Elections 2003

Elections 2003 was broadcast on 7th March 2003, and produced by Cally Nixon and Chris Thornton.

Unlike previous Derwent election nights, where the set and control room were both placed in the JCR, this year the terrace room next door was used for the set and the JCR for the control area. This allowed as much noise to be made in the control area as was needed!

The new set was designed and built by John Biltcliffe and Andrew Talbot. The small cream set boards were seperated by tall thin purple boxes with a number of circular holes in each. These holes were covered in tissue paper and a long bulb was placed in each box, creating a pleasing glow on camera. These light boxes were in fact inspired by part of the set BBC Sport's snooker coverage was using at the time! The desk used since SU Elections 2001 was placed in front of this. For the interview set a "coffee bar" was constructed to try and bring a more relaxed approach to this area.

Using the terrace room did have its problems. It is a fairly small room to try and cram two fairly large sets into, and once lights, cameras and Big Telly had been hauled up the stairs outside and added to the mix there wasn't a lot of room to move!

There were technical problems on the night which led to Giles Burdett's campus map graphics not making their debut until twelve months later, and the programme itself wasn't able to go on air until around 9.45pm. The programme also suffered from using the dying vision mixer (anyone remember its name?) which gave out mid-programme. YSTV's brand new Panasonic Max was rushed back from HQ at the other end of campus and rapidly connected into the setup, leaving the presenters filling in sound only over graphics and VTs whilst this ocurred!

Fillers on the night included Woodenspoon, the final of Games Disaster, Have I Got News For YUSU and that year's NaSTA Best Broadcaster film.

Other than the technical problems listed the content on the night went smoothly. The programme's main legacy was the links set - immeditately afterwards it became YSTV's generic news and current affairs set, and was used for YSTV Week, Bona Dicta and future election programmes. In recent years it has made all manner of appearances on shows such as YSTV Sport, The Sofa Show, FourPlay and most recently YSTV News. The coffee bar set made it's debut on Have I Got News For YUSU a week earlier, but has since appeared on all subsequent elections programmes and also The YSTV Great Big Christmas Game Show Thingy 2003. It is now part of the regular LipSync set. All of this is a testament to the hard work put in designing and building in early 2003.