Decision time

In the tv referendum contest, the BBC's London machine delivered an expensive and fairly slick night of coverage, whilst smaller rivals caught much more of the energy and emotion that has characterised this joyous/anxious exercise in democracy.

The graphic design team chose green for yes and red for no, then presumably went to some hotel disco, and decided to up the colours into highlighter-pen Pantone variants, matching the fluorescent tubes around DJ Huw's turntable desk. Dancing Jeremy Vine, ideal for the lead in Golum The Musical, then took blocks of these colours into an Only Connect wall, and tried to unscramble them in increasingly bizarre ways.  In the wide open spaces of Pacific Quay, however, there was no drum and bass backing track - and the whole exercise felt terribly quiet and inward-looking. Huw needs to stop saying "give us a sense of" when forming questions. Sarah Smith, as local expert, improved through the night, but there were few Robert McKenzie/David Butler factoids about each individual declaration, and you felt Sarah and Nick Robinson were sort of guessing why the No vote was so solid in various areas, rather giving informed comment. Andrew Neil gave real information in his short contributions from London, but was oddly hunched in a primary school chair, and lacking l.e.d. lighting. The odd moment of passion came from Hardeep Singh Kohli, for the disappointed and suspicious Yes camp.

Psephologist John Curtice, never a disco dresser, was tucked away in some dim backstage hub, and asked to comment, as, at 5.13am, the BBC 'called it' for No. Over his shoulder, you could spot shirt-sleeved Director of News James Harding and Director General Lord Hall, wearing headphones and no doubt being enormously useful. Let's hope both had retired to the bacon-butty area when, shortly afterwards, the London team missed the Edinburgh result live, as Jeremy was throwing shapes in the chill-out room.

Sky News spent nothing on sets - Adam Boulton was on a shelf at the Ingliston counting centre, with computers on a camping table, and reporters were out and about. It was rough and ready, but you felt closer to the people who had travelled to be 'there' for a real result. There was a baptism of fire for Faisal Islam at the Edinburgh count, but we did hear different voices, as the BBC rota-ed through usual suspects. And the graphics people chose Saltire blue and white for yes, inverted for no, which was much less tiring on the eyes.

ITV carried the STV coverage, with Bernard Ponsonby at a very large IKEA trestle table, and Aasmah Mir and guests in the living room display area, sitting on SKOGABY two seat leather sofas (new lower price £350 each). Their added value was scrolling tweets from the celebrities still awake as the results came in.

I wasn't able to watch the BBC Scotland version, with Glenn Campbell. I wonder if they got the Edinburgh declaration....