Rogue computerised cameras plague BBC news presenters

The Guardian – by Tara Conlan

When the BBC moved its newsroom as part of the £1bn hi-tech refurbishment of Broadcasting House in central London last year, everything was meant to be state of the art, including new robot cameras.

Problems soon emerged with incidents of the cameras moving in directions that were not wanted, prompting exasperation from news presenters and humour from viewers.  

Numerous incidents have been recorded and posted on the internet of the computer-controlled cameras suddenly zipping off or turning away from presenters when they are reading news bulletins live. One BBC News Channel presenter, Martine Croxall, told viewers she is convinced she is “jinxed” after enduring at least five such incidents – two of which occurred within a week.

Now there are fears that the problems might be about to get worse when a newBBC computer system is introduced.

The robot cameras were designed to do away with camera operators and save money. However computer glitches mean that sometimes they do not do what they are supposed to.

Croxall has become so used to them that when presenting an evening bulletin in November during which the camera zoomed away from her to the news desk she said smoothly: “I’m just going to move back to the main set. I know this has happened before. If I sidle in you can pretend you haven’t noticed.” About a week later she was fronting another bulletin when, at the beginning of the programme, the camera swung away from her again.

“Do you know I swear I’m jinxed. What am I going to do?” she said exasperated.

“I’m going to stay where I am”, she said as the camera zoomed back. “I’ll stay here.”, she told viewers with a sigh.

Last year she was presenting the newspaper review on the News Channel when the camera zoomed rapidly towards her, causing her to sit back in alarm and ask: “Goodness me, what is happening?” She told the show’s reviewers, journalists James Lyons and Emily Ashton: “We’ll be paying you danger money.”

Jane Hill has also been a victim, apologising to viewers after the camera spun away from her during a report on the financial crisis in Cyprus and saying: “I apologise, clearly not meant to be doing that,” as she moved in and out of shot.

The camera’s capers have almost become so commonplace that some presenters just ignore them. Others have tried to sort out the problem themselves. BBC business presenter Aaron Heslehurst had a troublesome encounter with the cameras in May 2013, telling viewers “you’ve got to love these robotic cameras” before appearing to reach out to try to turn the camera round. He was shouted at by producers and responded: “I’m not touching your precious robots!”

There are concerns within the BBC that the glitches may become more frequent. BBC News is looking at replacing its computer system, called ENPS, with a new one within two years. ENPS communicates with the computer program that controls the cameras, called Mosart. Both ENPS and its replacement are due to run in parallel, to ensure a backup, but staff are looking at what might happen when both systems are trying to talk to Mosart.

One source said: “They are due to run together for some time. But bearing in mind the problems that happen with cameras already no one is quite sure what will happen when Mosart has to work with the old and a new system.”

A BBC spokesman said: “The BBC is undertaking a procurement for a Newsroom Computer System under the Public Contracts Regulations (2006), having advertised in the Official Journal of the EU, reference 2013/S 174-300782. The BBC is not able to comment further on this procurement until the completion of that process. This is because the BBC must not do anything that might adversely affect that ongoing process, and due to commercial confidentiality.”

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/dec/05/bbc-robot-cameras-rogue-presenters-frustrated