Thoughts On Election Night 

7 May 2005 tbs.pm/418

Well, having reviewed the night of the general election, there are several points that spring up in my mind. First, one thing that ITV actually did right, was to have a small degree of humour injected, via political cartoonist Gerald Scarfe. One particularly humourous cartoon which I saw was an image of Gordon Brown pulling Tony Blair off a plinth in the same fashion that the Iraqi people and US military pulled a statue of Saddam of a plinth in Baghdad.

The George Galloway interview from Jeremy Paxman on BBC was also a highlight. Unlike my colleague Richard Elen, I think the interview showed George Galloway’s true colours all too clearly and whilst nothing was said on any issues, the fact was you didn’t need them talking about issues to tell you everything you needed to know about George Galloway’s agenda, and just how much of an irony it is that he stands for a party called Respect.

The BBC also won the battle in the graphics department, with their superb virtual domain for Peter Snow, who it has to be said looked just a tad uncomfortable being in an almost completely virtual domain with almost nothing real for him to hold onto. That said though, their virtual version of Downing Street was inspired, and it was nice too to see little touches of humour added here to just take the over-serious edge off proceedings.

The swingometer also made its traditional appearance, but it has now become so much a part of the election “furniture” that everybody now is using their own “swingometers”. ITV had one that showed a “tug-of-war” between Blair and Howard, which was quite well done, I thought. Sky News though strayed onto ITV image territory by using a swingometer based on the face of the clock tower at the Palace Of Westminster, usually incorrectly refered to as Big Ben.

The Sky News swingometer wasn’t the only reference to the Palace Of Westminster. The whole of the Sky News Virtual Graphics analysis was done inside a virtual Palace Of Westminster, with virtual versions of not just the House Of Commons, but also the members lobby outside the house. It was certainly impressive and very detailed. But because it was all done in this virtual Palace Of Westminster, there was little variety. At least with the BBC, you had a Virtual House of Commons, a virtual Downing Street, a BBC virtual balcony to show the swingometer and the three party battleground. There was lots of variety and you didn’t feel bored with the same constant image.

So, overall, the BBC wins yet another election broadcast battle, although I have to say that this time, the other main broadcasters put up a genuinely good showing, although everybody had their definite faults. ITV didn’t feel responsive enough, and didn’t seem to take as many results live as perhaps they could have. Sky was let down by a really bad studio which did not seem to have been well thought out at all. It just looked too small and didn’t have the size to it of the main Sky News studio, which almost would have been preferable. The videowall and virtual floor would almost certainly have been useful alongside all the virtual Palace Of Westminster. The BBC felt like it was trying to squeeze quarts into pint pots by squeezing in interviews whilst the main body of results was coming in thick and fast. It would almost be better if the interviews had been left out of the mix, to allow more time for the live results from the counts, and the ananlysis from Peter Snow.

Still, another election broadcast victory to the BBC, but it will be interesting to see what will be pulled out of the hat for the next election.

A Transdiffusion Presentation

Report an error

Author

Ian Beaumont Contact More by me

A member of the Transdiffusion Broadcasting System
Liverpool, Friday 29 March 2024