Speaking of anchors standing up

Standing up news pesentations seem to be the latest hype all over Europe, especially in the German speaking countries and in Sweden.

Sveriges Television (SVT) of Sweden has their presenters standing in their newsshows (see online at http://svt.se – click on “Nyheter” (news) and klick on the camera-icons for the various newscasts in the block on the right: Aktuellt 18 (at 18:00 hours), Rapport (at 19:30 hours) Aktuellt 21 (at 21:00 hours).

Also, German Public Television sation ARD (http://www.daserste.de) has their newscasters standing for quite some time now. The main news show “Tagesschau” (http://www.tagesschau.de – click on “Letzte Sendung” (last show) in the block on the left) as well as the “Tagesthemen” later in the night (http://www.tagesthemen.de) has their anchors standing very much like on Swiss Television, behind a counter, and there was some ramble going on right after it had been introduced with one quite short Newscaster who really looks a bit short in the opening and closing scene when the camera moves in respectively out. While reading the news though, he appear the same hight as the others and they say he’s stepping up to a beer carrier which is hidden behind the counter in the opening and closing scene 😉 Especially highly popular Tagesthemen front woman Anne Will (http://images.google.com/images?q=Anne Will) is said to be a rather tall woman, while her collegue that speaks the actual news block is rather short.

I never quite understood why there was a discussion about standing news presenters anyway. Having worked in that job at a smaller local station myself I must say that it definitively was always more comfortable standing up then sitting down while speaking since your entire body is in a better position allowing easier breathing while speaking. We’ve had a seated arrangement as well for some time but the chairs (which could not be seen) were very quickly exchanged to those kneeling stools which we had in our voice-over studios. They allow you to have a larger angle between torso and legs, thereby improving the way you speak by giving you more space to breath.

Personally I think the Swiss example looks a bit stupid and might even be uncomfortable for the presenter as the desk seems rather low, almost like a regular desk you would sit down to, forcing the anchor to almost bend over a bit to look down on the desk.

“Having worked in that job at a smaller local station myself I must say that it definitively was always more comfortable standing up then sitting down while speaking since your entire body is in a better position allowing easier breathing while speaking.”

This was pointed out by veteran (now retired) Formula 1 commentator Murray Walker, who always did his ITV/BBC broadcasts standing up, so that he could talk better. The tradition has continued with James Allan and Martin Brundle. In a recent race, they noted that they were the only broadcast crew doing the race standing up in the media centre.

In Norway, only one channel have newsreaders standing up. The public broadcaster NRK have sitting newsreaders, so do the largest commercial channel TV2. Only TVNorge has newsreaders standing up.