News Reporting from Dounreay to Tony Blair

From the collection of

Scotland’s national collection of moving image is based at the National Library at Kelvin Hall, Glasgow. The National Library of Scotland collects, preserves and promotes access to films capturing Scotland and her people, from the early days of film making to the present day, with over 48,000 items captured on film, videotape and digitally. Manuscript, printed material and memorabilia relating to the history of filmmaking and the cinema going business in Scotland since 1896 are also part of the collection. You can watch over 3,500 clips and full-length films on the Moving Image Archive catalogue or to explore even more of the collections visit Kelvin Hall.

News Reporting from Dounreay to Tony Blair

National Library of Scotland
1994-06-04
Sound

Assembling a Scottish news story: compilation features impact reports, including the MV Braer oil spill and a royal plane crash.

This selection of 1994 news items from Grampian Television relates to impact reporting on various events, including the MV Braer oil spill, a royal plane crash, a tower's demolition and building plans for Bridge of Don, Aberdeen. Towards the end there is a full interview with Labour Party leadership contender Tony Blair.

This compilation tape is one of almost 2,000 such tapes preserved at the National Library of Scotland. Grampian Television transferred content from mostly news and arts output onto a single videotape. These tapes record audiovisuals in the form of interior shots, interviews, exterior shots, and occasionally, material from external source such as ITN or advertisers.

For example, a tape can jump from colour bars to a scenic view, from an interview with a prominent figure to a live performance - usually without context or guidance on what you're seeing and when it was recorded (although Grampian did keep detailed logs of timecoded content on each tape with recording (?) dates attached. Due to their age and format, some of these recordings may now have visible video dropout, splashes, tape wrinkles, and visual distortion, among other technical issues.

Tapes digitised for preservation and viewable on BFI Replay are mostly Betacam SP. These compilation tapes provide a rare, informative, and fascinating look at how complete news stories were archived by a regional broadcaster, and they are still likely to contain a little untransmitted material.

Grampian Television Compilations

Punching above its weight? These snapshots from Scottish channel Grampian Television showcase a 'wee' TV channel with big ideas!

2003, and Grampian Television leaves Queen's Cross Studio, Aberdeen. Over 2,500 film cans and nearly 2,000 videotapes were saved by Scotland's moving image archive as the doors closed. The National Library preserves mostly news, current affairs and documentary recording a Scotland from Shetland to Tayside that was also part of Britain and Europe. Steeped in Scottish culture and tradition, Grampian always looked outwards, embracing the changes of the era. (Indeed, the channel was first known as 'North of Scotland TV' before a swift name change to Grampian TV!) Grampian TV's willingness to invest in and adopt new broadcasting technologies made it an industry pioneer. It was the first ITV station to use 'electronic news gathering' (an advance which enabled the use of portable video equipment to make reports from outside the studios), and the first regional station to have its own outside broadcast unit. Making use of this technology, journalist Selina Scott made the first video report from an oil rig in 1979. It's award-winning news programmes, network documentaries and entertainment shows won Grampian the highest ratings approval of any company in the ITV network. So dinna fash, switch over to GTV and have look at some videos now!

21 videos in this collection

The Arts, Rehearsal to Performance

1990-07-27

Piper Alpha Public Inquiry

1989-02-15

Interviews with 100 Scottish Personalities

Aberdeen
1994-05-19

Timex Industrial Dispute, Dundee

1993-06-15

Scottish National Party Conference

Inverness
1994-08-23

Flooding and Snow

River Tay
1993-01-11

European Commission

Houses of Parliament
1991-01-09

Fishing to Berneray Ferry

1990-05-25