BBC News

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**BBC News Channel** formerly **BBC News 24** is a 24 hour rolling news television channel in the United Kingdom.

The channel launched as BBC News 24 on 9 November 1997 at 17:30 as part of the BBC's foray into digital domestic television channels, becoming the first competitor to Sky News, which had been running since 1989. It can be found on Freeview channel 80.

## BBC News History

BBC News started as BBC News 24 @ 17:30 (5:30) on 9 November 1997 as part of BBC's digital TV channels. It became a competitor to Sky News which have been running on TV since 1989. Since then new technology has came to BBC News 24 with 2 minute bulletins in BBCi, BBC News Online, & BBC News Online on their mobile phones. BBC News 24 had a TV station partner which was BBC World that was launched 2 1/2 years prior to the launch on BBC News 24. Sky News had had a free hand with domestic news for over eight years (since February 5, 1989) and being owned by News International their papers were used to criticise the BBC for extending its news output.

News 24 was one of the first BBC channels to make extensive use of new computerised broadcast technology, which was responsible for a considerable number of on-air gaffes and presentation errors in its early years.

The channel's journalistic output has been overseen by Controller of the channel, Kevin Bakhurst, since December 16, 2005. This was a return to having a dedicated Controller for the channel in the same way as the rest of the BBC's domestic television channels. At launch, Tim Orchard was Controller of News 24 from 1997 until 2000. Editorial decisions were then overseen by Rachel Atwell in her capacity as Deputy Head of television news. Her deputy Mark Popescu became responsible for editorial content in 2004, a role he continued in until the appointment of Bakhurst as Controller in 2005.

On February 22, 2006, the channel was named News Channel of the Year at the Royal Television Society Television Journalism Awards for the first time in its history. The judges remarked that this was the year that the channel had "really come into its own."

### 2008 Rebranding

On April 21, 2008 BBC News 24 was renamed BBC News on the channel itself - but is referred to as the BBC News Channel on other BBC services. This is part of the creative futures plan, launched in 2006, to bring all BBC News output under the single brand name.

News 24 moved from the Studio N8 set to what was the home of the national news in Studio N6, allowing the news channel to share its set with the BBC News at One and the BBC News at Ten - with other bulletins moving to studio TC7.

## Programming

### News

Each hour consists of headlines on each quarter hour, extended at the top of the hour to form the main part of the daily schedule though these are interspaced with other programmes, generally at weekends. This will be often be displaced by rolling news coverage including reports and live interviews. Weather summaries are provided every half hour by forecasters from the BBC Weather Centre while business and sport updates are also presented generally from within the main studio.

#### Breaking news

The BBC maintains guidelines for procedures to be taken for breaking news. With domestic news, the correspondent first records a "generic minute" summary (for use by all stations and channels) and then priority is to report on BBC Radio 5 Live, then on the BBC News Channel and any other programmes that are on air. For foreign news, first a "generic minute" is recorded, then reports are to World Service radio, then the reporter talks to any other programmes that are on air.

A key claim made by Lord Lambert in his report had been that the channel was slower to react to breaking news compared with its main rival Sky News. To counteract this, a new feature introduced with the 2003 relaunch was a 'breaking news sting': a globe shown briefly onscreen to direct a viewer's attention to the breaking news.

The graphics relaunch in January 2007 has since seen the globe sting replaced by a red strapline to highlight the breaking story immediately.

To complement this, a permanent live news ticker had earlier been introduced in 2006: this had only previously been in use sporadically. News statements are shown as continuously-scrolling upper-case text located at the bottom of the screen; some past ambiguities noted have included spelling the plural of MPs as "MPS", together with other occasional spelling and grammatical errors. The design of this ticker was slightly altered with the 2007 graphics redesign and from June turned red to indicate breaking news, as Newswatch reported viewers' confusion.

### Overnight and special simulcasts

The BBC began simulcasting the channel overnight on terrestrial channels BBC One with the launch of the channel, ending the tradition of a closedown but at the same time effectively making the service available to many more viewers. In the early 2000s, BBC Two also started simulcasting the channel, although the weekend morning show Weekend 24 had been simulcast on the channel in the early days. During major breaking news events, the BBC News Channel has been broadcast on BBC One; examples of special broadcasts include the September 11th attacks, 7 July 2005 London bombings and the capture of Saddam Hussein. Coverage of major events has also been simulcast on BBC World.

### Simulcast BBC One programmes

Since the launch of Breakfast in 2000, the programme has been simulcast on both BBC One and BBC News, replacing the individual breakfast news programmes that had been run by both channels. Since May 2006, the simulcast begins with the programme at 06:00 until 08:30 when programming on BBC News begins. Breakfast on BBC One then generally continues until 09:15.

The BBC News at Ten began simulcasting on the channel on January 30, 2006 as part of the Ten O'Clock Newshour, followed by extended sport and business news updates. The bulletin was joined in being simulcast on April 10, 2006 when the BBC News at One (with British Sign Language in-vision signing) and BBC News at Six bulletins were added to the schedule following a similar format to the News at Ten in terms of content on the channel once each simulcast ends.

During the Summer, the hour long programme News 24 Sunday is broadcast both on BBC One and the BBC News Channel at 9:00, to replace The Andrew Marr Show, which is off air. It is presented by Peter Sissons, and comes from the main News channel studio. The programme is made up mostly of interviews focusing on current affairs, and includes a full paper review, a weather summary, and a news update at 9:00, 9:30 and 10:00.

### Exclusive programmes

Part of the previous BBC News set. Other programming produced solely by the BBC News channel includes the BBC News at Five O'Clock with Huw Edwards (including Film 24 with Mark Kermode at 17:45 on Fridays), E24 (at 18:30 and 21:30, with Tasmin Lucia Khan), Sportsday (at 18:45, except on Friday and Saturdays when it is from 18:30, plus 22:30 every weekday) and Newswatch (Friday 20:45, Saturday 07:45).

Programmes including Click, Dateline London, HARDtalk, Our World, E24, The Record Europe, Reporters, Straight Talk, Your News and Your Money appear regularly in the weekend schedules. Many of these programmes also appear throughout the week on BBC News's sister channel BBC World News.

Previous BBC News programming includes Head 2 Head, STORYFix and BBC News 24 Tonight a regular weekday evening programme providing a round up of the days news which ran from 2005 to 2008.

### BBC World News shared programming

Between 01:00 and 06:00 UK Time (UKT) the channel simulcasts with its sister channel, BBC World News, for the first 25 minutes of each hour. Non-World programmes air generally on the half hour, notably ABC World News with Charles Gibson at 01:30. Since 21 April 2008, the overnight bulletins, while produced by the BBC News Channel were broadcast from the studios of BBC World News.

On October 1, 2007, BBC World News started broadcasting BBC World News America and World News Today at 00:00 and 03:00 UKT respectively. The programmes are also simulcast on the BBC News channel, except for BBC World News America, which only broadcasts for half an hour from 00:30 UKT.

### Sport coverage

In 1990, new broadcaster British Satellite Broadcasting launched its new satellite television service. During the news programmes on Galaxy and Now and during the sports news programme on The Sports Channel clips from other broadcaster's sports output would be used to illustrate the sports headlines. The BBC took BSB to court to sue them for copyright violation for showing highlights of the BBC's live broadcasts of the 1990 FIFA World Cup football matches. The High Court of Justice decided that the rebroadcasts were for the purposes of reporting the news and were legal, even if the highlights were also entertaining, the BBC lost the case but set a legal precedent.

Sports bulletins are usually at 45 minutes past the hour, with headlines at 15 minutes past the hour. There are also two extended sports bulletins per day, entitled 'Sportsday' broadcast at 6.45pm (6.30 Friday and Saturday) and 10.30pm (weekdays only). Each bulletin is read by a single sports presenter, with the exception of Saturday Sportsday, which is double headed.

### Business

An hourly business update is included during the weekday schedule from the BBC Business Unit, usually presented by Declan Curry or Aaron Heslehurst during BBC Breakfast and through the morning until the BBC News at One and Maryam Moshiri later on in the day. Other presenters include Susannah Streeter, Barbita Sharma, Sara Coburn and Sally Eden. These updates are usually broadcast at 40 minutes past the hour from 8.40am until 10.40pm. The final bulletin is an extended roundup of the day's business news. It was during a Business segment that Karen Bowerman famously interviewed Guy Goma thinking him to be Guy Kewney.