COMPARISON AND CONTRAST OF DIFFERENT RADIO AND TV FORMATS:TV NEWS

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Introduction to Broadcasting MCM 411

LESSON 35

COMPARISON AND CONTRAST OF DIFFERENT RADIO AND TV FORMATS

With the change in broadcast from radio to television, there have been changes in the

program designs as well. The changes are visible in any program of similar nature produced

separately for radio and TV.

But we will examine only news and current affairs in two sessions to mark the changes.

TV NEWS

In previous chapters we have been talking about the importance of different broadcasting

products, NEWS perhaps is considered the most important of all. There are broadcasting

channels both radio and TV, which now specialize in entertainment or sports etc, but still if

something extraordinary occurs anywhere in the world they prefer to stop regular programs

and broadcast the breaking news. Even if they do not disturb their regular transmission, they

run a ticker at the bottom of the screen, and the attention of the viewers is obviously turn to it.

At a radio or TV station you would usually come across people asking each other what is the

latest news, instead of asking about other entertainment articles.

Over the years news items have been categorized in many ways to channel those for proper

placement and editing before putting those on the content sheet according to their importance.

Selecting news for TV broadcast is, however, different in many ways from news selection for a

radio station.

Here we shall see various forms of news and the treatment given to those at the newsroom of

a standard TV broadcasting house.

Division of News

A newsroom faces problem of plenty as far as news is concerned. Tens of thousands of news

items from across the world continue to pour at the desk of the news editor. Sorting out these

items is a challenging task itself. Over the years practice of dealing with such a situation has

helped in putting these news in particular columns to make the task easier somewhat.

The news division is done in different manners for newspapers, radio and television.

In the following paragraphs we shall examine in a broad way the news are divided for TV

broadcast;

National

Regional

International

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National

Every TV channel, without fail is more concerned about the changes or developments taking

place at the national level and which interest general public of that country.

Generally political developments take priority over other news for they matter the most in the

public life. Scandals and scams of mega nature always remain high on the news agenda. The

inter-state, or inter-provincial matters, central government policies, budgets, import/export

regulations, interest rate on banks' borrowing and lending also draw lot of attention of the

newsroom.

Some local developments at big cities along with sports news, particular of games a country

excels in, also catch the limelight. Similarly national events and melas (shows) are not

supposed to be overlooked by the editors at the newsroom.

Regional

In recent years channels have developed a special interest in airing news from the regions

which have emerged so prominently for economic and political reasons. Like North America,

European union, ASEAN, Middle east, Central Asia and for us, the South Asia.

Now, if two similar developments take place in North American region and South Asian region,

channels in this part of the world will give preference to report in this region. The same

behavior in news reporting by channels belonging to other regions has also been markedly

noticed. In fact, channels these days struggle to get regional news to fill this column.

International

So much activities go on across the globe that a channel in its formal newsreel can't afford to

overlook reporting those developments like the events at the United Nations or a G-8

countries meeting, a WTO stormy session to settle terms for the global trade concern of all,

breaking out of war between two countries or a peace treaty signed on a long dispute between

to sovereign states. Hijacking or crashing of a passenger plane or any subversive acts

involving countries also feature prominently in short-listing news for the coming hour!

Second Method

News are sorted out also according to another method of placing those under well defined

heads.

Some of the heads are as follow:

Politics

Finance

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Introduction to Broadcasting MCM 411

Crime

Development (schemes)

Health

Tourism

Education

Women & children

Entertainment (showbiz)

Sports

Weather

Placement on Newsreel

Toughest of all is the selection and placement of news on newsreel. A news editor is said to

grow faster than others only for the nature of job he/ she has to perform in the selection and

placement of news in various news bulletin.

A newsreel of, say, ten minutes can accommodate about 35 to 40 news items. Number of

available items is 2000 or more!!!

Since its not one man show, a team of news editor, assistant editors and sub editors continue

to sort the incoming news and shortlist for the bulletins at different hours.

The most practiced way of placing the news item in the main bulletin is to judge their

importance above the consideration of local, national or regional bias and at the same time

not compromising on the matter of proximity. The whole list is formed this way.

It is obvious that every bulletin leaves much to be desired.

Footage

At times selection of news is also preferred because of the availability of footage against a

news item of ordinary importance whose footage is not at hand.

Sometimes a news is broadcast mainly because the footage available is interesting, as of

football matches or some accident etc.

Policies

TV channels also have certain policies - what to report and how much, and what not to report

just in line with the personal, commercial or national interests. This also causes a different

attitude in the selection and placement of news.

Embarrassment

Things are not always as simple as put here. Since TV is a strong medium, many wish to be

reported in newsreels. All can't be accommodated. It puts the newsroom in a very awkward

situation.

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