How many?

I-ve just left a meeting in New Scotland Yard.

When I arrived – two hours ago, there were two television crews (full outside broadcasting units) standing outside on the pavement; set up with cameras on tripods, microphones that looked like fluffy dachshunds and small ancillary lighting units. And a cameraman and a sound technician.

Two hours later and guess what’s outside?

Yep, two television crews, cameras on tripods, microphones that look like fluffy dachshunds and small ancillary lighting units. And a cameraman and a sound technician.

WTF?

Don’t television news companies have more creative ways of spending their budget?

You know that all you’re going to get will be a ‘talking to camera’ piece where the studio anchor asks inane questions of a very cold looking person who is standing outside a building’.

And this small point really gets me.

BBC News (or whoever, the precise name of the production company is not important – it’s the principle of the thing that I’m questioning) sends out an OB unit with a presenter to stand in front of a closed doorway or a sign that says ‘Department of…’ so that someone back in the studio can ask the most inane questions in a 30-second ‘to camera’ piece.

What?

Why?

And…

For how much?

B.