Stuart Pinfold

Viva La Revolucion!

30 September 2007 at 22:11

We were woken early this morning by a loud scratching noise coming from somewhere behind the wardrobe - or was it from the ceiling? We didn't quite know - we were still half-asleep.

We both knew what it probably was, though - our pet hamster had escaped. Looking at the cage confirmed that, indeed, Scampi had broken free and was somewhere in the three-room flat. We started a massive hamster-hunt operation - executed with expert precision with me (of course) suggesting we should get back into the warm bed and listen out for more scratches to determine the location. Scoffing at me, Sarah told me that it was a rubbish idea and we should look for her instead. So we did - my first searching place was in the bed.

After trying to attract her with a box full of hamster-food (unsuccessful), calling out her name (that didn't work) and threatening to get the sniffer-dogs and police helicopters involved (surely that would've worked?!), we found her. She had somehow managed to get out of her cage, walk through the living room, squeeze through the gap in the almost-shut kitchen door, and through the (comparatively bigger) gap between the freezer and the washing machine. She'd then crawled round the back of the washer/dryer (we'll see if she chewed through any pipes en route next time we switch it on), climbed through the rather small hole in the wall where the pipe goes into the waterworks under the sink, and had then got stuck in the space between the cupboard under the sink and the floor. Luckily, the bit of wood at the front of the space easily pulled out and we managed to retrieve her without the use of Bedfordshire's forensics finest.

Putting her back into her cage and locking it shut with gaffer tape and a padlock, we went back to bed and back to our dreams. About two hours later, we learnt that the day before, two chimpanzees had escaped from local ZSL Whispnade Zoo.

I smell revolution in the air. George Orwell would be proud.

Photos:
1. A hamster
2. Whipsnade chimp, courtesy of John Robertson.

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Burma and UGC

26 September 2007 at 16:49

"Protesters are being peacefully dispersed with tear gas" - verbatim from a statement made this morning from Burma's military government. Quite how you can disperse anything peacefully by using gas is one thing, but when you learn that the Burmese media - all of which is owned or controlled by the government - is not reporting anything about the protests which could possibly turn out to be the biggest event for the country for 40 years and the start of the drive down the road to democracy, you wonder what on earth is going through the minds of the monks and residents protesting. Indeed, I am watching a feed of the channel now, coming from BBC Monitoring, and in the 'National News' programme, the top story (and, indeed, the only story on a 10-minute bulletin) is the inspection by ministers of a power station which is being built in a small Burmese town.

Watching the pictures coming out of Burma (or Myanmar if you prefer), the viewer could perhaps be said to have gone from shock that an entire people are protesting against a regime which says they're not allowed to criticise their country, to admiration and a sense of patriarchy for the population who are claiming back their country, to a hatred of the military regime who are apparently prepared to kill monks - the highest ethical power in the country - to retain control.

Like many other nations around the world - including North Korea, Eritrea, Iran and Saudi Arabia - the BBC (and other non-native news organisations) are not allowed to enter the country. Our reporting, therefore, has been mainly from Andrew Harding and Jonathan Head (both of whom are still reporting after 19 hours with no sleep) in neighbouring Thailand, with reaction from the UN in New York, the EU from Brussels and Strasbourg and the UK Government from their conference in Bournemouth.

Although some images have come from inside Burma itself from BBC sources risking imprisonment or worse to report from the protests, the overwhelming majority has come from the Burmese protesters. Images, videos and comment have been flooding in to the BBC's User Generated Content (UGC) hub for the last 48 hours or so, despite efforts from inside the country to shut down mobile telephone services and to firewall outgoing Internet communication. The UGC hub, staffed 24/7, was setup following the 7/7 attacks in London to receive, sort and distribute anything sent in by the public and therefore given the horrible term 'user-generated content'. Putting the question as to why we've suddenly started calling listeners and viewers 'users' to one side, the hub works alongside every national and local news outlet across radio, TV and online, and run various sections of BBCi, including the popular Have Your Say.

There's lots of debate about the future of (urgh - I'll say it one more time) user-generated content and whether it'll replace qualified journos altogether. I say it's very unlikely, for two reasons. First, it has been going on in radio for decades, although under the banner of 'phone-in'. In 30 years or so of doing it on the radio, it hasn't replaced the presenter, producer, newsreader or reporter. Second, it's only in certain situations where 'content sent in by viewers and listeners' (OK, I accept it's not as catchy) comes into its own, this story being one of them. This time, because of restricted access for journalists and the fact that the only people to easily gain access to the events are the residents already there, the only way to get the news onto western TV screens is to use this content, taken on camera phones and SMS'd out of the country in the normal way without having to use a satellite link.

Another situation would be something similar to the 7/7 attacks, where the only people to get access into the tunnels, and therefore the only way to be able to get photos of the bombed trains, was via the people involved. Sure, it would have been possible to tell the story without images from the smoke-filled tunnels beneath London, and some would say they would have preferred not to see those images. But, similar to the smouldering towers of New York from September 2001, the wobbly video showing a line of terrified Londoners walking calmly out of the tunnel as well as the image of the scrunched-up bus will symbolise defining moments in history, and everything else that happened as a result, for generations to come. And, in the case of Burma and other regimes which do not allow free reporting, the story of the 2007 uprising of the people of Myanmar against their government may not now be being told - at least in the mainstream media.

Now all we need to do is find another phrase to replace the awful one we currently use.

Update 27/09/07 10:32
Another department which BBC News is relying on while reporting the events in Burma is BBC Monitoring, briefly mentioned above and based in Caversham, just north of Reading. They monitor broadcasts from a wide range of media sources from large non-English speaking parts of the world, including Myanmar, translating into English where necessary and making them available for use across BBC news. While monitoring state media in the country, they saw this text which was displayed in an on-screen ticker on MRTV-3:

"People's Desire... We favour stability... We favour peace... We oppose unrest and violence. SKYFULL LIES OF BBC AND VOA... BEWARE OF BBC AND VOA"

Watching now, they have made the last line into a kind of trailer, which is being shown across the entire screen between each programme segment (see picture, above). VOA, by the way, is the Voice of America, a service similar to that of BBC World Service Radio which broadcasts in various languages across the world. Somehow I don't think they are, but if they're referring to the BBC's Cookie vs Socks scandal, they are completely right...

Photos:
1, 2 and 3. Anti-government protests in the Union of Myanmar (Burma) taken by Rangoon residents and sent to BBC News Online.
4. Snap of Burma's state-run MRTV-3 displaying a message to 'beware of the BBC'.

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Satellites

22 September 2007 at 11:45

These satellites, tucked away at the rear of Television Centre but clearly visible on the Hammersmith & City Tube between Latimer Road and Shepherd's Bush, handle the vast majority of incoming and outgoing communication links which are broadcast on TV, radio or online.

Without them, everything you heard or watched on the BBC's outlets which is (a) not in a studio or (b) further away than about 15 miles from central London, would be - at best - telephone quality.

Most foreign correspondents now carry an "M4" around with them - a satellite phone about the size of a large lunchbox. Once they've pointed the mini-dish in the right direction, they can call News Traffic to file their despatch or go through to a studio for a live interview on radio or television. The only problem is, as is the nature with satellites, the user must have a direct "line of sight" to the satellite in the sky. This means angling and turning it to a precise point - expressed in degrees - and making sure that nothing gets in the way of the 'line' between the M4 and the satellite. This means no trees, no members of the public inadvertently walking by, no buildings, no planes, not even birds. This is often why you see correspondents standing on top of buildings or in high places when they do live two-ways.

Once they've done all this and dialled Traffic, their signal transmits from their M4, up into the sky, is beamed back down again to one of the dishes you see here, then is carried via cables into the apparatus room where it is given a "traffic slot", and then on to us in the Traffic Unit, where it makes our computer screens blink. This is the same process for someone in - say - DR Congo than it is for someone in Hammersmith, just down the road. When we answer the call, our signal goes through all this again, in reverse, so the correspondent can hear what we - or the presenter in the studio - is saying. Now you know why we get "satellite delay".

The BBC also has 'lease lines' - lines which are permanently connected and can be picked up in London by anyone with access to them. All it requires is for someone to sit in the remote studio, telephone Traffic or the Master Control Room and say "can you pick up the Washington lease line". All we then have to do is select the Washington Bureau and - as if by magic - the correspondent or guest can hear us and we can hear them. There's lease lines to bureaux in Beijing, Berlin, Brussels, Delhi, Moscow, Nairobi, New York, Paris and Washington. There used to be many more before the closure of dozens of European-language World Service outlets, but with the advent of ISDN and VoIP technology, the cost of maintaining lease-lines is becoming prohibitive. I'm sure that, in the not-too-distant future, the still-existing lease lines will be discontinued and replaced with dial-up-when-needed equipment instead.

The corporation also has lines running - literally - over London. There are physical cables beneath the pavement linking Television Centre, Broadcasting House and Bush House. When a correspondent goes through to News24, WorldTV, 5Live or Radio4, which are all based in TVC, we simply offer the studio control of the cabled line from the satellite dishes. However, if Radio 2, R1 Newsbeat or 1Xtra TX (all based in BH) or any of the World Service Radio outlets (based in Bush) requires a correspondent, we simply push the line via Traffic through to the right studio using these underground cables. This system means we can get audio back and forth between the London sites quickly and easily, which is especially important in the case of breaking news. So, next time you're driving down Wood Lane or Great Portland Street and listening to a correspondent on your radio, it could be coming via cables just under your feet!

Photos:
Satellite dishes at the back of BBC Television Centre

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Technology

18 September 2007 at 13:36

I love technology and gadgets - I was playing with our new wireless router and sat-nav for hours when we bought them last week - but I currently have four screens in front of me to enable me to do my job. I also have a minidisc recorder/player, a volume level display and a Trilogy box to enable me to speak to other Triologys throughout the London newsrooms. In fact, the only thing that isn't computer-based is the telephone.

At Three Counties Radio, they've gone one step further and integrated the telephone into a computer system, too - meaning we have three screens and two sets of mice and keyboards to play with. Likewise, in the studio itself, there are two keyboards (both the same colour and make), one of which controls Radioman, the audio playout system, and the other controlling the standard PC, which the presenter uses to check emails and use ENPS. This often leads to much annoyance (or hilarity, depending on your viewpoint) when you start typing on the wrong keyboard and fire off sound effects and quickly start and stop three songs in a row in Radioman.

My only worry with everything going onto computer is this: what happens if there's a power failure? I was working on 3CR's Early Riser (broadcast between 0430-0630 in the morning) show in 2005. I entered the building, still half-asleep, at around 0400 and sat, as normal, in the newsroom with presenter Justin Dealey finalising the programme. At 0425, we went down to the studios and started the programme. At about 0440, we received our first phone call. Normal practise is to take the caller's details and call them back; this retains control of the programme and also means you have their details to keep on file for (a) any follow-ups or (b) not using again if they swear or break broadcasting rules. When I tried to call the listener back, I could not transfer them to the studio due to a fault with the TBUs, the equipment which puts calls on-air, following a power failure the night before. Instead, throughout the two-hour programme, I had to relay messages on-air to the presenter. Fortunately, people reverted to using other communication methods - such as email and txt - once they knew we had a problem with the phones. But now, if the computers aren't working following (and, indeed, during) a power failure, how do we put a programme on-air with: no music, no calls, no emails and no txt messages?

Cynics would say that you shouldn't be relying on contact from the public to make a radio programme. That's true, and most programmes on 3CR can cope without. But, as noted in a previous post, the large majority of radio is live - and this includes guests and reporters. With no telephones or ISDN lines, we can't get reporters or guests on-the-air either. Those small sections that are recorded - perhaps for time or legal reasons - are recorded digitally and played out via a computer. Again, no chance of playing them out.

A programme with JUST the presenter speaking, anyone? Thought not.

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Radio vs TV

14 September 2007 at 13:21

It's 13:21 BST and, from the basement at TV Centre, I'm watching a camera feed coming from studio TC7. The content of the studio: the Newsnight set. Even though the programme isn't on-air until 22:30 tonight, the set is up. It looks like the techies are setting up the microphones right now, and then the grips will work on the lighting grid to get it perfect.

I would imagine that there will be a few rehearsals (at least for the studio-based sections) during this afternoon or early evening. However, assuming that it's taken a couple of hours to get the studio to the state it's in now with the set in place, it will have taken a total of 10 hours to set-up the studio for a 50-minute show.

Compare this to radio; assuming you have a fully-functioning studio, you can walk in and start broadcasting immediately. There's no need to fiddle around for four hours with the lighting to give the presenter the desired "smooth soft" effect. Nor is there a need for a giant video-wall around two-thirds of the studio space. In fact, the only preparation needed is a check to ensure volumes are not too loud or quiet; but this can be done on-the-fly anyway.

Also, the amount of preparation time required is greatly different. Most radio is live. The large majority of TV - with the exception of rolling news channels - is recorded. Thinking about a magazine programme like Newsnight or The ONE Show (or, for that matter, news bulletins), the studio presenters and correspondent two-ways are live; everything else is recorded. Packages, the stories you see in between studio links, are all recorded, sent down to London, edited, fine-tuned and - finally - broadcast. A 3-minute package could take an entire day or more to prepare, and involve, at the very least, five people: one cameraman/sound recorder, one reporter/presenter, one person to take in the feed in the master control room, one person to edit the piece, and one person to hit play during the broadcast. If you want to add narration afterwards, you'll need to add a studio manager; any heavy news stories, a lawyer may need to look over it first. Most camera crews are made up of two people: one for the video and one for the audio. The manpower, and time spent working, start to stack up.

Compare this to radio: When working on the Afternoon Programme at Three Counties Radio, the team was made up of two or three people: myself, the presenter, and when we were lucky enough to have one, a reporter. The show lasted three-and-a-half hours. Set-up time required? Roughly the same - up to about 4-and-a-half hours depending on how good the stories were. A 10-minute interview took maybe half-an-hour to arrange over the telephone; but, at the same time, you could be arranging other interviews and items as you weren't stuck out on location. Granted, the reporters' sections took up about half-an-hour of the programme, and the news, sport and travel bulletins took up a further half-an-hour or so, but, an hour of radio still takes about an hour to set-up; less than an hour of TV takes up an entire day - or more.

This contrast means it's also a lot easier to get breaking news stories onto the radio; all you need is a person with a mobile phone on location to break the story on the radio, but you clearly need a lot more to fully tell a story for television. The flexibility of radio - as much of it is live - also helps; a story can be 'slipped in' to programming in an appropriate place for radio (even if that's the next hourly news bulletin). If a story breaks during Neighbours, what do you do? If all the television studios are in use, where do you go to break the story?

All of these reasons are why I love working in radio and am less enthusiastic about its budget-munching, video-included sibling.

Update 16:35
Well, who would have thought that, with a subtle lighting change and by ordering groovy arrows to scroll across the video wall, the purple-blueness of the Newsnight studio could become the funky, multi-coloured home of Newsround? They use the same studio - the only other thing that changes is the introduction of multi-coloured chairs (for Newsround, not Newsnight!)

Update 17 Sept, 15:10
Studio TC7 is - apparently - also used for the HardTalk programme. It seems (from a walk around the studio complex this lunchtime) that studio TC7 is well hidden away (I couldn't find it in the maze of corridors despite knowing its room number) and is, I presume, always setup in this way and is used exclusively by news programmes. The above still applies, though - as my wander around proves. 4 out of the possible 7 studios were "resetting" for new shows to be filmed or broadcast there. One even looked like it was being setup for a gameshow within Dr Who's TARDIS with lots of flashing lights and Bullring-style bubbles in the background...

Update 18 Sept, 13:26
...and Working Lunch!

Photos:
1. Photo of the Newsnight set
2. Photo of the Newsround set as displayed on my TV from the basement
3. Photo of TC5... apparently the set for game show Golden Balls on ITV1*

* Yes, rivals, but the BBC (well, its sold-off, diced-and-quartered subsidiary BBC Resources) provides studios for any client who wants them. This also includes The Paul O'Grady Show. See also my previous post 'TV Centre'.

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Baghdad Office

11 September 2007 at 10:07

When flicking through the news feeds coming into the building yesterday (trying to find the feed coming from Rothley for the McCanns), I came across short videos about the BBC's Bureau in Baghdad being fed down from Iraq, which were much more interesting. One of the correspondents stationed in Baghdad, Clive Myrie, spoke about the work that goes on there...

There was also another video of a guided tour round the 'BBC compound', essentially a house rented out with a satellite dish stuck on top...

I found these videos a fascinating insight into the work that goes on by correspondents while I talk to them from my cubby-hole in the basement in Television Centre.

Original videos on YouTube:
On the street / In the compound

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Television Centre

08 September 2007 at 14:06

What does this image mean to you? It is, of course, Television Centre in West London. Underneath the 'portholes' is the massive TC1. That studio, and the seven others which loop in a circle around a statue of the Greek sun god Helios (representing the radiation of television and radio light around the world), has been at the forefront of television production since 1960.

Programmes such as Fawlty Towers, Monty Python, AbFab, H2G2 and Doctor Who have been made here in the past, in an era where drama was recorded in studios. It's now cheaper, easier and more realistic to film, er, in real hotels (although real planets might be difficult for Dr Who!). More recently, live stage-based programmes such as Blue Peter, Comic Relief, Children In Need, and the Dancing... series have been recorded and transmitted from here.

The studios are based in the old part of the building... the News Centre (along with a load of offices) currently occupies the 'new part' of the building, which was bombed in March 2001.

Over the next decade or so, there is a big plan to cut the amount of BBC buildings in London. The city centre's Broadcasting House redevelopment will be complete by 2012, and the whole of the News department will make neighbours with Radios 2, 3 and 4, which are currently broadcast from there (along with Radio 1 and 1Xtra in nearby Yalding House). 5Live, 5Live Sports Extra, Sports and Children's, currently in TVC, will move to a new development in Salford in 2012, and the only occupants left in TVC will be the studios and offices.

With Red Bee Media (formerly BBC Broadcast) moving out of the Media Centre, offices currently in TVC will replace the space in the White City complex. Which will mean only the studios will remain. So, the BBC plans to close Television Centre in the near future (who needs studios anyway?).

They say that studio space is available elsewhere (but certainly not in BBC-owned London buildings), and that the current studios are being used less and less and more as more drama moves to other locations, despite a multi-million pound High Definition upgrade to a few of them. TVC is instantly recognised around the world as being THE home of the corporation. The building has a heritage, so many secrets (is there a private Underground station? What's the story behind the bunker underneath TC1 that was built to be a swimming pool which never materialised, was actually an emergency studio complex in case of war, and is now said to be a plain storage room?) and, despite its quirks and the building's determination to get you lost in its maze of never-ending corridors no matter which way you turn, gives you such a creative energy when inside.

I, for one, say keep Television Centre in all its glory.

Photo:
View of S1 and Audience Entrance at Television Centre from the 5th floor.

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AcrO nYMS & Abbrevs

04 September 2007 at 19:24

I guess every job has it specialised acronyms and abbreviations, a way of exciting the casual enquirer into your line of work yet locking out the annoying eavesdropper. Yet the media industry - television in particular - seems to have an outstanding array of them. Here's a guide to acronyms you might want to know if you decide to work in radio at the BBC (that's British Broadcasting Corporation, to start with!):

BA - Broadcast Assistant. In network radio, prints and photocopies and makes tea. In local radio, for some programmes, sets up the show from scratch and produces it while it is on-air.
BH - Broadcasting House in central London. Where programmes on Radios 2, 3 and 4 are broadcast from (with the exception of R4 news programmes which come from Studios in TVC). Also known as LBH (London Broadcasting House). Radio 1 and 1Xtra come from Yalding House, a stone-throw away.
BJ - (don't get too exited!) Broadcast Journalist. Acts either as a traditional journalist, reporter, newsreader or producer of news-based programmes. See also: SBJ.
BNCS - Broadcast Network Control System. Local radio use it to put studios on-air and to control ISDN (see below), phone and radiocar connections. Network radio use it to control their entire on-air output. News Traffic use it to connect correspondents to studios or to record despatches into VCS (see below).
Bull - News bulletin. An update which lasts longer than about 7 minutes. See also: Summs.
Bur - Bureau. The BBC has dozens of them around the world, the most often-used ones have direct lines to and from London buildings.
CF - Clean Feed. Public and correspondents hear CF when waiting to speak on-air. It's essentially the sound of the programme minus them to avoid feedback or a howl-around. See also: TBU.
DAC - Digital Audio Control - a workshop (see below) in Television Centre which is manned 24/7 by an SM (see below).
ENPS - Software which allows the creation of scripts and running orders, as well as monitor incoming news wires from agencies. You can also attach video and audio into scripts for on-air playout.
GNS - General News Service. Offers news stories, complete with correspondents, to local radio.
HDE - Home Duty Editor. Responsible for UK news on domestic news programmes.
ISDN - Intergrated Services Digital Network. A broadcast-quality telephone line used across radio and audio feeds.
LCR - London Control Room. Master control for programmes on R1, 1Xtra, R2, R3 and R4 based in BH.
MHS - Marylebone High Street. Where BBC London (TV, Radio and Online) comes from.
Nn (n=a number) - A television studio in TVC. Since the 2008 re-shuffle, News 24 comes from N6; World TV comes from N8. See also: TCn.
NCA - News and Current Affairs. Each local radio studio has an NCA studio to enable people to speak to other local radio stations or to input to network radio. Variations include BNCA (pronounced 'bunker') which is a series of NCA studios based at Bush. Some local radio stations refer to them as 'News Contribution Area' instead.
NDE - News Duty Editor. Based at Bush, ultimately responsible for news output on the World Service radio network.
NOC - News Operations Centre, based at TVC. Connects radiocars and other audio lines to London.
NP - News Package. A raw feed (usually with video) which can be played out on-air. For example, the video feed from a news helicopter which will be eventually shown on News 24. Not to be confused with the term 'package', which is an edited piece to be played on TV or radio.
Snn (nn=a number) a full-blown radio Studio. Programmes are produced and broadcast from these. 5Live use S5 and S6. Radio 4 use S1 and S2. Sports output comes from S5. English-language World Service Radio comes from S38, S39, S43 or S48 in Bush House.
Sat - Satellite, e.g. 'Sat Truck'
SBJ - Senior Broadcast Journalist. Directs news programmes on TV or edits news coverage on radio. See also: BJ.
SCAR - Spur Central Apparatus Room. A mahoosive room in TVC filled full of racks and technical equipment.
SM - Studio Manager. Sits at the mixing desk and pushes the buttons to control the sound levels of live or recorded radio programmes.
Summ - News summary, usually only lasting a few minutes each hour. See also: Bulls.
TBU - Telephone Balance Unit. A piece of equipment which connects a studio with the BT network. See also: CF.
TCn (n=a number) - A studio based in the old part of TVC. Breakfast, HARDtalk, Newsround, Newsnight, etc are broadcast from TC7, a studio dedicated to News. Large audience shows, such as Dancing On Ice, are broadcast from TC1, the largest studio.
UGC - User-generated content. A horrible phrase for anything sent in by a member of the public, everything from their 'Have Your Say' comments to photos sent in from the scene of a breaking news story.
TVC - Television Centre in West London. See also: BH and Bush.
VCS - No-one seems to know what it stands for but it's software used across the whole of radio news to record, edit and playout audio.
Wn (n=a number) - A series of Workshops in TVC which any programme can use to record audio. W3 acts as DAC (see above), W6 is used for GNS (see above).
WDE - World Duty Editor. Responsible for international stories broadcast on domestic news outlets.

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