Channel 5 News Bulletin Analysis

Channel 5 news is aimed at a younger audience than other broadcasts like that of the BBC's and in my opinion it hit that audience. The stories appealed to a younger audience: the floods story was all about how people were coping, with only a little attention given to the political side of the story. The OOV on the Australian crane driver is seemingly out-of-place, but appealing for the target audience and makes a nice fluff story, as does the sports story at the end.

The presentation was a bit different from other broadcasters. The presenter was standing up with a small podium for her laptop and script, where every other major broadcaster has their presenters seated behind a desk for their daily bulletin. This in itself is not a bad thing, however nothing was done with this novel presentation to make it special. I'm not sure what she could have been doing besides standing in front of the camera reading off the autocue, but she had the freedom to walk, present graphics and other such things. But she just stood there, and in the end there was no reason for her to do so as opposed to sitting. In fact it feels as though the standing took away one of the best aspects of a news bulletin (in my opinion) - the human aspect. The presenter could not turn to a co-host for a quip or talk to an in-studio guest: there is no room for it, and everything is worked through OBs instead. I am under the impression that even guests are done as OBs, The physical separation is noticeable.

I notice also that the reporters are quite a large part of their stories: several reports were introduced by the reporters (through OBs) and I counted four stories which featured 'noddies from behind'. This was quite strange - especially as in some of them (such as the Sports Personality story) we see these noddies from behind before we're introduced to the reporter face-front. If it was to imprint the reporters as people themselves in the viewer's mind more, it seems to have worked. several hours after watching, I can remember the features of most of the reporters - and certainly I can recognise the backs of their heads - which is more than I can say about BBC and ITN reporters.