Continuity announcer

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A continuity announcer is a broadcaster whose voice (and, in some cases, face) appears between radio or television programmes to give programme information.

Continuity announcers tell viewers and listeners which channel they are watching or listening to at the moment (or which station they are tuned to), what they are about to see (or hear), and what they could be watching (or listening) if you changed to a different channel operated by the broadcaster. At the end of programmes, they may read out information about the previous programme, for example who presented and produced it, relay information on information or merchandise relating to the show, or to provide details of organisations who may offer support in relation to a storyline or issue raised in the programme. Continuity announcers may also play music during intervals and give details of programmes later in the day. If there is a breakdown, they make any necessary announcements and often play music for its duration.

Contents 1 Usage 1.1 Television 1.2 Radio 2 In different countries 2.1 Canada 2.2 Ireland 2.3 Italy 2.4 United Kingdom 3 See also 4 References

[edit] Usage

[edit] Television

Television continuity announcements typically take one of two forms:

• Out-of-vision, where only the announcer's voice is heard, either over the end sequence of a programme or on-screen graphics. With appropriate training in sound and vision mixing, this can be achieved with a single person acting as both voice and controller.
• In-vision, where the announcer seen delivering the announcement on-screen. This typically requires a number of people in a small studio, including sound engineers, vision mixers, and occasionally camera operators. Modern installations with motorised cameras can reduce this to two — the presenter, and a technical assistant to perform the "backstage" functions such as adjusting the camera and mixing.

Many European television stations used in-vision continuity as a regular method of introducing programmes. Presently, only a few European television channels use in-vision announcers:

• Belgium: één^[1][2] and VIJFtv^[3][4]
• Finland: YLE TV1 and YLE TV2
• Ireland: TG4^[5]
• Italy: Rai Uno, Rai Due and Rai Tre
• Norway: NRK1^[6]
• Sweden: SVT1^[7][8] and TV4^[9][10]
• United Kingdom: UTV,^[11][12] the CBBC Channel^[13][14] and BBC Three^[15]

[edit] Radio

With most radio stations now broadcasting only music, few networks retain continuity announcers. Exceptions include talk stations such as SR P1, National Public Radio in the United States, BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service: in the case of Radio 4 they have the extra tasks of reading the Shipping Forecasts and gale warnings. Many double up as newsreaders.

[edit] In different countries

[edit] Canada

In Canada, CBC Television used in-vision announcers to 'host' primetime programming from 2001 to 2006. The host would appear before a program to describe the forthcoming episode. As the credits rolled, the announcer would describe upcoming episodes of the series, then introduce the next program at the top of the hour. The evening's host changed daily. Usually, the host was appearing in a major upcoming program the same week, giving the appearance that the host is promoting not only the next program in the evening but his or her own upcoming show. Sometimes CBC Radio newcasters or program hosts would appear as the evening TV hosts. The initiative, sometimes known as "Hosted Prime", only covered the CBC's core evening block (8:00 to 10:00 p.m. local) as opposed to programs in the 7:00 hour, and would not normally appear during the summer.

CBC Radio One has used continuity announcers in recent years. Originally, a number of staff announcers shared the duties, however, in 2004, the service began employing actress Shauna MacDonald as its primary continuity announcer. Her identity remained a secret for more than a year leading her to be dubbed "Promo Girl". MacDonald has since been replaced by Steve Fletcher, serving in a similar capacity for both Radio One and Radio 2.

OMNI Television in Toronto has used in-vision continuity announcers for the past 10 years or so. These "interstitial" segments fill in the time left in programming due to the different break structure of American TV programming, that cannot be filled by commercials in Canada due to Canadian broadcast regulations regarding the number of minutes of commercials allowable per hour. The segments range from 30 seconds to 2 minutes, and in addition to announcing the station and the programs coming up, the announcers will talk about other programming, station contests, quirky news or celebrity gossip.

Continuity announcements on Citytv are voiced by Mark Dailey. The original continuity announcer was Dan Aykroyd.

Other Canadian stations will fill this time in by a news update or a teaser about news stories.

[edit] Ireland

All domestic terrestrial channels in Ireland make use of continuity announcers, mainly to introduce programmes, promote forthcoming programmes, provide information relating to the programme just broadcast and, in the case of RTE's two channels, cross-promote programmes on the other channel.

RTE One used in-vision continuity announcers until at least the mid 1990s,^[16] and was briefly reprised in the late 1990s for overnight programmes.^[17] RTE Two used in-vision continuity announcers from its launch in November 1978 to at least 1986.^[18][19] In-vision continuity links were reprised on the channel, then known as Network 2, during the evening schedule, from 1997 to 2001.^[20]

From January 2008, the daytime schedule on TV3 launched with two new in-vision continuity annnouncers, Conor Clear and Andrea Hayes. TG4 still makes regular use of in-vision continuity during its evening schedule.^[21] Currently, TG4 employ four continuity announcers. The station's announcers also present weather forecasts in-vision, and often mention forthcoming programmes during the weather bulletins.

[edit] Italy

Continuity announcers still appear in-vision on the three main RAI channels, where female continuity announcers are known as signorine buonasera (or 'good evening ladies'), although their role is much more marginal than it used to be. Past continuity announcers such as Nicoletta Orsomando or Rosanna Vaudetti are regarded today as cultural icons of the 1960s, particularly because of their impeccable elegance and perfect pronunciation of Italian. Other Italian channels such as Retequattro,^[22][23] Canale 5^[24][25] and Italia 1^[26][27] also used their own team of signorine buonasera in the 1980s and 1990s.

[edit] United Kingdom

In the UK, continuity announcers are used to introduce programmes, promote forthcoming programmes, cross-promote programmes on the broadcaster's other channels and provide information relating to the programme just broadcast. All terrestrial channels make use of continuity announcers, and for most of the time, continuity announcements are presented live. Continuity announcers can also be found on digital and satellite channels, but most of these channels make use of pre-recorded announcements.

The BBC mainly use live announcers on BBC One and BBC Two, and mainly use pre-recorded announcements on its digital channels (apart from BBC News 24 and BBC Parliament, which do not use announcers at all). Since 2003, continuity announcements for BBC channels are broadcast from Red Bee Media's Broadcast Centre in White City, London,^[28] with regional continuity teams based in the regional broadcasting centres in Glasgow, Cardiff and Belfast providing links for the regional variations of BBC One and BBC Two. Historically, BBC announcers mostly spoke with Received Pronunciation, but the range of accents heard has widened considerably in recent years, and the general tone has become more informal.

It is believed that in-vision continuity was last used during the peak viewing hours on BBC TV in the early 1960s, with a link into the Eurovision Song Contest 1963 the last-known example of the corporation's use of in-vision continuity (as well as existing out-of-vision continuity) during evening programmes.^[29] The presentation of children's programmes had in-vision continuity until 1965, and in-vision continuity was reintroduced as part of Children's BBC/CBBC) on 9 September 1985.^[30] From then until 1994, this came from the main BBC1 continuity suite itself, referred to as "The Broom Cupboard"^[31] and introduced by various presenters including Phillip Schofield, Andy Crane and Andi Peters: since then, it has come from a larger, specialised studio. From 1998 to 2001, the Northern Ireland regional service on BBC Choice used in-vision continuity links.^[32] In February 2008, BBC Three introduced in-vision continuity links, in the form of live links with a presenter^[33][34] and recorded links with BBC Three viewers.^[35][36] The BBC Three website offers viewers the opportunity to introduce their favourite programmes.^[37]

Since 28 October 2002, all announcements for ITV plc-owned stations on ITV1 and Channel Television, and for ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 come from The London Studios, with separate teams of continuity announcers at STV's Pacific Quay, Glasgow and UTV's Havelock House, Belfast.

Most announcements broadcast on ITV1 are conducted live, while occasional regional continuity on ITV1, and continuity for ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 is often pre-recorded.

The consolidation of ITV companies during the 1990s and 2000s led to the closure of transmission and continuity facilities at some ITV company studios:

ITV region	ITV company at time of last known announcement	Date of last known announcement
The Borders	Border Television	Late 1999/early 2000 (regional continuity moved to Yorkshire Television in Leeds)[38]
Central Scotland	Scottish Television (STV)	Still has regional continuity
Channel Islands	Channel Television	?
East of England	Anglia Television	1998[39] (regional continuity moved to Meridian Broadcasting in Southampton
London	ITV London	Still has regional continuity (which is heard throughout England and Wales)
Midlands	Central	27 October 2002 (regional continuity moved to The London Studios)
North Scotland	Grampian Television	1998 (regional continuity moved to STV in Glasgow)[40]
North East England	Tyne Tees Television	16 March 1996 (regional continuity moved to Yorkshire Television in Leeds)[41]
North West England	Granada Television	1998 (regional continuity moved to Yorkshire Television in Leeds)[42]
Northern Ireland	UTV	Still has regional continuity
South and South East	Meridian Broadcasting	27 October 2002 (regional continuity moved to The London Studios)
Wales and West	HTV Wales and HTV West	January 2006 for Wales (regional continuity moved to The London Studios), 2000[43] for West (regional continuity moved to Meridian Broadcasting in Southampton
South West England	Westcountry Television	27 October 2002 (regional continuity moved to The London Studios)
Yorkshire and Lincolnshire	Yorkshire Television (YTV)	27 October 2002 (regional continuity moved to The London Studios)[44]

In-vision continuity was common on ITV when each region had a distinct identity and their own transmission and continuity facilities. During the 1980s and 1990s, many regional companies abandoned the use of in-vision continuity announcers:

ITV region	ITV company at time of last known in-vision announcement	Date of last known in-vision announcement
The Borders	Border Television	Still in use in 1998,[45] believed to have been dropped when continuity moved to Yorkshire Television in Leeds
Central Scotland	Scottish Television (STV)	1989/1990?
Channel Islands	Channel Television	Still in use in late 1990s
East of England	Anglia Television	Still in use in 1990,[46] dropped soon afterwards
London	Thames Television and London Weekend Television	Thames: probably the end of 1987 in the evenings, 1988 in daytime, 1990 overnights; LWT: probably the end of 1982
Midlands	Central	Still in use by 25 December 1986,[47] dropped soon afterwards
North Scotland	Grampian Television	Summer 1998,[48] dropped when continuity moved to STV in Glasgow
North East England	Tyne Tees Television	1996,[49] dropped when continuity moved to Yorkshire Television in Leeds
North West England	Granada Television	Still in use in 1995,[50] dropped before/when continuity moved to Yorkshire Television in Leeds
Northern Ireland	UTV	Still uses in-vision continuity
South and South East	Meridian Broadcasting	1994[51] - Meridian only used IVC during Night Time at weekends. Their predecessors, TVS, dropped in-vision in daytime and evening in September 1987, but in-vision links continued for Late Night Late until circa 1991/2.
Wales and West	HTV Wales and HTV West	1992[52][53]
South West England	Television South West	31 December 1992[54]
Yorkshire and Lincolnshire	Yorkshire Television (YTV)	1969/1970?

Today, UTV is the only ITV company to still use in-vision continuity announcements. The only ITV companies which have never used in-vision continuity are Carlton Television (London) and Westcountry Television, who both began broadcasting in January 1993.

Channel 4 used in-vision continuity for a brief period following its launch in 1982, mainly at closedown. The station briefly reprised the use of in-vision continuity links for a short period from 1996, used mainly in evening transmissions.^[55] five has only used in-vision continuity as part of its children's strand, Milkshake!.

[edit] See also

See bumper music for a similarly functioning idea used in talk radio in the United States.

[edit] References