It's the strangest thing watching the Beeb over here (from Amsterdam).
One of their conventions is to do a review (during every broadcast in the morning) of the national British newspapers. They actually hold up the paper in question and go through a dialogue about the contents of the front or back pages.
Very bizarre to my America-influenced eyes. What is the message underlying this? From the marketing perspective, I would think that it would be sending a message that either (1) we're not as comprehensive as the papers, or (2) we're not as timely/in-depth as the papers. Either way, it just doesn't look good.
I think it's likely that this is some sort of historical tradition that has been continued over many years. I cannot imagine someone adding it to a modern broadcast.
I remember a war between the Oregonian and local TV stations in Portland when I was living there. The war was about "who gave the consumer more information ". It ended when the Oregonian printed the entire text of the evening news broadcast on the back page of the paper - it filled only three of the four columns.
Brilliant..
Posted by artandscience at March 16, 2007 12:46 AM