Digital Broadcasting Production Diary: Part Six

To fill the news magazine we wanted to ensure that all of our packages ready, as it would give balance to the national headlines in our show. I chose to feature a new on-line advent calendar by the RNLI, as it ran all the way through December and had strong Christmas themes.

I was able to interview the main fund raiser and ask questions relating to how the calendar came about. I was pleased with the amount of footage I was able to capture in and around the Poole RNLI training college, including volunteers practising and various Christmas decorations. To add a human interest angle, I wanted to interview RNLI volunteers and ask them whether it was difficult to encourage donations over the December period, or if being on call during Christmas Day was stressful. They were all surprisingly positive, explaining that donations were increasing and that they were all fully prepared to be on duty.

Therefore I had to focus my package’s narrative on the advent calendar itself. To improve, I would have liked to add some balance of viewpoints; though this would have probably meant selecting a more controversial, hard news story.

During the news magazine I presented the news, also writing a selection of our headlines and making sure everyone’s packages were ready to be uploaded to the tri-caster. Our news agenda was varied and suited our older audience, including an update on Copenhagen and VAT increases. Our weakness was in our running time; at 11.5 minutes we should have either shortened our packages, or cut down on the amount of time spent on national stories.