Got a minute?
| 15:41 UK time, Friday, 13 July 2007
A depressing and ill-informed torrent of newsprint has appeared since the news about ´óÏó´«Ã½ One's new bulletin at 8pm which my colleague Craig Oliver explained in his recent entry.
In case you hadn't seen it - our critics say we are, surprise surprise, dumbing down. How original.
I don't normally blog in TV news areas - leaving my colleagues to do this - but I thought I'd point out a few basic points to the open-minded.
Firstly, this is not happening at the expense of existing output, much of which is highly detailed, analytical and "highbrow". It's an extra which, shock horror, the audience told us they would like us to do and to which we, being public service broadcasters, should be obliged to listen.
If we ask everyone to pay the licence fee to support ´óÏó´«Ã½ News, then ´óÏó´«Ã½ News should serve all audiences from the very young to the very old. But we don't always do that, as Craig explained in his original piece. So this is about an offering aimed at those who don't connect with our existing output - but news matters to them and they want to know - but they don't want us to spend all day telling them with lots of graphs and professors.
It's not instead of anything: we wouldn't expect lovers of the Ten, Today or Newsnight to set their hard disc recorders to 8pm to catch Natasha's news minute - but a difference audience will. Job done.
By the way, far from being a dumb exercise, as any good sub-editor will tell you, writing the news of the day in a 60 second précis is a far greater journalistic skill than writing it in 60 minutes.
My background has been providing exactly this type of service for radio - both ´óÏó´«Ã½ and commercial - for more than 20 years. You have to really know your stories, understand why they are important and how they can be connected and relevant to an audience that might otherwise want to channel hop or just make a cuppa. It's a tough ask and I wish my TV colleagues the very best of luck.
The truth is that different audiences like the news presented to them in different ways. There is no "one size fits all" - nor in the modern world is there a definition of "news" - to some people it might include entertainment news and sport and to others it never, ever will. That's fine - it's all about choice nowadays: your choice.
The ´óÏó´«Ã½ has an amazing range of news services. To be fair, the majority are canted towards a broadsheet and upmarket audience - we don't want to mess about with them - but why shouldn't the rest of the audience have a chance to be served as they want to be served by ´óÏó´«Ã½ News? If we failed to listen we would be guilty of extreme arrogance and the greatest sin for a public service broadcaster: not caring about or listening to all your audience.
Comments
Well said.
I'm not sure whether I will want to watch this new minute but for those who wish to, there should be a choice.
If that is what you have been doing for 20 years no wonder you sound so offended that so many people consider it a waste of time.
When I was younger I used to listen to Radio 1. I did so because I wanted to listen to music and entertainment.
I remember you on Simon Mayo's Breakfast Show. I quite liked the show but Newsbeat was always the rubbish bit. Listening to it, I always felt like I was being condecended to.
Being 14 does not mean you cannot digest a normal news broadcast.
If I wanted to listen to news I would not have turned on Radio 1.
This news minute is just the same. It comes across as the smug talking down to the stupid.
Good for you. I personally am not interested in this bulletin but I entirely support you for doing it. Would these people equally complain about Newsround considering it is aimed at children?
Don't get too angry about this Rod, you can't please everyone. Be satisfied that a silent majority think you're doing a good job. ´óÏó´«Ã½ Bashing seems to be the latest craze I've noticed.
"In case you hadn't seen it - our critics say we are, surprise surprise, dumbing down. How original."
About as original as the ´óÏó´«Ã½ always putting up off-topic comments attacking the Daily Mail
I'm afraid you're fighting a losing battle, on these blog pages at least.
Some of us are of a reasonable disposition, and see that the news bulletin you're creating will have an audience, and hopefully extend the reach of ´óÏó´«Ã½ News beyond where it is today.
Others, however, are content to sit upon their high horse and decree that everyone should watch what they want to watch or don't watch at all. A note for those people:
Be smug. The brief 8pm news bulletin is obviously below you. But you're not the only people paying the license fee. A light, chatty atmosphere is not your cup of tea, but let the ´óÏó´«Ã½ try and innovate and appeal to a new audience. They pay the fee too, and they deserve an attempt at programming that suits them.
Your 10pm show will still be there. This isn't going to affect your life one jot.
I broadly sympathise with your problem of catering to a broad audience, however, it can be very difficult for a viewer to identify correctly which of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ new offerings is appropriate viewing.
In true nanny state tradition, can I suggest that you go the way of the fat and salt labelling on my supermarket pre-cooked dinner and have some sort of dumbness traffic light system for the news. A little coloured disk in the corner would suffice: green for highbrow, amber for moderately stupid and red for the new 8pm bulletin.
"It's an extra which, shock horror, the audience told us they would like us to do and to which we, being public service broadcasters, should be obliged to listen."
There are a lot of people telling you that your news output in general is going downhill, but are you listening to that? This seems to be a case of "selective hearing" and why do we not hear about this audience research? Whom did you ask? Given your enthusiasm for holding the audience from one prog to next, do you actually mean just people who watch Eastenders on Tuesday/Thursday or the fillers you put on at 7.30 when up against Coronation Street on Mon/Wed/Friday? The bulk of these people will either have seen the 6 or will not care about news - they want Hello (no surprise NK is reading it).
Sixty seconds of news? Interest rates go up - explain why that matters in ten seconds. Fighting in the Middle East? Try that in ten seconds - you would not even have time to name the participants.
Ah, yes, of course, that is why it will be "Paris Hilton goes shopping". They can get this on 5 or ITV.
People are being cynical about the new 8pm news bulletin?
This reminds me of the departing Tony Blair speech against the media that I've become quite fond of, about how its not enough for a story to be a questionable line of judgement, but that it has to be a conspiracy - a hidden agenda, a attempt at dumbing down - whatever. Why can't moves like this just be seen as the well-intentioned public service initiatives they are?
I think the public deserve an explanation from the ´óÏó´«Ã½ regarding the use of licence payers money being used to pay your £50,000 fine?.
It's in the way the ´óÏó´«Ã½ presents it, though, Rob. If you'd launched it on the quiet with no announcements, you wouldn't have had the torrent of ill-informed criticism. And people would have got used to it.
But instead it had to be launched with a plug on the news website and a self-congratulatory blog entry - presenting a ripe bottom for the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s enemies to kick.
Sometimes the ´óÏó´«Ã½ really is its own worst enemy, and should be smarter in the way it does these things.
´óÏó´«Ã½ news is rightly admired as an independent source of news .The integrity of this independence can be judged when politicians try to demean it , most notably in the Iraq dossier tragedy,when a so-called left-of centre government did what the Tories had been trying to do for years and unravel this independence with accusations of bias and dishonesty.
The difficlty arises when the newsmakers try to become the news.Some presenter trying to be the Robert Redford of televised news only comes between the viewer and he facts.We remember the great reporters because they gave insight into what they were reporting, not because their hairdresser had worked miracles with hair fixative( a la Jsmes Cameron).
If I want to watch good news reporting I always turn first to the
´óÏó´«Ã½ and I hope that quality can be maintained against the people who would want to erode its independent
spirit, be they in the shape of politicians or the media bias and oligarchy of someone like Rupert
Murdoch.
A drepressing and ill informed torrent.... our critics say we are, surprise surprise dumbing down....
Frankly the incredible arrogance of your blog took my breath away, how dare the masses comment on what we've decided to do, who do they think they are..... is the sub text!
Well we're the people that pay your wages, whether its over 60 second news bulletins or the ´óÏó´«Ã½ distorting stories (re the Newsnight issue were it appears that its not important to use an honest timeline of events) we have a right to say what we think and this appears to be the only medium where we can.
Just who are these mythical viewers who told you they wanted you to do this? I can assure you that I'm a viewer and I don't but then again I doubt very much whether you'll listen to my opinion as it clearly doesn't agree with yours and therefore must be wrong.
If I displayed that kind of attitude to my companies customers I'd be sacked and rightly so but as you're in the ´óÏó´«Ã½ you can apparently do and say what you like without any fear of comeback!