BBC World's coverage of the UK elections was truly stunning, from a tv professional's point of view, that is. Their use of gfx, especially when counting began, had me lusting for more. After the exit polls were released, all the arithmetic was done with the help of a large virtual 3D studio. That meant the presenter could 'walk' from one bar graph to another, 'move down' corridors in the Parliament and so on. It connected with me immediately, and didn't even have the decency to look gaudy! It's a pity that our channels don't have the budgets to mount something as good. Doordarshan could do it, I'm sure, but it will probably take it 10 years, if ever.
For long, the BBC has been the world's best tv news network, and that's because it's funded by the government, and because it's been headed by a succession of true-blue journalists. Alas, even 'aunty' as the BBC has been called before, is cutting costs. Read this.
2 comments:
Hear hear. I love the beeb and agree about the importance of government funding. I have had the privilege to write for the Canadian version of your beeb "the ceeb" CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation http://www.cbc.ca/ ) and have fought those who would seek to privatise it. If you compare our CBC to the corporately funded networks you see the difference immediately. Lots more tacky/sleazy US content and bloated with advertising. I'm not sure what the other stations are like in the UK but at least we have this measure available to us in Canada. Unfortunately, there are a lot of morons in our country who don't seem to mind the Americanization of our culture, politics or media so the glut of imported bug-eating, gross-out reality TV shows doesn't seem to bother them. This is the effect of living next to the US - our wonderful Empire-building "neighbours" ... sorry to rant ;-) I love the beeb!
Even their analysis chats were so cool. Crisp, interesting, nothing laboured about it (sorry, couldn't resist the pun!), and very very watchable even for someone who wouldnt have been following the campaign. No? I'm in awe.
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