The newspaper for BBC pensioners – with highlights from Ariel online East Tower inspiration Page 6 AUGUST 2014 • Issue 4 TV news celebrates Remembering Great (BBC) 60 years Bing Scots Page 2 Page 7 Page 8 NEWS • MEMORIES • CLASSIFIEDS • YOUR LETTERS • OBITUARIES • CROSPERO 02 BACK AT THE BBC TV news celebrates its 60th birthday Sixty years ago, the first ever BBC TV news bulletin was aired – wedged in between a cricket match and a Royal visit to an agriculture show. Not much has changed, has it? people’s childhoods, of people’s lives,’ lead to 24-hour news channels. she adds. But back in 1983, when round the clock How much!?! But BBC TV news did not evolve in news was still a distant dream, there were a vacuum. bigger priorities than the 2-3am slot in the One of the original Humpty toys made ‘A large part of the story was intense nation’s daily news intake. for the BBC children’s TV programme competition and innovation between the On 17 January at 6.30am, Breakfast Time Play School has sold at auction in Oxford BBC and ITV, and then with Channel 4 over became the country’s first early-morning TV for £6,250. many years,’ says Taylor. news programme. Bonhams had valued the 53cm-high The competition was evident almost ‘It was another move towards the sense toy at £1,200. immediately. The BBC, wary of its new that news is happening all the time,’ says The auction house called Humpty rival’s cutting-edge format, exhibited its Hockaday. ‘We [were] beginning to fill in ‘an important member of the Play School newsreaders on screen for the very first the day. You wake up and you want to know cast, taking part in almost every single time just two weeks before ITN launched what’s going on in the world.’ episode and even receiving his very own in 1955. But Newsround, which launched in ‘There was no early morning news on fan mail.’ 1972, was certainly a BBC idea – the first television before Breakfast Time,’ notes Taylor, The large egg-shaped soft toy, which At 7.30pm on 5 July 1954, Richard Baker news targeted specifically at children. ‘and then you’ve got two channels doing it is dark green with checked trousers, was uttered the opening words. Topics included ‘It was a time when we realised that the within months – and it’s gone on to serve sold to a private bidder. the end of rationing and truce in Indochina. hunger for news and understanding was millions of people every day.’ It is thought as many as 20 were made The bulletin was 22 minutes long. And you not just something that adults needed’, says Technological improvements extended the during the time the show ran, but it is couldn’t see Baker in any of those minutes. Hockaday. ‘It was an instinct for children boundaries of what was feasible, ultimately believed to have been the first time an But it wasn’t too long before the BBC as well.’ leading to the launch of BBC News 24 in original Humpty has come on to the had its first in-vision newsreaders. Kenneth ‘The BBC has played a really important 1997. ‘You couldn’t run a rolling news open market. Kendall was the first, in 1955, later joined by role in tailoring a news service to children channel very effectively if you were still others such as Robert Dougall, who would in a way that doesn’t sanitise the world but shooting on film, waiting for it to come out all become semi-permanent fixtures of the communicates to that particular audience in of the developing bath,’ says Taylor. living room furniture. a way that makes sense to them.’ But audience viewing habits have changed This is quite literally the case in New But while Newsround is still going strong, too, with younger audiences particularly Broadcasting House, where newsreaders such another significant innovation recently accessing news online and through mobiles, as Nan Winton – the first female presenter in perished. The teletext service Ceefax ran rather than TV directly. 1960 – are immortalised in the furniture of from 1974 until it was finally closed down ‘It’s just incredible in a way that people this building through specific rooms named in 2012. have said many times that television won’t be in their honour, says controller of BBC News ‘We still get people today saying where there [in the future], it’s just been so strong Channel Sam Taylor. is Ceefax?’ says Taylor. As a precursor to the for so long,’ adds Taylor ‘For many of us working in television digital age, people would ‘watch’ cricket ‘The power of television, pictures and news or multimedia news, some of these matches by waiting for the page to refresh, storytelling is hugely there,’ agrees Hockaday. people are the people we grew up with,’ says he recalls. ‘At the heart of it, it’s [about] doing the Mary Hockaday, head of the newsroom and ‘You can also see in this the seeds of right journalism in the first place and then responsible for about 1,000 staff. personalisation,’ says Hockaday, ‘that I can thinking as innovatively and flexibly as ‘Whether it’s Richard Baker, Kenneth come to this and choose whether I want the possible about making sure we can offer Kendall or Robert Dougall, the profile of the travel and sport news, but I’m not interested people that quality however they come BBC newsreaders of TV news is so strong. in business, for example.’ to us.’ Those are the faces and voices of people In some ways Ceefax was also a precursor beamed into people’s homes, parts of to permanent news access, a path that would The business of news Strictly stays put • BBC World News is currently in • BBC World News has 5m Facebook fans Shows like Strictly Come Dancing will not be its construction programme has been 30m homes in the US (was 6m • The BBC is the most shared news brand returning to Television Centre until 2017 extended as a result. two years ago) on Twitter (source: Newswhip), with its – two years later than planned. S&PP will remain at Elstree – its home • World Service gets about 11m listeners stories shared a record 2.71m times in BBC Studios and Post Production since moving out of TVC in 2013 – Toa comeweek in America April – almost 50% more than any (S&PP) is delaying the start of its 15-year until major construction work to the • BBC.com has 26m US users, making it other publisher lease of the revamped Studios 1, 2 and 3, ‘doughnut’ is completed. To comethe only foreign news site enjoying a • BBC World News is in over 200 countries which had been due to re-open next year. However, the move of BBC Worldwide top ten spot among websites in and territories worldwide, 380m Although studio refurbishment work to Television Centre is expected to go the country households and 1.8m hotel rooms is on track, the developer’s broader plans ahead next year as scheduled. for the Wood Lane site have evolved and Please send your editorial contributions, or comments/feedback, to: Prospero, BBC Pension and Prospero is provided free of charge to retired BBC Benefits Centre, Broadcasting House, Cardiff CF5 2YQ. employees, or to their spouses and dependants. Email: [email protected] Prospero provides a source of news on former Please make sure that any digital pictures you send are colleagues, developments at the BBC and pension scanned at 300 dpi. issues, plus classified adverts. To advertise in Prospero, please see page 12. The next issue of Prospero will appear in October 2014. To view Ariel online, please visit www.bbc.co.uk/ariel. The copy deadline is Friday 5 September 2014. PROSPERO AUGUST 2014 BACK AT THE BBC 03 Moving back and staying put BBC staff (and Woman’s Hour is to move back to London from Salford to reduce costs. ex-staff) show The show’s production has been split A BBC spokesperson said: ‘As part of BBC support for Greste between bases in London and the North West Radio’s £38m DQF savings target, we have since 2002. One programme a week has reviewed the way we make programmes and BBC journalists and staff came out in been made in Salford since 2011, prior to decided that, by having a single production support of Peter Greste and his Al-Jazeera which it was made at BBC Manchester. base for Woman’s Hour, we can reduce costs colleagues Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Jenni Murray hosts the show three days a without affecting listeners’ enjoyment of Mohamed during a one-minute silent week – including the Salford edition – while the programme.’ protest at exactly 9.41am on Tuesday her counterpart Jane Garvey presents the The BBC will continue to produce about 24 June. other two. 3,500 hours of radio from Salford, including Both staff in the UK and those But the long-running show will move its Radio 4’s You and Yours, which moved to working in bureaux around the world production base back to London full time BBC North two years ago. This figure tweeted pictures showing their solidarity because of a review of Delivering Quality does not include 5 live. to #journalismnotacrime. First savings targets. Some of them are collected here: John Birt’s ‘BBC war stories’ John Birt reflected on some of the battles he faced – both internally and externally – as leader of the BBC, at a talk with Tony Hall in NBH’s Radio Theatre.