BBC News 24

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----> What is BBC News 24?

BBC News 24 is a round the clock, 24 hours a day 7 days a week news service bringing you the latest headlines, developments and breaking news, weather and sport to your television and computer as it happens. With great versatility in the way that the news is presented this is one of the greatest if not best news establishments there is.


----> Where can I find it and is ...
...can find BBC News 24 and several different manners you can receive the information, be it video or text.

Watch it!
• Sky / Satellite – Channel 503 – £7.50 a month + you will receive several other news channels.
• Cable – Channel 601
• Freeview – Channel 80 – Free with the freeview box, no additional monthly subscription fees. Some people although may not be in an area which can receive this particular channel ... more

See it when it happens.

^^^The Basics^^^

----> What is BBC News 24?

BBC News 24 is a round the clock, 24 hours a day 7 days a week news service bringing you the latest headlines, developments and breaking news, weather and sport to your television and computer as it happens. With great versatility in the way that the news is presented this is one of the greatest if not best news establishments there is.

----> Where can I find it and is it affordable?

There are several places you can find BBC News 24 and several different manners you can receive the information, be it video or text.

Watch it!
• Sky / Satellite – Channel 503 – £7.50 a month + you will receive several other news channels.
• Cable – Channel 601
• Freeview – Channel 80 – Free with the freeview box, no additional monthly subscription fees. Some people although may not be in an area which can receive this particular channel on freeview.
• Terrestrial TV – BBC 1 & 2 (Channel 1 & 2) – BBC News 24 is on in interludes throughout the early hours of the morning on BBC 1 & 2.

Read, Watch and Listen!
• The Internet – http/:news.bbc.co.uk – Although this is an add-on to the BBC News 24 experience the service is very useful. There are no subscription fees and you are free to browse the website extensively dipping in and out of several headlines, weather, sport and news updates by either reading, listening and sometimes watching short clips. A great quick and notably easy service.

^^^Opinion^^^

----> What’s good?

The news is very informative; impressively intricate and thorough. The program is presented brilliantly and the news is expressed with a wide variety of different media to reduce tedium amongst the audience. There are hundreds of live reports every day that give interesting accounts from eye witnesses and sometimes you become the eye witness yourself as you see the news and history as it happens. There are also several video reports to reiterate recent news and latest headlines that are considerably more interesting than someone in a newsroom behind a desk reading to the camera. The program also makes good use of interviews, be it live video or perhaps phone in, recorded video or even an interesting, heated and dare I say at the risk of becoming unpopular, exciting discussion in the studio. Therefore the general variety of the presentation of the news itself is in fact a major plus and in my opinion a real “selling point” as it were for BBC News 24 and actually makes the channel much better in general.

Since the introduction of the breakfast show from 6am onwards, BBC News 24 is brilliant to wake up to in the morning and it gets you ready to start the day with some knowledge of current affairs regarding the world and UK. I find that it helps to wake you up and as long as the news isn’t too depressing sets you in a lively and positive mindset to face whatever the day throws at you.

BBC News 24 is also very interactive and because they are often looking to fill time as there isn’t always exciting breaking news to broadcast, (thank God otherwise the world would probably be a very dangerous place), they have an interactive service in which they will invite you, the audience, to participate in a debate of the latest issue or biggest news headline by texting or emailing in your thoughts, feelings and responses etc. regarding the topic and the majority of which, especially in the day time on weekdays, are very likely to be read out. Give it a try sometime, you’ll be surprised.

Another important and equally brilliant, although, simple feature is the breaking news banner/bar at the bottom of the screen which has the latest news headlines regarding: general news, sport and weather in a broken down form, whilst retaining a reasonably detailed analysis of the headline and an informative structure. The time is also available via the bar. This straightforward attribute is brilliant because it allows you to dip in and out of the program quickly and easily if you don’t want to listen to a full and lengthy report on each headline, with the banner you can read it in a matter of seconds, or perhaps you just want to know the accurate time for general reasons or setting your watch etc.

The variety of the news programs on the BBC News 24 channel is important to avoid audience boredom. Therefore there are several interluding programs that give a more focused and concentrated specialist opinion and analysis on particular areas such as the economy. The programs you may expect to find in slots between the main BBC News 24 broadcast are: World Business, World News, HARDtalk and The World Today. There are also several useful O’Clock shows on certain hours of the day that give a useful round up of the latest news headlines on the hour. Every half an hour or so there are helpful sports and weather updates although they can quickly become tiresome and annoying as developments in the sport industry and weather forecast don’t exactly come thick and fast. Another useful program on the BBC News 24 weekend timetable are the weekend round up shows in which all the major headlines of the week are reviewed and discussed in depth. It is very effectively delivered and allows you to catch up with anything you may have missed in a gruelling week of work.

A further equally important factor regarding audience appreciation and watch-ability is the connection BBC News 24 tries to build with its audience. It obviously makes a point of, like most news broadcasts and channels, addressing the audience directly in order to make the news and therefore the channel more personal to each individual audience member and in doing so making them feel more involved with the situation. I am not quite sure what BBC News 24 does so differently from other news providers but I certainly feel that a more personal connection is built whilst watching the news on this channel. BBC News 24 always attempts to help its audience as much as possible and they do seem to go to greater lengths to bring news to “your” TV. The channel is also reasonably deaf friendly as it offers sign language translators at the side of the screen on the O’Clock hour round up shows.

Finally I move onto my final yet most important positive aspect of BBC News 24. In my opinion the most important thing about the news has to be its accuracy and I am sure the vast majority would agree with me. There are always stories of elaborate fakes in the news but mainly the papers and the ongoing cliché that journalists are not to be trusted. Now with all this scepticism regarding the truthfulness of the news, its important to know that the information you are being told is trustworthy. The vital question with regards to the news is can I trust this reports accuracy? With BBC News 24, I certainly believe the answer is yes and I have no doubt in my mind that the information they provide regarding the large majority of news they broadcast is accurate. I don’t say all because from time to time situations, especially regarding political matters can be rather vague; often contradicting and sometimes simply untrue and therefore the accuracy of the news can’t always be 100% as in situations such as the one I have loosely described those presenting the news can be working on misinformation and have been misinformed, in some cases deliberately, regarding the news story. All and all, the most important thing is you can trust BBC News 24.

----> What’s bad?

The major bad point about the channel that stands out is that it is quite boring. I shall explain. You can’t really watch it for longer than 30 minutes without getting bored, simply because there isn’t always breaking news (which I suppose is a good thing for world security), so they end up repeating the main headlines, almost word by word, every 15 minutes, so, once you have seen and heard it twice before in quick succession, you don’t really want to see it again.

With this repetition of the headlines, there is serious risk of trivialising even the most harrowing news. Once dramatic and painful stories are repeated several times, especially by tiring anchors, they become almost less important and somewhat insignificant, which is really terrible as the stories selected for the news are generally unpleasant events in the country and for these to become unimportant is awful. Nevertheless BBC News 24 is almost designed to be watched for an hour at most and therefore the news only becomes trivialised in this manner if you watch for longer than an hour, which, is unlikely.

Another slight problem with the news, also regarding boredom, is the presenters. Now I must praise the presenters as they do a reasonably good job, under the circumstances, but, understandably, they start to get bored themselves whilst repeating the same stories over and over. Therefore the way they are animated and the way they speak after sometime becomes very tedious, therefore making the news after a while, tiresome.

So obviously the main problem I have established with BBC News 24 is it can get very boring and even the most harrowing stories can become trivialised, but, this is only if watch it for a longer period time than you, to be honest, would want to watch for. Therefore this issue isn’t as big as it seems to be.

----> How does BBC News 24 compare with other similar 24/7 news providers?

BBC News 24 has four main competitors:

Sky News
CNN
Fox News
EuroNews

Sky News – Sky News is much the same as BBC News 24 and in my opinion would be considerably better if it weren’t for one thing, the irritating interruptions to the news for adverts. Therefore BBC News 24 has the edge of Sky News.

CNN & Fox News – I group these two together because they are rather similar. CNN & Fox News has an, understandably, American take on the news. They seem to be desperately trying to spice the news up by speaking in dramatic tones whilst giving the headlines and generally presenting the news with a great deal of drama. Now I personally find this a little irritating. Another crucial point is that although they are a “world news” channel they show little interest in the rest of the world and the stories are very concentrated to America with few headlines regarding the UK, so… not much good for viewers in the UK and If you’re in the UK or want UK news BBC News 24 is certainly still the best bet for British viewers.

EuroNews – EuroNews is very interesting, it focuses very well on news from all around Europe, allocating equal amounts of time to countries witch have headlines to report. I find it’s interesting to know what’s going on in neighbouring countries and EuroNews provides this service. It also gives great weather reports for the whole of Europe, so if you’re looking to go abroad it can be very useful. But, once again, it has irritating and not to mention long advertisement breaks and obviously doesn’t cover UK news anywhere near as well as BBC News 24. If I had to choose between them, I would definitely choose BBC News 24.

So… after weighing up BBC News 24 against its major rival 24/7 news channels it honestly does beat them hands down for many reasons including the quality of the presentation, variety of the media used and crucially in beating one or two of its competitors having no irritating interruptions to the news for advertising purposes.

^^^Conclusion^^^

Although very repetitive and boring in parts, the accuracy and reliability of the information supplied and the flexibility of its delivery, from live interviews and coverage in the field to live in the studio all in high quality, makes BBC News 24 stand out high above the rest making it in my opinion, the best and most reliable 24 hours a day 7 days a week news service available and therefore I strongly recommend it to anyone.

Thank you,

© Guy, guydavies123, 15, (www.freewebs.com/firelightphotography) 

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