TV content that’s actually like television, including scripted productions and game shows, and using the PAU? Oh hell yes! (Disclaimer: I made a failed attempt to produce a game show for SUSU.TV in 2009, and a friend of mine successfully produced a show for Reading’s RUON in that year too.) 7-9pm as ‘prime time’ on Surge? Strikes me as over-segmenting the station and creating a bit of a ’station elite’. Not keen. Also unconvinced about the ability to do unconventional shows on Surge given the music licensing issues that dictate the current playlisting policy – Tom will know this. Online weekly polls? Good way of getting a snapshot of opinion, very useful for SUSU. In short, he’s full of ideas, some of which I love, some of which I don’t, but he’s the visionary of the pack. A risky choice, but a worthy one.
Charlotte Woods assures us that “being a third year History student, I am no stranger to working long hours and pushing my abilities to their limits.” You just lost the vote of every science student who had the time to read your manifesto, there. (Disclaimer: I have no idea how accurate it would be to dismiss History like that.) Anyway, she’s articulate, albeit a bit verbose, in her manifesto, and she’s going very strongly for a ‘one media’ approach. She’s big on openness, big reforming ideas, but how practical or valuable is it to throw that individuality within SUSU media away? She’s on safer ground with small ideas, like the media forum. I just about prefer Max out of the two ‘one media reformists’ but not by much.
Liam Gallagher starts his manifesto with blather about bars, and in a field this strong that’s already enough for me to write him off. Harsh but fair.
My hypothetical vote: Stacey, Hughes-Williams, Woods, RON, Taylor, Gallagher
My predicted result: Woods in the final round, possibly from Taylor. The first rule of SUSU election predictions: never, ever, ever predict the photogenic blonde girl will lose. I learned that one from Maclean 2009 (and Tanfield 2008, and Moore 2007 which not many of you will remember).
VP WELFARE & SOCS
Harriet Collins offers a solid generic campaign, with ’society cards’ about the only issue I can really pick out as innovative, and even that I have little opinion on. Oh, and integrating the Private Rented Society firmly into SUSU itself – that’s a bit interesting and possibly good. The best of the many conventional policies in her long manifesto is the one that’s missing – the November Housing Week call. Strong feminist credentials, which is promising on the equal opportunities front, but that portfolio already belongs to…
Emily Rees. She calls for greater centralisation of societies (eh?) – oh, a central societies website, that’s a better idea, as is recognition of a need for a greater anti-smoking push. This, though, seals my vote right away:
Signing contracts too early is the major problem we have here at Southampton and I will be concentrating on getting information to freshers from the very start of the year advising them on the benefits of taking their time so that decisions about who to live with are not made with too much haste. Obviously there are people who will still want to sort their housing out early so as with this year, I will make sure there is plenty of information and ongoing support both before and after Christmas.
Best statement on the housing issue I’ve ever read.
Drew Hart also refuses to call for a pre-Christmas Housing Week! I already love these candidates. Seeking an agreement for no pre-Christmas advertisements for student properties might even be better yet than what Emily has said; bonuses for societies after their first successful new committee is a curious policy but its heart is in the right place; RAG involvement funding the JCRs of their volunteers is another good idea where the devil would be in the detail of implementing it. I particularly love the requirements for large societies to fundraise for SCA/RAG every year.
I genuinely think any of these three would have made better Presidential candidates than at least four of the five actually standing for that post. At least one portfolio is safe!
My hypothetical vote: Rees, Hart, Collins, RON (barely. I’m not at all sure about who to put second)
My predicted result: Collins, narrowly, from Rees. But whoever wins, I’m happy here.
VP EDUCATION & REPRESENTATION
Only two contenders this time for some bizarre reason – maybe people think they know less about this post’s requirements than others, and I know I didn’t run last year for that very reason, but it’s the one that really does affect everyone. Chris Pidgely is the first of this dynamic duo, and the candidate I know better than anyone through sharing modules with him. Structuring his calls by subject area in his manifesto is great: calling for “English Proficiency in Lecturers” squicks me out a tiny bit, and why is he singling out Social Sciences here? (Thinks about his Economics lecturers.) Yes, he’s got a point. Some of these aren’t necessarily practical, but as a laundry list of concerns held by students across campuses (plural, as he’s even mentioned Winchester students!) it’s probably the best I’ve ever seen. It sets the benchmark for…
Rob Stanning to beat. His manifesto is laid out very differently, thematically rather than by subject, and I like his emphasis on “taking student welfare into account” regarding library opening hours. Coming straight out with an anti-top-up-fee whaling cry is not my idea of a mature Vice-President, though.
My hypothetical vote: Pidgely, Stanning, RON
My predicted result: Pidgely by a small majority, possibly needing RON transfers a lá Steynor 2009. It could well come down to that banner, and his other promotional material placement. Not wanting to blow my own trumpet here, but he’s got that strategy from Campaign Impact Analysis…
AU PRESIDENT
Frankly, I don’t know much about AU politics. However, I can tell that:
Liam Tillett has an interesting idea in terms of opting for a unified kit supplier, but what if there are specialised kits used by a handful of teams? Anyway, I can’t really judge most of his manifesto – nor do I need to, as the absence of a single mention of tackling the drinking culture tells its own story.
Is Will Harvey burdened by the incumbent effect of being AU Officer, given the Pompey-led calls for Steynor to step down? Is he boosted by it? Does it matter? He has smart ideas on finance and correctly identifies this period of financial constraint as a time to end profligacy, but again no mention of tackling the drinking culture.
Nor does Teddy Wilkes. Still, good call on expanding the free weights area – it’s ridiculously crowded, and expanding it so it is less crowded (at the expense of machines) might even encourage more nervous female trainees into that part of the gym, which would be good for all concerned. In the absence of anything much else to swing me here, that’s worth something.
My hypothetical vote: RON, Wilkes, Harvey, Tillett
My predicted result: Wilkes in one round on campaign impact. With the emphasis on impact, given his sporting background.
Winchester is its own self-contained universe for that presidential vote, so I am unqualified to comment, and there are no contested positions at the executive level.
The internet has become a vital part in many peoples lives and most couldn’t live without it. A poll by BBC world found out that four out of five of us believe that access to the internet is a fundamental right.
The survey – of more than 27,000 adults across 26 countries – found strong support for net access on both sides of the digital divide.
Countries such as Finland and Estonia have already ruled that access is a human right for their citizens. International bodies such as the UN are also pushing for universal net access.
This all comes at a time where the UK government is pushing through it’s digital economy bill. A major strategy in the bill is providing universal access to broadband. I believe this is needed and completely agree with the importance the internet will play in our future.
Some people even argue that you are limiting free speech by not allowing people access to the net, whilst others see it as something that we don’t need and is a ‘want’ and not a ‘need’.
If you’ve seen Die Hard 4.0 then maybe you can see a negative side to the internet becoming ever powerful, although it seems unlikely that this sort of power can be gathered , who knows that he can’t?
Many businesses are operating purely on the internet now which has a massive effect on our economy, I wonder what would happen if the internet stopped for a day? Would it be turmoil, or would people just go sit in a park?
A friend of mine, Esat, 21, said “I’m afraid to say that without the internet I feel cut-off from the world and am starved, both socially and in terms of information and entertainment.”
Harry Campbell, a student, said “People can’t read maps anymore, organise complicated meetings/events in person, afford to shop in real shops, use an index/scan a page to find information.”
All the questions surrounding the internet are still fairly unanswered but I believe we will all become more and more dependent on the web and its power.
It’s only a matter of months until the general election and the potential power of the student movement is huge. But how many students will actually vote? and do students really believe that issues affect them?
Being at university is a surreal experience, you are in a little bubble where breaking news stories can just breeze past you without you feeling a thing. This is a massive generalisation, but there are many students who are truly like this and are never affected by anything that isn’t directly in their line of sight.
In saying this, we’ve all come across an activist and they do exist in the student world but usually there are few and far between. They are often the lonely figure handing out flyers for what they believe in, they often stand out amongst the rest of us who have opinions but are happy to let others do the leg work.
It only takes a quick glance into the recent SUBU (Students’ Union Bournemouth University) elections to show how many students care about what affects them. There were 1,727 votes out of nearly 18,000 students, a very small percentage who care and with only 10 candidates. With a student population of nearly 18,000, the fact that only a handful of people are standing for election suggests that the rest of us truly can’t be asked.
A recent ‘Unite’ poll by Cambridge University has shown that student ignorance of politics is widespread. A third of students polled did not know that Gordon Brown is the leader of the Labour Party. Nick Clegg may have been a Casanova in his youth, but his fortunes have since declined: less than half of students knew he heads the Lib Dems. Overall, an eighth of those polled said they had no interest in politics at all.
The problem doesn’t just lie with students, it seems that politics is disengaging much of the adult generation as well. A recent survey on the British public resulted in only 56% of people believing they have duty to vote, in contrast to around 68% in 1991.
Surprisingly, the only time that we have engaged with politics fully in the last few years is the US election race in 2008. There were lots of reasons for people to get interested in the election with Obama’s mass marketing and a campaign that engaged young voters.
The number of students who vote in the general election is still unknown, i’m not really a cynic and would love to see a mass student turnout to have you say in an important decision that will affect our lives.
Any technology magazine you pick up will have used the term “iPhone killer?” at least 10 times since its release in 2007. Don’t get me wrong, there are many phones out there that have better features like a decent camera, flash integration or a more comprehensive email client. But none come close to competing with the iPhone overall, I am pretty sure Apple were shocked by the ‘app revolution’ which has really propelled the iPhone to its unbeatable status.
Tech radar gives us a simple(kind of) explanation to why the iPhone won’t ever be killed “Fundamentally, the problem with most iPhone killers is that they’re not actually trying to kill the iPhone. They, as devices, may think they are, but most of them are playing a different game because of the OSes they run, and the companies behind them.”
MG Siegler suggests that “One way to think about it is to compare smartphones and more precisely, their OSes, to religion”. This is where it gets a little whacky, he kind of goes off on one right now, read his explanation with caution… deep breath:
“In a religious sense, the iPhone is a monotheistic religion. Basically, its OS believes in one device. Yes, I know there is the iPod touch, as well as variations of the iPhone (original, 3G, 3GS), but these are essentially all the same device with essentially the same hardware, just boosted specs. Meanwhile, Android, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Symbian, etc. are all polytheists. But “pagans,” while perhaps not exactly right, is a cooler term, so let’s go with that. All of these other mobile OSes are pagans. They answer to many devices, their “gods.”
Now, I’m not saying that the pagan approach is a bad one, I’m simply saying that trying to kill a monotheist device with a pagan OS is going to be very hard. The problem is that none of these pagan OSes have that one, single device that they can use to help spread their doctrine to the masses. They may put more faith in one device at any given time (which Android is already doing with Droid), but ultimately, their allegiance lies with the many other devices under their OS umbrella as well. The pagan church (in the Android case, Google), would be unwise to play favorites because it would undermine the ultimate goal: To be on as many devices as possible.”
OK regardless of how much coffee he had before writing this, I kind of agree with him. They are fighting a different battle that can never really be won. It would be interesting to see how many smartphone manufactuers thought in this way and believed they weren’t competing with it.
Regardless of all this, I cannot see myself buying any phone that isn’t an iPhone or one of its successors in the next 10 years.
Talbot FM was our radio station for our second radio newsday. Talbot FM’s target audience is 18-30 year olds and we focused our news based around them. We wanted to make news that was relevant and of interest to them but also had strong news values.
Some of our stories were fairly general and wouldn’t seem to be aimed at our audience but it is always possible to get relevance to your audience. This is a challenge for all broadcasters and their audience but can be achieved in most news stories. For example, our unemployment story highlighted people going traveling which was of interest to our target audience.
We used a sports reporter in our bulletins which was criticised as it was a short section and didn’t need a second reporter. It was roughly 20 seconds in length and was slightly distracting for the listener without a proper allocated section.
The order of news stories is always a tough decision and a difficult skill to master. Boyd’s book on techniques of broadcast journalism says “The myriad of baffling decisions and bewildering juxtapositions are resolved in a moment, thanks to a mixture of pure instinct and experience.”
Several of our stories were used throughout the day with fresh clips and angles. Most members of any radio audience will only hear one bulletin so repeats are never a problem. There are also lots of people who may only listen to certain sections so won’t be bothered by a repeat in stories. Many of the fresh audio clips had been recorded at the beginning part of the day so it wasn’t a long job to use a different section in a later bulletin.
To improve our Talbot FM bulletins we really needed to ditch the second reporter and really focus in on our target audience so we matched their needs.
As part of our radio days broadcasting from South Coast Radio and Talbot FM we produced a podcast released at the end of each day with discussions on some of the hot topics of the day. A podcast differs from a news piece as it lends itself to more of a discussion with points of view rather than a fast paced news bulletin.
The improvement from our first to our second podcast was huge, we really got to grips with the concept and it all become less scripted and natural.
The aim of a news podcast is to take news stories and open up discussion to get a rounded concept of the news item. In my opinion, it’s a good idea to have a guideline but as long as you have people who know enough about the topic then scripting isn’t necessary. This was our primary mistake from our first podcast, we lacked the confidence to ad lib anything and it sounded slightly too clunky and rehearsed. Many podcasts are edited together but ours had to be done in one take which wasn’t a problem but made it difficult for us to work out particular things, including the length of it.
Our second podcast aimed at a younger audience included a well rounded piece on the Brits including vox pops, an interview and a discussion. We managed to get an interview with a lady who was backstage and she gave us an insight into the atmosphere backstage. We rounded it off with a discussion on whether awards were deserved with a singing example from a talented member of our team.
It also included a bit on people going traveling instead of finding work which could have been improved by some vox pops or even an interview.
If we were to improve our podcast’s we would have used more sound bites to make it feel rich and interesting to our audience. Less scripting would have been an improvement but overall the second podcast fulfilled it’s aims and objectives. Possibly more sound beds would have allowed for a deeper understanding for our audience. For example, some sounds from the brit awards.
Our second TV broadcast was two hours earlier than the first. We were broadcasting at 1pm which limited the measures we could go to in gathering video for stories. In saying that, we did try and gather a similar amount of video to our first bulletin. We included national headlines and sport which were simple to produce. Our range of news was broad but many were national stories with a local angle to them including government plans to cut down on smoking, Skipton Building Society and Alzheimer’s research funding.
I covered the smoking story, which was a little basic in terms of shots as the statistics being used as part of the story wouldn’t have made great TV unless animated to a great degree. We also covered a story on the play Journey’s End which was our most rounded package as it included an interview with two of the cast on its opening night. Coupled with some fantastic stills it turned into something that was very visual and great for TV.
We decided to be a little bit more adventurous in the studio with two presenters and a reporter on screen. The two presenters worked well as they could bounce off each other and spread the load. There were times when one presenter was idol which was slightly off putting for the audience with lots of wandering eyes. The technicalities of having three people mic’d up was slightly difficult due to only two lapel microphones. This was solved with the presenters on one and the reporter on the other. There was a slightl difficulty for the reporter in reading off the auto-cue which looked a bit bizarre on screen with the reporter glaring away from the camera.
We included in our bulletin an ‘as-live’ interview with the presenters which may have been mis-leading to our audience as there was a LIVE symbol placed on screen. We would have done this completely differently if we realised that this was slightly wrong and telling a lie to our viewers. This ‘as-live’ piece was also placed at the beginning of our bulletin and dragged along a bit which may have caused our audience to get bored and lose interest.
The bulletin went out on time, with no real hiccups. A breaking news story added to the bulletin, with the addition of some graphics to this would have completed it.
If we were to improve our broadcast we would have scrapped the ‘as-live’ interview and replaced it with something else. We also would have changed the set up with three presenters to allow for a better transition. If the technology permits it we could have had him out in Bournemouth somewhere reporting from an interesting scene.
For our first newsday we were taking over South Coast Radio aimed at an adult audience aged 40+. We had three bulletins at 11:30, 12:30 and 1:30. We had to cover news of interest to our audience locally and nationally. Many of our national stories were given a local angle to target our audience.
The stories of the day were that of Lord Goldsmith at the Chilcot enquiry and Holocaust Memorial Day. We ran with these stories with different angles and a variety of information throughout the day. We recognised towards the end of the day that a lot of our stories were limited to Bournemouth and the surrounding area which was a possible weakness. Our target area was much larger covering Dorset and parts of Hampshire.
We tried to not repeat any story at all which was fairly ambitious and was the downfall of our final bulletin. The 1:30 bulletin was an extended 5 minutes which was a fairly large increase to make up in an hour from the 12:30 (3 minutes). It seemed like we were on target but we were ambitious and tried to fit in too many stories with a multitude of audio clips. Once in the studio we didn’t fully run through and had some clips missing and in the wrong order, this had a detrimental effect to our bulletin cutting it short.
To improve our first radio newsday we needed to be realistic and understand that we can’t cover all the stories we would like to. We underestimated the time it would take for our final bulletin and was left panicking and not performing under the pressure. With an extra minute or two we would have sorted out the problems and come away with a strong bulletin.
For our first newsday, we were ambitious in terms of the stories we followed and the lead time we had to prepare them for broadcast.
I woke up and checked my ‘Bournemouth’ twitter feed to see if there was any breaking news. I found news of a fire that started at 4am at Dorset Reclaim, which was a local charity company dealing in furniture. Within five minutes I was out the door, camera in hand. By the time I arrived the fire had been put out but there were still a lot of good shots, a lot of people to interview and enough to make it into a full package for our broadcast.
In the rest of our news we managed to a good selection of vox pops, oovs and interviews. There was one story that we didn’t cover related to the council which we couldn’t get any decent footage for. This is one of the drawbacks for TV as sometimes strong journalistic stories don’t lend themselves to TV.
We covered stories from BHS turning into Primark, the IMAX takeover by the council, wind turbines being used by Tesco and speed limits on Bournemouth roads. Our lead story was the IMAX takeover, in terms of news values this was of high interest to our target audience. Our general views were a little bit basic, with the addition of some alternative angles would have added to the package.
Our bulletin had a catchy intro sequence and a continuing purple theme. We could have spent a little bit more time improving our lower thirds to fit into our theme, but overall it was well rounded.
We were all surprisingly calm with only 2 hours till broadcast, we had a few stories already edited which allowed for everybody to muck in and work together as a team to finish the others. We ended up in the studio with 45 minutes to spare, we started to prepare our weather bulletin but realised that it was more important to have a couple of run throughs to highlight any problems. We got our broadcast out, on time and with all the stories we wanted.
The real key is communication in news broadcasts, with a strong leader and a team willing to go that extra mile you cannot fail. We were quite lucky that a few stories popped up and we had the transport to get there. One thing that differs to a real TV broadcast is the amount of resources we had, we were only working in a small area so getting anywhere was easy. A national TV news programme will be limited to certain areas as they can’t cover the whole Country in one shift.
If we were to improve on our broadcast we would have included a weather report and tried to be a little bit more creative with our packages.
I went along to film the Rallye Sunseeker 2010 for a video piece and decided to create a short promo video for the event and it got popular amongst the organisers and ended up on their website, http://www.rallyesunseeker.co.uk/
Multi-media journalist, freelance video producer and sportsman currently studying for an MA at Bournemouth University.
Twitter Updates
@MWforHR correction BSkyB is not owned by NewsCorp, it is a majority shareholder and has no editorial decision making in News in reply to Mwforhr2010-11-03
edy and a whole host of BBC classics at just under a third of the cost of the UK licence fee. The app differs from the UK version which offers a seven-day catch-up service.
3,600 SureStart centres across England was a flagship initiative of the former Labour government, providing support and advice for parents of pre-school children in the hope of improving their life-chances.
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