Sky News reporter loses temper with Richard Holden
ELECTION TV GUIDE
While TV bosses are using fancy new technology to analyse the election night results on Thursday, BBC newsreader Reeta Chakrabarti will be settling for a pen and paper method as she prepares for the big night.
Said Reeta: “I just read as much as I can. I go through all the constituencies, I sit down in an old-fashioned pen and paper way, and I type it off again. And, you know, you hope some of it sticks.”
The BBC will kick off the night with a projection of the exit poll results onto the front of the BBC’s London HQ at Old Broadcasting House.
Inside, Laura Kuenssberg and Clive Myrie, will helm the election night coverage from Studio B which was revamped in 2022 to improve the viewer experience -- and save money.
Jeremy Vine and his trusty swing-o-meter will be based in Cardiff.
Digital online audiences will be offered “a complete results service on the night, with live pages and live video streams”.
Reeta believes the BBC is needed more than ever.
“People come to the BBC for big national events, they always have and they always will.
“Sometimes we're very highly scrutinized and possibly more criticised than other outlets.
"You know, if we do something that people disagree with, or if we make a very occasional mistake, I still think people do come to the BBC at times of big national events.”
Sky News is leading the way with high tech.
Chief Presenter Kay Burley will anchor Election Night Live, the overnight results programme, from a 360-degree immersive studio normally used by Sky Sports shows like Monday Night Football.
Making use of the studio’s expansive arena-shaped space, data and economics editor Ed Conway will examine the live data on the massive canvas of an LED floor and walls.
The exit poll and winner of the race for Number 10 will be revealed with the help of an immersive to-scale augmented reality Downing Street - Larry the cat included - and dynamic, 360 degree figures of the Prime Minister and Sir Keir Starmer.
Channel 4’s big idea this election is to remove all ad breaks to stop viewers going to the opposition channels.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Emily Maitlis and The Rest Is Politics podcast hosts Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart will present live results and analysis.
Reform Party campaigner Ann Widdecombe is among the pundits.
The former Conservative Minister believes she will be celebrating on the night.
She said: “I'm not surprised [how well Reform has done]. The press and media has had its nose in the air and haven't really latched on to the fact that for ordinary Britons, we're talking their language.”
ITV won’t be showing ads either to keep viewers from straying as newscaster Tom Bradby - who anchored election nights in 2015, 2017 and 2019 - will again lead ITV's coverage.
On the tech side, ITV said “we're keeping technical innovations under wraps. We’ve got one or two things up our sleeve.”
Tom will be joined in the London studio throughout the night by George Osborne, Ed Balls and Nicola Sturgeon who said she won’t be “spinning”.
Nicola Sturgeon said: "Being an ITV pundit will be a very different experience, but one I’m looking forward to it. I'm not there to spin for my party, but to offer a glimpse of how politicians feel as we wait for results, explain what happens behind the scenes, and give my views on how Scotland and the UK will be shaped by the results.
"I think the trio of me, George (Osborne) and Ed (Balls) promises to be both enlightening and entertaining."
