By Simon Wright – Follow
me on Twitter @Siwri88
Today, we can
access the news at our fingertips, whether that is through a button on our TV
remote controls, a swipe on a news application on our tablets and smartphones,
or a click to a global news website.
So it seems
amazing to think that BBC News has just celebrated its 60th anniversary
of going on the air. It has barely been mentioned because the corporation have
showed very little in marking the occasion, mainly because their dedicated team
of journalists; presenters and correspondents are out there, delivering the
news to our households from a variety of media platforms.
Of course
this wasn’t the case on 5 July 1954, when the first ever 22-minute television
news bulletin aired at 7.30pm in the evening on BBC One. Then, the top story
was Question Time in Parliament. Today, the main news is dominated by political
rows in Downing Street, major trials involving high-profile individuals and
deadly conflicts in Ukraine, Syria and sadly, once again in Iraq.
BBC News has
had to undergo many changes, including a rise in competition from the likes of
Sky News and ITN, as well as the rapid changes in technology. For it to still
exist in its current form, along with a 24-hour news channel, BBC Breakfast,
Newsround, Newsnight and the World Service, not to mention, it’s very strong
phone/tablet app and news website – BBC News has adapted regularly to meet the
challenges. It has been 60 years full of evolution.
Sobering beginnings
It is fair to
say that the early days of BBC News were never that exciting. The newsreaders
lacked charisma and in fact, you couldn’t even see them on your screens. Don’t
forget, this was a time where there were only two channels, choice was
massively limited and technology was very basic.
Richard Baker
was the first voice heard on launch night in 1954, but it wasn’t until 1957 that he
would be seen on screen actually reading the news to camera. Before, the news
bulletins were read over still photographic shots – almost the vision had when
listening to the radio bulletins in the present day from 5 Live News to Newsbeat on BBC
Radio 1.
BBC News was
initially based out of Lime Grove Studios and stayed there for the first decade
of its infancy. A move to Television Centre in 1969 (pictured below) saw not only the site
become the BBC’s main base, but it allowed technology and landmarks to develop.
BBC were locked in a battle with ITN and the national newspapers at this time –
a battle that continued to get more tense and attract brighter competitions
throughout the 20th century and into the 21st.
 |
| BBC Television Centre was the home of BBC News for over four decades |
Of course Television Centre is no more. It was sold off as part of the Beeb’s cutbacks to
meet government spending. Today, it is being developed into retail spacing.
Unlike BBC Breakfast and BBC Sport staff, which moved to the modern MediaCityUK
in Salford, BBC News is now based at the classic Broadcasting House which is where the
majority of its programming can now be found.
More choice
In the 1970s,
the BBC’s news output began to grow. A new teatime service for kids was created
in 1972 when Newsround made its debut. John Craven was the face of the news for
kids until 1989. Aimed at a target audience of 6-12, Newsround has also been
the breakthrough for presenters to go onto bigger things in the world of
journalism, such as Julie Etchingham (now News at Ten co-anchor) and Krishnan
Guru-Murthy (a regular on Channel 4 News). Newsround is still on in 2014,
although it has now moved to the dedicated CBBC channel.
Another way
for news to be read was Ceefax. The text service which was a simple and
sometimes easier way to get the news on the go if you had little time or interest
into digesting the detail of a major story. Ceefax finally switched off in 2012
when the analogue TV signal was consigned to the history books. It was a victim
of the advancements in mobile phone technologies, and the global reach of the
internet.
More news
programmes became the norm. The Nine O’clock News began in the 1970s, with
Angela Rippon joining the team to become the first established female
newsreader in the BBC team. She would be followed in later years by the likes
of Anna Ford, the late Jill Dando, Kirsty Wark and Moira Stuart.
The Nine O’clock
news became synonymous with many, regularly presented by Michael Buerk. In 1993, a new look was presented to the BBC News programmes,
producing some of the most iconic news themes ever seen on British
television. Those who like Radio 1 and Nick Grimshaw will recognise some of
the music he uses for features involves the BBC News stings in the 1990s. The
Nine O’clock bulletin was moved back an hour in time for the new millennium to battle
ITN, who had replaced News at Ten with the unpopular ITN Nightly News (that
didn’t last long by the way!)
The evolution continued into the 1980s. There was the launch of the Six O’Clock News in 1984, becoming the most
watched news programme around for two decades. Newsnight made its debut in the same decade and this period saw the introduction of Breakfast TV too.
The BBC’s
Breakfast Time was launched in January 1983 and went into a massive ratings war
with ITV’s TV-AM programme. TV-AM might have had the publicity and the names,
but breakfast TV addicts preferred the BBC’s blend of reporting the news with
light-hearted features. When the BBC changed that approach in the late 1980s,
they lost viewers to TV-AM but when their franchise was controversially lost in
the 1991 ITV Franchise Auction, the BBC’s Breakfast Time has gone from strength
to strength. It has seen off GMTV, Daybreak and looks set to consign Good
Morning Britain to a slow and painful death from our screens.
Breaking the news
The arrival
of 24-hour TV news services came in 1989 when Rupert Murdoch launched BSkyB.
With it came Sky News which after a stuttering start, began to win acclaim for
breaking the news first with powerful reporting and achieving new feats. BBC
News had new competition and they have had to advance with the times. Their coverage
of the tragic scenes on Sunday, 31 August 1997 when the nation woke to the news
that Diana, Princess of Wales had been killed in a car crash in Paris was one of their most moving and powerful stories.
This prompted
the BBC to follow in the footsteps of Sky and US counterparts CNN. On November
9th 1997, BBC News 24 was launched with a colourful intro and the
famous 90-second countdown (video below). It has since been renamed BBC News but continues to
produce a sterling job for its intended audience.
A recent
report by the BBC Trust indicated a 14 per cent drop in the number of young
viewers watching BBC News over the past decade. Of more intrigue, in the
under-45 category, online is now the first port of call for the headlines. The
BBC has had its critics over the year and it will continue to do so – as is the
case with its varied competition.
However, the
tremendous team of over 5000 journalists continue to do a professional and
excellent job following the stories, both locally and nationally – for radio, online
and TV outputs on a 24-hour, seven-day a week basis. BBC News is 60 not out and it has
done brilliantly to combat the changes in the way we receive news nowadays.
It is a
remarkable achievement and one that might be matched in future, but has been
honoured with the minimum of fuss by the corporation themselves. The reason is
they strive to still be the best in the business for the next 60 years.
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