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Has anyone else detected that ever since the BBC agreed to move to MediaCity that certain departments seem to have developed a kind of collective corporate embarrassment of Manchester?
Sure stories are covered and live inserts are still there and programes still made etc but there are a couple of areas where they are almost appearing to downgrade Manchester in a kind of reverse bias against the city.
Map
Mentioned this before on on SCC but nothings changed since they first introduced it so the greatest example of MancShyness is the 'home' weather map (the UK map shown at the start and end of the national weather forecast on all BBC channels).
It's obviously been carefully laid out to allow the typography of the city names not to interfere with the temperature labels and to make the cities look like they are in neat diagonal rows but it leaves a huge gap between Birmingham and Newcastle (in which a good 10-15 million people actually live and in which clearly any one of the big four-in-a-row cities could arguably have a place - Liverpool/Manchester/Leeds/Hull).
Hull and Liverpool have occasionally both made brief appearances but far as I can recall neither Manchester or Leeds have made it onto the main home map. It's like no-one can quite decide which city to put on in case someone complains (and they couldn't possibly be seen to be favoritising Manchester which would be the obvious example for population reasons, so they leave them all off).
BACKDROP
Another area which seems really poor is the Regional studio's background images.
Now most of these are usually dull, tired and dreary still shots of the cities outside London but the worst one is the backdrop photo of Manchester - it hasn't changed for years and it doesn't really show off anything much of the city. Here you have an example of a skyline that has changed almost beyond recognition - a really handsome, good looking impressive regional city which could be represented by a myriad of different skylines or landmark buildings...and what do the BBC put up? A dreary old library still shot from the top of NBH looking up Oxford Road to the Central Library (carefully clipping off the Granada studios buildings) which must surely have been taken on a wet Bank Holiday in March.
Maybe this would've been acceptable 20 years ago but when it appears now it just looks like the provinces are...well...provinical!
I wrote to them to say it's just not good enough and to ask them to get some nice new shots, re-position the camera on the roof, smarten the act up...please!!! But we await the reply.
NWT
Lastly in my little rant, if you compare North West Tonight with Channel M news it's like a comedy. OK so we know Channel M has a focus on Manchester because that's what its' there for but (it feels like) ANY story outside Manchester gets priority just because it makes NWT look like they are reflecting the entire region.
OK it's a tough job for NWT editors because the North West is a large and diverse region but most people who live in Barnoldswick accept that it isnt gonna make the nightly news every evening coz it's a small place. Of course Manchester and to a lesser extent Liverpool, then Preston, Lancaster, Blackpool etc will dominate because more happens there and it seems really strange they artificially try and brush that off by over-emphasising stuff outside the major population areas, just to make it seem like they are not Manchester-biased. The result of course is this kind of collective embarrassment of the biggest city in the region.
Anyhow that's my two-penneth...:bash: what sayeth yee ol forummers?
Sure stories are covered and live inserts are still there and programes still made etc but there are a couple of areas where they are almost appearing to downgrade Manchester in a kind of reverse bias against the city.
Map
Mentioned this before on on SCC but nothings changed since they first introduced it so the greatest example of MancShyness is the 'home' weather map (the UK map shown at the start and end of the national weather forecast on all BBC channels).
It's obviously been carefully laid out to allow the typography of the city names not to interfere with the temperature labels and to make the cities look like they are in neat diagonal rows but it leaves a huge gap between Birmingham and Newcastle (in which a good 10-15 million people actually live and in which clearly any one of the big four-in-a-row cities could arguably have a place - Liverpool/Manchester/Leeds/Hull).
Hull and Liverpool have occasionally both made brief appearances but far as I can recall neither Manchester or Leeds have made it onto the main home map. It's like no-one can quite decide which city to put on in case someone complains (and they couldn't possibly be seen to be favoritising Manchester which would be the obvious example for population reasons, so they leave them all off).
BACKDROP
Another area which seems really poor is the Regional studio's background images.
Now most of these are usually dull, tired and dreary still shots of the cities outside London but the worst one is the backdrop photo of Manchester - it hasn't changed for years and it doesn't really show off anything much of the city. Here you have an example of a skyline that has changed almost beyond recognition - a really handsome, good looking impressive regional city which could be represented by a myriad of different skylines or landmark buildings...and what do the BBC put up? A dreary old library still shot from the top of NBH looking up Oxford Road to the Central Library (carefully clipping off the Granada studios buildings) which must surely have been taken on a wet Bank Holiday in March.
Maybe this would've been acceptable 20 years ago but when it appears now it just looks like the provinces are...well...provinical!
I wrote to them to say it's just not good enough and to ask them to get some nice new shots, re-position the camera on the roof, smarten the act up...please!!! But we await the reply.
NWT
Lastly in my little rant, if you compare North West Tonight with Channel M news it's like a comedy. OK so we know Channel M has a focus on Manchester because that's what its' there for but (it feels like) ANY story outside Manchester gets priority just because it makes NWT look like they are reflecting the entire region.
OK it's a tough job for NWT editors because the North West is a large and diverse region but most people who live in Barnoldswick accept that it isnt gonna make the nightly news every evening coz it's a small place. Of course Manchester and to a lesser extent Liverpool, then Preston, Lancaster, Blackpool etc will dominate because more happens there and it seems really strange they artificially try and brush that off by over-emphasising stuff outside the major population areas, just to make it seem like they are not Manchester-biased. The result of course is this kind of collective embarrassment of the biggest city in the region.
Anyhow that's my two-penneth...:bash: what sayeth yee ol forummers?
