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Overview A production team, including a producer, readers, contributors and a technical operator, gathers at the Talking News studio at St. Richard's Hospital Chichester. The main content is a round-up of local news and features taken from the Chichester Observer, Bognor Regis Observer, and the Midhurst and Petworth Observer. Also included are an information desk, special items behind the news, and features on gardening, nature and fashion. The programme is recorded on to computer and then copied on to blank cassettes or CD's. These are then inserted into special wallets and posted free of charge to our listeners who play them on their recorders - in other words "the newspaper they cannot read". Chichester Area Talking News is distributed fortnightly and is a 60-minute programme. In addition to the newspaper, there is a quarterly taped magazine INSIGHT of 75 minutes' duration containing articles of general and local interest. |
Vhari McEwan reads the village news alongside presenter Celia Harper |
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The computerised recording production studio
The copying team |
Spotlight on Copiers We currently have four teams of copiers who take turns to undertake a copying session on a rota, which means that we attend every eight weeks. We usually arrive at the studio when the recording of the latest edition of the news tape has been completed. The computer system has made a tremendous difference in how we carry out the copying. Now we have to find the current edition on the computer in the recording studio, switch on the bank of five XGEN copiers, load up with blank tapes and set the copying in progress by starting the copying from the selected master edition on the computer. The XGEN copiers copy both sides at once at high speed and when completed, automatically rewind the tapes. On completion of the cycle, the tapes are removed and the process starts again and again and again…….. Each tape is checked to make sure that the copying has taken place, inserted into the listener’s wallet and placed in the mail sack. The copying machines have to be cleaned every half hour and at the end of the session, so as to maintain the best quality of copying. The sacks of wallets are taken to the Sorting Office early the next morning. The whole session takes 1˝ to 2 hours (provided we encounter no problems). We copy the magazine four times a year on a Sunday morning. We also have to ensure that we have sufficient news and magazine tapes. We renew the news tapes every two years and the magazine every five years. A good quality news master tape is timed to exactly 30 minutes and 10 seconds. The excess is removed and the magnetic tape spliced to the plastic run off tape. A master for the Insight Magazine of 37˝ minutes is prepared in the same way. When the recording is completed, it is recorded on to the Master tape, so that if there are problems with the computer the master tape can be used. It is retained so that we always have a copy for reference purposes. We have recently introduced copying on to CD for those listeners who have asked for them. We also copy tapes and CDs for other charitable organisations as and when required. Chris Tully |
