Election Night on Television & Radio

The old saying goes "the revolution will be televised", and that most certainly is the case here. The UK General Election will definitely be televised like never before.

We'll deal with the usual suspects later, but first a quick look at what other channels are doing.

In Ireland, RTE1 will have coverage of the election, starting at 11.45 pm. Coverage continues until 4am, and then coverage picks up again at 8am for a short 75 minute update.

Overseas, BBC World will have live coverage from 2100 GMT, that's 2200 UK, and 2300 CET. Coverage continues until 6am.

s4C will also have live coverage, produced by BBC Wales, in the Welsh language, starting at 10pm UK and continuing until 6am.

Now onto the main suspects. BBC1 England, BBC2 Wales, BBC2 Scotland, BBC2 Northern Ireland, and the BBC News Channel are simulcating the main election programme from London, presented by David Dimbleby from 9.55pm. There is continuous coverage until 2pm on Friday, when BBC1 and the BBC News Channel have a delayed BBC News at One. The entire election schedule from 9.55pm Thursday to 2pm Friday is being simulcast in HD live on BBC HD.

For the first time, BBC1 Northern Ireland has its own Election Night programme, also starting at 9.55pm, going on until 6am. The reason for this is simple. In previous elections, Northern Ireland constituencies didn't start their counts until the next morning. This often meant that results didn't come in until about 4pm the next day. This time, counts will begin as soon as the polls close.

BBC1 Wales will have their own election night programme, hosted by Huw Edwards, again starting at 9.55pm and finishing at 6am. BBC1 Scotland's Election night programme also airs from 9.55pm to 6am, and is being simulcast nationwide on BBC Parliament. All the BBC1 regions will be back together at 6am for continuing coverage. The BBC2 nations return to normal BBC2 programmes at 6am as well.

ITV1 is providing a serious amount of election coverage as well. Their Election Night programme from ITN also begins at 9.55pm and will continue until 6am. GMTV takes over coverage, until 9.25am when ITN returns with another hour of election coverage until normal service resumes with This Morning at 10.30am.

Sky News has election coverage all through Thursday, with their results programme kicking off at 9pm, and continuing all the way until 5pm Friday.

At the moment, we do not yet know what the other major international news channels are doing for this. Al Jazeera, CNNI, EuroNews and many others haven't released any information yet. It would be strange for CNNI not to be covering it in depth as they have covered all the debates so far. They have also done Election Night programmes in previous election years live from London. As soon as I know more, I'll update you.

On radio, Radio 4 and Radio 5 Live have separate Election Night programmes of their own, both beginning at 10pm. Radio 4's coverage until the end of Today at 9am, whilst Radio 5 Live continues their coverage until 7pm Friday night. BBC Local Radio stations will have their own election specials airing overnight on Thursday. Most will begin at 10pm and finish around 5am or 6am. Some like BBC Radio Solent are finishing at 3am.

As for commercial radio, well, Absolute Radio will have an Election Party from 11pm to 6am. Some local stations may well provide coverage. Certainly in my local area, I remember Pirate FM providing coverage overnight, mixed with music.

BBC World Service is also providing continuous news coverage during the results process. The coverage begins at 9pm UK with Newshour, continues at 10pm with an Election Special, then various news programmes continue the coverage from 5am to 3pm. Listeners in the UK will be able to hear the coverage on DAB digital radio.

Amanpour to leave CNN.

TV Newser is reporting the worst kept secret of the week.  Christiane Amanpour is leaving CNN to join ABC News in the US as anchor of “This Week”, the weekly political and public affairs programme.

This will mean that Amanpour will finish at the end of April before Christiane takes over on This Week in August.

When Amanpour does finish, CNN should move Connect The World to 8pm, and put World One on at 9pm, before Back|Story at 10pm, all times are UK by the way.

OFCOM and ‘sexy’ phone-in channels

OFCOM has repeatedly had problems regulating the kind of sexy phone in channels that appear on Sky in the 900s section of the EPG. 

Just recently, OFCOM fined two companies for broadcasting sexy material straight after the watershed on FTA channels.  Now, bear in mind, the watershed is 9pm.  By OFCOM’s own definition…

“…The watershed only applies to television. The watershed is at 2100. Material unsuitable for children should not, in general, be shown before 2100 or after 0530.”

It was material unsuitable for children, and it was broadcast after the watershed, yet they were still fined.

Additionally in the same Broadcast Bulletin, OFCOM found the channels in breach on about 10 separate occasions, despite the fact that only 1 of these occasion actually contravenes OFCOM’s own rules about R18-strength material.  All other incidents related to material comparable to those seen in movies rated 18 by the BBFC.

This is why I find the whole business of regulation these days to be totally out of sync with reality.  We see more violence on television dramas and movies than we see sex, and sex is regarded as the more corrupting, yet there has been many occasions when words encouraging violent acts have brought those acts about.  That’s called Incitement, and its against the law.  Yet the right wing will say, “NO, sorry, you can’t encourage someone to commit a violent act.”, yet in the same breath, they will say that the depiction of sex is a “…corrupting influence…”.  There’s only one thing to say to a viewpoint like that.

“THAT’S A TOTALLY HYPOCRITICAL AND NONSENSICAL VIEWPOINT.  The facts do NOT back up your views.”

But then the right wing doesn’t seem to let facts get in the way of their own delusions.

In OFCOM’s case here, they are trying to walk what they consider to be a tightrope, when in fact, beneath that “tightrope” is a canyon the size of the Grand Canyon, with the pro-censorship brigade on one side, and reality (and just about everybody else) on the other.  There’s no fine line between the camps, there’s a huge gap, and you’re NEVER gonna satisfy the pro-censorship camp, so don’t waste your time trying to. 

Besides which, the Virgin Media, Freeview, Freesat and Sky platforms all have a facility called PIN protection.  Basically, you can block access to programmes and channels you don’t want kids to watch by setting a PIN. 

This smacks of censorship by stealth, and to be frank, it is not OFCOM’s job to be am self-appointed censor.  That the BBFC’s job.  And if material is shown that IS comparable to material shown in films that have been rated by the BBFC as 18, then OFCOM HAS NO BUSINESS TRYING TO CENSOR IT.

First on Viewpoint: New CNBC Europe graphics

This morning I woke up to new graphics and a new ident for CNBC Europe.  I first noticed the new look on Squawk Box Europe this morning.  They are using a new (to me) font, which may have been specially done for them.  Italicised, it closely resembles Crillee, which was used for credits and titles in Star Trek: The Next Generation. 

The new graphics are airing on Worldwide Exchange, so perhaps US viewers can now see them.  I certainly seem to be ahead of the pack on this story, nobody else seems to have noticed, and no reporting on this was done last week, so I must guess that I’m first with this news.

The new font is being used on the ticker, lower thirds, and full screens.  The hotboards have also been redesigned.  Everything looks far simpler, and less extravagant.

I hope to have some caps up shortly.

Suggestion for RTE: Put RTE News Now on satellite FTA.

Yes, you read that correctly.  I am actively suggesting that RTE puts their online news channel, RTE News Now, onto Astra 2 alongside their other channels, but with one notable difference.  Whilst RTE1 and RTE2 are on the Irish Bonus Pack, and not available to UK viewers, they should put RTE News Now free-to-air on both the Sky platform and the Freesat platform.

All this would be though is a precursor to the eventual launch of the long planned RTE International.  RTE said they hoped to launch it by the end of 2009, but that obviously hasn’t happened.  So far, no word on when RTE International will launch.

Also, a word of advice to RTE about RTE International.  Don’t immediately worry about creating a whole new news service for it, you don’t have to do a “BBC World News” straight off the bat.  Get the news bulletins that air on RTE1 and RTE2 onto the channel.  Get an RTE News: Breakfast programme to air between 7am and 9am.  The fact that RTE1 doesn’t have a breakfast news programme is shameful, and getting more shameful every week, that such a programme fails to launch. 

Keith Olbermann: A cry for help

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I can understand where he’s coming from.  I lost my mother back in October.  Different disease, same emotions, and thank the gods that she was being treated on the National Health Service.

Viewpoint – John Terry’s sacking

“Hope For Haiti Now” – a global telethon.

“Hope For Haiti Now” is something of a first.  A global telethon that  will truly be seen worldwide.

CNN International will be airing the 2 hour telethon at 8pm ET / 5pm PT / 0100 GMT / 0200 CET.  It is also being aired internationally on National Geographic Channels around the world and MTV channels around the world, including China.

In Canada, the CBC and CTV are both airing the telethon.  So far, I have heard nothing about any UK or Irish terrestrial broadcasters taking the telethon.  US Local broadcasters, including affiliates of ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, The CW and PBS, are airing the telethon at 8pm local time, except in the Central time zone where it airs at 7pm. 

Any further news on broadcasters airing the telethon, I’ll let you know.

Keith Olbermann refutes Brown smears

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NBR without Paul Kangas, but with a new look

On December 31st 2009, an era ended at Nightly Business Report when co-anchor and one of the founding team there, Paul Kangas, retired after just over 30 years at NBR.

He started as the Stocks anchor back in 1979, when WPBT first produced The Nightly Business Report.  Linda O’Byron and Merwin Sigale were the original anchors.  Susie Gharib joined NBR in 1998, and for nearly 12 years, they were the team bringing the world of business news every day to an appreciative American and later global audience through the internet.

Tom Hudson, also of Chicago based syndicated programmer “First Business” is now co-anchor in Miami, taking over from Paul Kangas, but it would be impossible to “replace” him.

However, that’s not the only change.  A new anchor, a new format, though some elements have remained exactly the same, a new studio set, which is entirely virtual, and a new graphic look, NBR has undergone a massive overhaul that wouldn’t have been necessary otherwise.  But because it was the end of an era, NBR needed to do something that would catch people’s attention.  And whilst the blogosphere hasn’t been hot with the new look, Newscast Studio has some info, though little is really known.