North West Tonight succumbs to “autocue tennis”
Wednesday, 12 September 2007
My regular reader (sic) will be itching for a verdict on the relaunched North West Tonight, which I almost promised the other day.
Thankfully, the temporary studio of last week has been replaced by something glistening and new that nonetheless looks reassuringly similar to what was there before. However, in accordance with the current fashion, Gordon Burns now has a co-host in the somewhat excitable form of Ranvir Singh.
One of the most unwatchable elements of the old NWT was Gordon’s spontaneous banter with Diane Oxberry, the weather forecaster, and reborn former Sunday Sport editor Tony Livesey, who covers sport. Ranvir’s appearance means each story is followed by a painful exchange of this sort. Reactive tuts, chuckles and raised eyebrows are manifold.
The presence of a new co-host has also spawned the idiotic practice of “autocue tennis”, whereby one half of the duo reads the first four lines off the autocue and the other half reads the next four. I have no idea why this is necessary.
Thankfully, a desk is retained for the main headlines. A couple of new sofas have appeared but seem to have been relegated to the back-end of the programme - stories about newborn tiger cubs at Chester Zoo and so forth. Some bloke with a beard has apparently been given the old sofa. Obviously this startling news has been milked for use as the last item in tonight’s broadcast.
The overall content is the same as usual: a story about a bloke who can’t stop coughing (gravel-voiced Gordon seemed especially touched by that one), followed by something about “the problem of anti-social youngsters”. Thus NWT viewers can maintain the same conflicting feelings of exasperation and reassurance that have been the programme’s trademark since 1732.
And now it’s The One Show: basically a regional news programme but with trivial nonsense about areas in which you don’t even live. Great.
No. 1 — September 20th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Reactive tuts, chuckles and raised eyebrows are manifold.
heh. Good one Dave. As an insight into your life - shaking your head in bewilderment at the North West Tonight rebrand as you splutter into your Alphabites - your blog is invaluable.