BBC News 24 is, as mentioned above, a
24/7 news channel on
British cable, satellite and
digital terrestrial television. It generally attracts those who consider the
Carlton/
Granada run
ITV News Channel too tacky (i.e everyone), consider
Sky News too biased and consider
CNN to be American crap. I would liken its tone to
The Independent-overly serious and very, very unbiased.
The channel started in 1998 with what I must say is one of the best presentation packages I have seen, heavy
drumbeat music with a variety of
flags (some obviously world flags, some other generic ones) flapping in the wind. Considering what was being reported daily on the channel though (suicide bombings almost daily, terrorism, murders et al) the
laid back style wasn't very suitable for the channel.
Later on, the
BBC's new "
red out the wazoo" theme swept across the company's news operations, and with it BBC News 24 changed. It gained a slightly different jingle to the regular BBC
news bulletins (the News 24 version has many
Tesla coil-esque banging noises, higher pitched
bleeps and other indescribably weird noises that somehow sound incredibly
cool when put on a news channel) and (a spiffy 90 second countdown sequence, with even more bleepy things. If you wish to see it, visit http://www.arkspace.unlimited-hosting.co.uk/bbcnews24/bbcnews24countdown90.rm with RealOne. Sadly, the graphics in that video are now gone, and have been replaced by a video with, among other things,
skateboarders and
clocks.
News 24 has recently been
criticised by the government for being too much like Sky News. How you
differentiate two news channels which have the same stories is a mystery, as was frequently said in the press.
Update: Gone is the
subdued, hevay tone and in is a channel trying to be
Sky News, with incredibly similar presentation. For once,
CNN looks better-at least it didn't act as
irresponsibly as to flash
NEW YORK THREAT in large letters after they got wind of an unconfirmed report.