ABSTRACT
The Battle still rages over announcers. First they were to be faded gradually from the screen, with off-screen voice only in the middle of the evenings. Their role was generally to open and close proceedings. But now, I notice the announcers do appear – that is, the girls – they are being ‘presented’ in a big way. We see them with backgrounds of drapes and curtains and flowers, and with side-face camera angles. Well, I am all for a bit of presentation and dressing up. But in the BBC there are as usual Two Views. I can reveal that on the evening when flowers were first used to surround the night’s announcer a Certain Top Executive telephoned TV presentation studio and said ‘who’s dead?’.
