Look through any window

Sense of place is apparently important to some tv programmes, and less to others. Daybreak on ITV tried to open the windows on the London skyline, but has now more or less drawn the curtains, GMTV-stylee (and the sofas are now red, not purple).  The One Show drains power during the winter to light up the White City piazza visible through arrow-slot windows.   Panorama, when topped and tailed by Jeremy Vine from the same urban paving, whizzed lights and cameras round our hero, to make his monologue more interesting - or perhaps to distract from it.

Richard and Judy had real windows when they started their morning show from Liverpool's Albert Dock, and, in Fred Talbot, a weather forecaster who jumped around a floating map of the UK, lightly tethered in the water. (Fred made the journey to London last week, to fill in for Lucy Verasamy on Daybreak).

At MediaCityUK, the principal tv studios, operated by SIS/Peel, are black boxes. But BBC Breakfast and local regional opt-out North West Tonight are to share a set being built in office space in Quay House.

Having spent all that money on big glass windows, will they be blacked out ? Will production staff work in a timeless netherland of fluorescence, favoured by Sky, and followed by BBC Arabic ? Or will it be curtains closed for Breakfast and open for North West Tonight ?  Informed sources on Manchester forums believe the Imperial War Museum North has funds for a new lighting scheme - perhaps supplemented by the BBC - which might provide a focal point across the canal. On the other hand, these same sources believe the colour scheme proposed is red and white. Maybe the colours of network news - but a divisive call in Manchester, surely ?