And these days we have The One Show. God help us, how standards have fallen.

Just watching that makes me feel like I've put in a stressful shift. I always imagined programs like that were put together in spacious glamourous offices with armies of people all working to a masterplan, and highly paid presenters being driven around in up-market cars. It's amazing how it came together on a daily basis without lots of timing and continuity problems. The technology today would make it a lot easier to distribute and edit the video but the editorial and content creation decisions are still the same.

Sue Lawley was gorgeous 😉

A great document of TV News production in the mid 70s.

Wow, proper Journalists who worked hard in their profession.

RIP Michael Barratt xx

19:45 - this was a complicated opening for the show. First the opening titles, then the regions opted out for 1 minute for their introductions, then the regions opted back in for Mike to introduce what's coming up on the networked show, before handing back to the regions for their own news, whilst London/South East region remained with Sue and Mike for their regional news. This is why Sue is presenting the South East opt out here. Very complicated.

What a lovely and insightful programme!

I remember Lime Grove well; especially recording the music for the Hot Shoe Show in TMS in the mid 80's with a size of orchestra you won't see in broadcast now!

Good old Bob Wellings; ..... "did you have breakfast this morning?" He could have replied "1 - 2 - 3 ... icicles, rice-icles,.. testing...".... "Is that enough for level, or shall I just recite Parsifal?".

I was racking my brains for 24 hours, but finally, it came to me: the reporter who sets up the documentary is PHILIP TIBENHAM. He was one of NW's more serious presences and I don't recall him being anywhere near a skateboarding duck or a scooter impersonating vicar. He had a very distinctive voice and was familiar as one of the regular narrators on the Horizon strand. Thank you so much for posting this surviving remnant in such good quality.

Nationwide also had the responsibility of providing the regional news for London and the South East, as the BBC didn't give that region a dedicated regional news service until the autumn of 1984.

Incredible. No computers. They had to send the roll of film on the train for broadcast.

Google/Apple maps (street view) shows the loft extension on no 41 Arnold Crescent has gone, it’s been extended and there is a room in the loft. It has a nice new roof now though. 10:50

Being a California native, I must confess it was the Monty Python chaps who made me aware of this show. Also Patrick John Scott's music.

I remember watching Nationwide, but not at that stage as I was just five. I started infant school and would have been far more interested in Play School!

The car scene earlier looked like something out of the Sweeney, no glamorous cars, smoking, luckily no shooters!!!!

A really enjoyable film... thanks for posting. Just love how the poor man was made to capsise (again) for our benefit.

RIP Michael Barratt

When I started watching 'Nationwide' in 1979 it had been on the air for ten years - I came to really appreciate it's provision of context and analysis for events of the moment. On a personal note - it fired an interest in the regional BBC studio sites (starting with Plymouth, I visited all in England & Wales that there were at the time this film was made).

I think our feelings about current TV being inferior to the days of Nationwide and such shows are part rose-tint but partly justified. IMO there are a number of factors involved in that feeling (which I do share). 1) There is so much TV now and we've all seen (or endured) so much that we're harder to please. I've lost count of how many times I have started watching something (factual and drama) and suddenly realised it was a repackaging of something I'd seen before. From the 1960s onward there were a lot of genuinely new things coming along....... 2) In the past there was a constant drip-drip of something new added to the overall TV experience (Live international links, Colour, ever bigger screens, stereo, digital, HD....) that's missing now. For example, the leap from SD to HD was transformative, HD to UHD much less so. 3) Because there is so much TV time to be filled, spam is an inevitability. 4) Camera and studio tech now enable producing empty TV - i.e. great visuals with little actual content - very easy. That is not helped by the fact that a lot of content is made to be sold into multiple markets and is thus made with quite a lot of obvious filler or sacrificial segments and mind-numbing amounts of recap (Channel 5 factual content is particularly bad for that!). 5) With so many channels and so many ways to watch, time-shift, download, collect or buy TV content, the "Shared Experience" factor of a whole nation watching a single piece of content at a single moment is all but gone - few TV shows now attract more than 15% of the nation. Even the highs are not as high as they were. 1966 World cup final had close to 60% of the UK population watching - Morecambe & Wise Xmas show in 1977 watched by about 55% of us, Princess Diana funeral was watched by a comparable percentage in 1997, whereas HM Queen Elizabeth II Funeral in 2022 had about 38% of us watching. 6) There are fewer "commanding" authoritative but accessible presences doing various kinds of TV now. Fewer Ludo Kennedys, Robert Robinsons, Cliff Michelmores, Frank Boughs, dare I say Paxman..... there ARE contemporary presenters of comparable calibre (I would cite Amol Rajan, Emily Maitlis...) but they are a lot fewer.

Incredibly entertaining, gripping piece of television and perfectly captured 70s iconography! Thank you for sharing.

17:00 - As Sue walks to her desk, we catch a quick glimpse of "South East" on the wall behind her. This was the area where the London/South East news would be presented by the Nationwide team, as that region has no regional news team. When the network programme aired, the camera tried to avoid showing that part of the wall.

I remember Nationwide with Wellings and Barrett

4:56 how hungover does Bob Wellings look? Still he perked up as the film went on. A great presenter, he recently left us (March 2022) and is sadly missed. And interesting to see Greville Janner in action before the allegations at 12:33.

News from all regions of the UK everyday was a very new concept that nobody had tried before.

Absolutely wonderful stuff thanks for uploading!

Today's programmes aren't a patch on this and it shows how low the BBC has sunk.

THANKYOU FOR SHARING THIS

I remember watching an episode of Nationwide back in the early seventies when Eric Idle was the host. WWIII had just broken out, but Nationwide wanted to get away from that for a bit and instead, test the theory that, sitting down regularly in a comfortable chair could rest your legs.

Wow. Amazing. I had no idea all this was needed to produce one episode of Nationwide.

Thanks for post , I think I watched this back in the 70s I'm glad I didn't go into broadcasting, as I've never seen such a collection of argumentative egos before. Sue Lawley was only in her late 20s when this was filmed, and apparently was known to have a lot of fun on location.

I miss comprehensive simple documentaries not flashes no dramatics no animation

From my experience working in news rooms they have certainly toned down the language

All through its history, television news and current affairs just lift 99% of their content from newspapers.

That was brilliant.

Ah the glory days of steam powered BBC TV, all off film and 2" Quadruplex tape, and before proper vision synchronisers... "so now as we vision off-lock around the regions lets go Nationwide!" and slightly later on... PA : "TK1 have you got that film yet?" TK1 : buzz buzz PA "shit TK1 says he hasn't got the film," ... pause ... "Ok VT2 have you got your item?" VT2 buzz Director "Ok Bob we're changing the running order - the film hasn't arrived so after the interview we're going straight to the Musical Drains item..." PA Standby VT2 VT2 buzz PA "Run VT" etc... *for those unfamiliar with studio talkback - the response from the channel to studio was via buzzer - one buzz for yes - two for no and three for I cant answer that with a yes or a no. Length of buzz can also indicate how stressed the operator was. All in all it was a miracle that it (almost) all worked... every night!

That office really needs more desk space doesn't it?

The days of the swamp meaning film was king. HAPPY DAYS!

A great film of a great programme.

Ah the good old days ❤️

I’m stressed as hell after that !

"Apparently, two of the monks have gone on holiday, and they're getting a new Dame...He's a man." What ?? :/

Amazingly interesting film showing the nightmarish hell involved in producing what can only be described as a load of old cobblers. Everything shown was just trivial pointless nonsense but because we only had 3 channels back then this stuff was really all we had to watch.

Sad how the BBC has declined. These people were hard working, compare them with the idiots in the corporation today....

6' 38" looked like an early version of Zoom but without the pictures!

Looks like regular Q-TV VPS-100 prompters couldn't have been put on the EMI 2001's, no? Seeing what they did use for same . . .

Good evening and welcome to 'Nationwide'. The programme where we do rather wet things nationally and also give you the chance to see some rather wet items in the Regions. Well, everyone is talking about the Third World War which broke out this morning. But here on 'Nationwide' we're going to get away from that a bit and look instead at the latest theory that sitting down regularly in a comfortable chair can rest your legs. It sounds very nice doesn't it, but can it be done? Is it possible or practical for many of us in our jobs and with the sort of busy lives we lead to sit down in a comfortable chair just when we want? We sent our reporter John Dull to find out. - Monty Python's Flying Circus series 4 episode 4.

BetacamSP and especially Digital Betacam were still many years away, but would certainly have made the job much easier.

0:53 Imagine trying to work out which phone was ringing!

"Rushes" are the pre-filmed segments that were approved by the director, but have not yet been checked or edited ( But you probably knew that already, right ? ).

Victoria Lucas needs to work on this.

My dad.

Monty Python’s Flying Circus did a parody of Nationwide, I think in S4, even using their titles and music

the editor is so dismissive of porcupines being seen on salisbury plain! How short sighted of him! Obviously Wiltshire's version of the Surrey Puma. (Showing my age there!)

Where are they now? Great bunch of people!

No tally light on Cam2 (EMI 2001AND Vinted HP419 ped)

3:15 that middle aged guy riding a motorbike to work.

Great times! Today is just s..t! 😵

@7:00 and conference calls are the same today

01:30 - enter the stereo-typically dressed reporter !

All that urgency for nothing. Everyone wrapped up in their own hysteria and self importance. Nothing’s changed.

Was that a young Tony Blair I spotted

God those Lime Grove Studios were an utter dump.

It's like they are running a war.

1:06 Looks a right shit tip lol

Everybody love BBC. everything from British land are the best.

2:25 who’s this??????

2:25 who’s this ?????😮

Cannae here a thing?

Everything looks so primitive.

Shame about Frank. Career ruined jsut because he was a bit kinky in his private life. These days, they wouldn't bat an eyelid

Everyone looks tired and dirty.

TV,was a lot better.

2.24 Can't be? A young Tony Blair? Lookalike I guess?!

"'ello luv!" Them was the daze: when the BBC worked hard for our money. What a difference to today's self-important libtards telling us what to think, from a sofa, while reading an autocue.