BBC News - behind the scenes (26th Oct 1989) 

It's truly outstanding how Michael Buerk casually strolls into the one o'clock news studio with only five minutes to air, is given an absolute cul-de-sac of a show to present, has frantic messages in his ear, whilst reading the top story, about how he's about to crash into a brick wall because nothing is ready to run, and a doesn't even break into a sweat. The viewer would just never know. A professional of the highest order at work, very impressive.

'Charisma' was the DVE (Digital Video Effects) device in use.

There have been several references to the director's instruction "zoom 5 and animate charisma". Zoom 5 means Camera 5 zoom in and animate charisma means press the animate button on the digital video effects machine called charisma. If you look at what happens in the small image showing transmission in the box, you'll see the effects occurring. The programme starts on VT (video tape), finishing with an all white screen, the director calls MIX, to gently merge in the charisma generated image of the white from VT spliced with the feed from camera 5 showing red desk and presenter. They then perform a pre-programmed zoom (yes they had robot cameras in the news studio even in those days) and a pre-programmed charisma generated wipe out of the VT, the effect looks like the camera is flying in from above, the reality is the camera just did a zoom and someone did some very careful pre-programming of digital effects into the charisma machine............ pretty hi-tech stuff in those days, especially in live TV. The next animate charisma cue, pulls a played in VT out of the TV screen with the logo on behind the presenter during the headlines...... also looks very clever stuff, but easy if your camera can always be guranteed to be in the same and correct position (a benefit of using robot cameras). Hope that explains it to everyone!!

I always thought Michael Buerk was the most serious, authoritative news presenter.

Michael Buerk, what a legend

Classic Eighties news room! Striped shirts, white collars, braces, ties loosened! It's pure theatre. Love it!

This a fascinating insight into TV news production at the BBC back in 1989. It still feels modern. Interesting show how BBC journalists cover stories concerning Packed Faced politicians.

This is mental!! I can't believe how fast-paced and pressurised the whole process is, and yet on screen it's silky smooth and polished. Well, it was in the 80s and 90s. Now they make balls-ups more often. I suppose there's no threat of Norden's Laughter File. Fantastic to see Michael Buerke preparing in amongst the team rather than lounging around or being a prima donna. He was one of THE news presenters.

Amazing work behind the scenes. Must have been even more challenging before mobile phones and the internet.

Judging by the logo at the top left, this programme was still being repeated as recently as the late 1990s, which seems astonishingly late given how quickly technology changed during that time - even by 1999 this would have seemed ancient history.

A sad time nowadays when the viewer is encouraged to gather the news for the channel. The internet, social media and rolling news has tarnished what was once a quality, trustworthy, unbiased corporation.

Thursday 26th October 1989 - Apparently they had to delay the broadcast of Blackadder Goes Forth episode "Plan E" that night, which was due to air at 9.30pm, but was shifted to a later slot due to the breaking news of the day.

2:43 Michael Buerk spoke too soon and got his wish for a busy day!

Awesome video I love BBC I'm always in awe of our superheroes behind the scenes 👌 Thank you for sharing this gemstone!

I was just over a year old when this was broadcast. Thanks for this.

Amazing insight, simply riveting. I wish they had also filmed one when Thatcher resigned. Mark Damazer is pretty extraordinary, fully on top of it, delegates all the tasks and then: -Right, scatter on that! Also pretty revealing is the team's reaction to John Major's appointment - which gives you some semblance of the BBC's confidence in his credentials to lead the Treasury.

If you like this, there's a similar programme all about 1st November 1988.

Brillaint! It's great to hear and see what happens in the gallery with a programme.

Nigel Lawson was replaced with some guy named John Major, and the rest is history.

Amazing how focused these professional journalists are, not reliant on Twitter or Facebook. This news article was about running around London.

Fascinating watch, thinking on their feet

Major had only months earlier become Foreign Secretary, more or less out of nowhere.

Was it pure chance that this programme was recorded on a day of such momentous news, or did the crew follow many days until something earth-shattering happened to occur. Was it also chance that the camera just happened to catch the impromptu discussions between the programme editors? All very seat-of-the-pants. I wonder how common it was/is not to have *any* of the reports for the four leading stories as the programme went on air.

Andy Taylor is the announcer when the 9 o clock news starts

Live TX news when so much can go wrong, and it's testament to the beeb that it rarely did.

Equal parts exhilarating and exasperating 😅

@Visonu When he said: "the former Leader House and Chief Secretary", he meant Biffen was the former Leader Of The House and a former Chief Secretary, rather than being the current Chief Secretary who had previously been Leader.

At 2.31 Michael Buerk mentions John Biffen as the chief secretary of the treasury. I thought Norman lamont was the chief until the 1990 cabinet change

Couple of shots of people smoking in the newsroom there, seems quite shocking it was still allowed at late as 1989!

Brought back some memories seeing them all working on BASYS terminals - the first newsroom computer system to be deployed across the BBC. It looks old and clunky by today's standards, it ran on its own proprietary system, and all it did was take in the wire services and provided a very basic 'word processor' for writing scripts. We didn't get PCs (running Windows and ENPS)) at BBC GLR until about 1998. ENPS itself is itself now being replaced.

One presenter, presenting two editions at same day? and not recorded

... and then 2 weeks later, they were all on flights to West Berlin ...

0:59: Intro

preferred the intro music back then..

Horrible job sitting in a room with no daylight watching multiple screens counting the seconds away. Nightmare.

Over on ITV...who anchored News At Ten that night (and did they extend their broadcast like the BBC)?

One thing of interest, this was a slow news day (albeit it got exciting). This is before the world of 24 hour rolling news! Gives a real idea of the problem that 24 hour rolling news presents in an editorial sense!

Yes, I've done work experience with the BBC and 'charisma' is just a fancy name to describe graphics. They often use names like Vera, Charisma, etc.

12.55 AM ?????????

@michaelsouthwest This is indeed correct.

Is the director called Leon? There is a talkback clip on here from an earlier edition where the director is referred to as Leon. Any sign of Mike Broadbent who was the producer?

I am very confused. At the start, it is 11:30am and the BBC news team are preparing for the 1pm news. Then at 00:20, it says 12:30am.

Back when Britain and its internal politics was a big deal on the world stage. Nowadays, not so much.

Do u think I wasn't watching

Good

Yeah, that was a scary omen of things to come. nah, he would never last as chancellor, year and a half tops, to number 10 with you and an electoral defeat that gives the other side with a majority bigger than your entire group of MP's

who is the director?

0:30 - Bit of a waste of studio space, having a special set just for the One O'Clock News. Today one set is used for all national bulletins.

...i'm glad ....dosen't look like you get it very often !!!

I think if the Cameras weren't on them they would not be so 'charged' as this. It's like when I used to work on IT and one of the servers went down and the whole office used to look at us. My superior was like: "QUICK! RUN AROUND TO VARIOUS CABLE ROOMS AND LOOK LIKE WE'RE FIXING IT!"

Back in the day when the BBC could command some respect from the licence-fee payer..

They spent hours planning this, they agreed at a production meeting the content, what did it go to pot on air where nothing was ready. Bloody stupid if you asked me?.

The BBC’s anti-Thatcher agenda in full view here - laughing at the appointment of John Major, talk about impartial!?