[Vinnah]

I’ve noticed that just after the Mark Forrest show the Mcasso BBC Suffolk news jingle is played, usually only part of it is heard as it fades in after Mark’s show. Does anyone know how the new show works in the East? Is it sent to Norwich and local imaging done from there? Interesting how the National show has local voiceovers in the East but the East programmes no longer do this.

The other Eastern Region programmes work the same way they did before.

[AndyWMember]

Re the Mollie Green thing further up the thread. She was networked out of Worcester and the show didn’t air on WM. She was sitting in for Mike Wyer. Only Hereford & Worcester, Stoke & Shropshire. Normally split travel intros are used on that programme. WM also never used the Music 4 travel bed under the travel news. Listeners always used to complain that the beds were too distracting but there were also times when you could hear things in the background you shouldn’t at travel HQ like others conversations, the cleaner emptying the bins etc…

I don’t know if it has been mentioned further up the thread but during the Mark Forrest evening show he plays the ident music track from his studio and the local idents and trails are remotely fired in at the local station as dry lines over the top. So if the local split item fails you just get the music bed on air. The show originates from BBC Leeds but distribution and monitoring is handled in Birmingham.

Oh, and WM did have a Mcasso Christmas cut which was used extensively in the week leading up to Christmas.

[tom_h]

I know Mollie wasn’t on WM. She’s recently covered the same show but this time used a generic ‘BBC in the West Midlands’ Mcasso bed for the travel.

I’ve noticed with the Mark Forrest shows, the female voiceover that says ‘Mark Forrest’ appears to be the same on all 39 stations however the station name is done by the stations regular voice over. Sounds strange to me, the two don’t seem to work together. The station voiceover also seems a tad quieter than the generic ‘Mark Forrest’.

[AndyWMember]

I must have misunderstood your Mollie comment. Mike Wyer is back on this week with split travel and news idents.

That’s apparently how Wire Free productions wanted it to be. Probably cheaper to use what’s already around and kind of sticks to the style of the rest of the day too. I’d guess the quietness is down to how much compression is on the network female voice. It’s not like the female bit is played from the show studio with the station tag split played on the end so there’s no real reason why the levels should be too different.

[mbMember]

Who knows what WireFree are up to, The twitter from the show is used like an internal messagig system to the BBC locals just a sucession of great audio fromXXXX please send more via XXX. On Facebook they are removing comments and traffic seems very low for a national show. Tuesday night the last 20 minutes were Beethoven’s 5th, two one line tweets on marriage a trail for mid mornings on my local station and Terrance Trent Derby “sign your name”. I can’t think by any stretch of the imagination how THAT equals worthy content for a network show on 39 stations. Mark Forest needs to dump the sickly “these are the stories that move me and touch me” dire dire sickly presentation and the I’ve been listening to the best of bbc local radio – 39 stations 13 hours that’s a lot of content or the best is so thin he CAN actually listen to the best of it! The news and traffic locally are also not up to scratch, I thought they were still going to provide decent local news during this show – so far it seems woeful. It’s too high profile to get dumped but the current quality of the show will not sustain it on an ongoing basis.
I’ve listened on BBC London, and TCR and imaging is clunky and sounds woeful.
We go into news bulletins iwth an assortment of any jingle sems to do confusing the hell out of the news teams who when they do get on air sound like they would rather be anywhere than reading the news during this show.
I know this is the jingles / imaging thread but BBC local radio has hit a new low with this show – The imaging is just one of the issues!

[simon_t123Member]

@Timbo & @Jinglejames thanks for your earlier info I was wondering & debating on the DS forums how the Mark Forrest show might be distributed, usually after 7pm in the East BBC Essex would run the evening shows which used to come from Cambridgeshire & Suffolk but seemed to be routed via Norwich ! The news reader in the ‘Look East’ newsroom I suspect would actually be sitting in one of the BBC Norfolk studios to read their bullys joining the remote sources together with stations picking up the resulting feed … We used to have localised ID’s travel in’s & news in’s which I presume were fired off locally at all the regions stations via ‘Radioman’ … then we lost those in favour of the providing stations own imaging, Cambs & Suffolk logo’s on the news most nights … and then along came the Mark Forrest show which must of changed things again, news still comes from Norwich, the newsreader there is sometimes late rejoining Mark Forrest but that show from Leeds seems able to remote fire ID’s here in Essex so I’m guessing perhaps it’s a ‘Radioman’ thing ? Macros or the like ? … There was an interesting pic on the show Facebook page showing a electric piano footpedal (?) and a comment saying how this was a saving grace ! possibly then the way he fires off the remote ID’s ?

Who knows … it’s interesting to read that Leeds fire off the promo beds & imaging from there, that would explain the random attempts at locals talking to time on the promo’s and the awful dips & fades in use that never seem in time with the voiced part … I’m sure it’ll tighten up in time, it’s a never done before thing they say … not nationally I guess, but regions have been splitting ID’s & trails for ages now …

[AndyWMember]

A bit OT but the electric piano type foot pedal will most likely be for his Producer talkback.

Mark plays both parts of the split ident from Leeds. The bed comes from Leeds itself and then he fires the dry voicers remotely. It is all done with Radioman.

[Jinglejames]

Re: the female voiceover being the same on all 39 stations – not quite – York is using their own female station voice for Mark’s name on the idents, as he already does a local show there on Sunday mornings.

[James_Vertigan]

Sorry I can’t upload it via Soundcloud as I don’t have an account and tried to create one but the website appears to be having problems.

Anyway – I think BBC Radio Devon launched the new jingle package this morning – ahead of their 30th birthday on Thursday – here’s the opener from this morning featuring Gordon Sparks (who always comes out a little early from Up All Night!): http://up.metropol247.co.uk/James%20Vertigan/BBC%20Devon%20NEW.mp3

Quite like the opening bed

[simon_t123Member]

@AndyW ahh could be, could be … they held said pedal in high esteem mind !!!

re: BBC Devon, had a listen on the iplayer, there’s a twinge of BBC London on the travel bed and a news bed I’ve not heard used anywhere before … sounds ‘refreshed’ now come on BBC Essex loads of new shows, NO new idents …

[shf2013]

Devon sounds nice, anybody got a copy of the beds?

[timbo]

Quite like the sound of the Devon stuff on iPlayer.

In the mean time some bits, afraid not in full to prevent them being pulled.

Macasso Montage by Timbo_bbc

[tom_h]

I like a lot of that montage. Sounds better than their first cuts!

[simon_t123Member]

@timbo … what a fab montage thanks for posting … some there with a possible “BBC Essex” logo, can you confirm or deny ? if possible lols … actually there are some great cuts in that montage, some of which I’ve heard in use around & about … it’s like these cuts have evolved, less ‘plinky-plonk’ and altogether fuller if that makes sense ?

[mbMember]

I thought Most of the cuts were made in a big batch and the contract completed. Unless they have recently gone back for more by end oct / nov last year they were complete. I don’t think there is an ongoing update program just recycling the same library of cuts round the country.

I still find them like some ghastly mid morning magazine show theme. The result of a cheap tender by BBC worldwide by a woefully under experienced team and a low quality threshold. BBC Local radio now sound more mediocre and “old” than it did 10, 15, 20 years ago. No relation to the BBC WM, Manchester, Leeds I found entertaining when I was a student. At best it’s transient lift music to support equally dull speech.

[timbo]

@timbo … what a fab montage thanks for posting … some there with a possible “BBC Essex” logo, can you confirm or deny ? if possible lols … actually there are some great cuts in that montage, some of which I’ve heard in use around & about … it’s like these cuts have evolved, less ‘plinky-plonk’ and altogether fuller if that makes sense ?

I don’t know anything specific about stations taking on specific cuts in the future. But each cut has a version which each station could take, there are versions with 3, 4, 5 ,6 7 etc number of syllables. So any station could take any of the cuts I believe.

The montage actually is a mix of old and new cuts. It is my understanding that new cuts are being added, its not just the original library being recyled around the country (but that is an option). There was a pool of refresh cuts released back in autumn, so I imagine that stations wanting to opt for them could be looking at them now for launch in the spring. As I say I don’t know if they are, but they could be.

They have produced special beds for beatles programming, the jubilee, the Olympics too. There are ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ cuts of some production beds as well.

I like the sound of the newer stuff. But equally I’ve gotten used to the older cuts from using them week in week out.

[simon_t123Member]

I had an idea there had been some refreshed cuts, a recent telephone call with a source of info mentioned recent Beatles cuts and involvement with an orchestra, which one I can’t remember ! the package has certainly grown on me over time, just not the way all stations seem to use it … personally it’s frustrating when your local sounds stake but some locals are running their second set of Mcasso … as group branding goes it’s done it’s job, been locals are now unmistakably been locals, junctions with Mark Forrest shows are blending better with the Mcasso sound of late which is encouraging … as long as the powers that be don’t dive into further networking …

Must be great to use current imaging Timbo, the likes of which we’re debating here so much, I remember at the very start of my radio career I was generously allowed an hour in BBC Essex studio 1B to make a self-op coursework show with the venerable mk III desk, carts and the 1991 David Arnold / TM Century US sung jingle package … that was my been local moment, loved it

The Mark Forrest theme and other delights are in demo form on the Mcasso website …

[mbMember]

It was my understanding that there are not batches of refresh cuts but that there was a contract to produce cuts which started a while back and was completed in October or November last year. The contract is now complete and there was at that stage no ongoing update / refresh program a la Reelworld one. What most stations are getting is the swapping of jingles from that pool that were created after thier first initial cuts so I’d not describe them as new but new to the station. It may be that in 2013 there is is further budget for the production of cuts but as the whole exercise was about making BBC worldwide lots of money it would have little purpose to them. I think these will be around for a while and rotated regularly.

[shf2013]

Quite like the sound of the Devon stuff on iPlayer.

In the mean time some bits, afraid not in full to prevent them being pulled.

Macasso Montage by Timbo_bbc

them jingles are fantastic!!! would be nice to hear a bit more of the beds. thanks for uploading.

[mbMember]

not toallt jingles but theres a few on here and very interesting piece about the development of radio technology

http://vimeo.com/50366986

[simon_t123Member]

So BBC Northampton has attempted a move on from the Mk III setup to find a way forward now, by all accounts they needed too !!! and with the Northants trial and BBC Manchester using VCS Dira for playout could be a possible shift to Dira as the preferred LR playout system ? I heard mention in the video of doing “all 40 stations” but I’d of thought the Calrec X setups in a large number of stations was established and quite recent … it would be almost criminal to rip out those locations surely ? The ViLoR layout of the studio looked ok, a little on the cheap side when you consider the meat of a Mk III installation … an interesting video @mb, thanks for sharing that

[simon_t123Member]

an interesting read here re: ViLoR … Northants, Essex, Suffolk and 3CR to be running as ViLoR stations by the end of 2013 with the whole network being moved over in time !

http://www.psneurope.com/newsletteraudio4broadcast-content/full/bbc-local-radio-to-go-virtual-on-ip#.UP4LyCfOt8E

[IainJohnstonMember]

Although the technical topic of this is a wee bit adrift from jingles, I have to say that technically with ViLOR etc they are putting over-reliance on IP / internet – the internet is today far more fragile in how it works than many users realise – all they seem to see is just “the pretty pictures”.

The BBC local network (and regionals / nations) should be about resilience – not bean-counting or fancy toys.

[jonnoMember]

maybe using ip over a private network?

[Vinnah]

Interesting transition back to the Eastern Counties tonight.

https://soundcloud.com/vinnah800/bbc-east-2200-toh

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