BBC NEWS CUTS

Can’t see that happening! If so they’d need to do the same for the other effected regions too.

Assume this will mean them both going part time to share? Otherwise (for example) if they both still happened to be in the building at the same time 1-2 days a week why couldn’t they still be able to have the occasional double headed edition?

Perhaps they’ll change the late editions too as currently Stewart/Susie only normally present lunch and 6.30pm with Amelia on late. Surely it makes more sense for the 6.30pm presenter to always do the late? In theory there should be plenty of spare aspiring presenters around during the day to do the lunchtime.

The reality check is regional news on British television has been hacked back on both networks so much over the last decade. Local news now on both the BBC and ITV will be the bare minimum they can provide without provoking a bollocking from OFCOM.

I knew this would happen, when I saw the ITV attitude to regional news in 2009, I knew it was the end for proper regional news on British television, and now it is the BBC turn to take the axe and cut as much as they can.

I wonder how the presenters on TalkRadio will react to this, as they have been ranting and raving about the overstaffed BBC and too many regional news programmes for over a year now, I wonder will they be gloating or will they do a u-turn and become raged with the axing?

As expected, many presenters not particularly happy tonight.

We might need someone to start a petition Paul! That's their plan.

— Roger Johnson (@RogerJ_01) July 2, 2020

A hard pill to swallow today. https://t.co/7d1DTH2uSQ

— Alex Lovell (@alexlovelltv) July 2, 2020

And just after it becomes clear how important loca news is to people during a crisis. Look at the figures. Same goes for the news channels.

— Simon McCoy (@SimonMcCoyTV) July 2, 2020

Really though the regulator not bowing to every request from commercial operators is what the industry needs. They shouldn't be allowed to drop commitments with the expectation the BBC will pick up the slack.

To be fair on the scale of how outspoken BBC presenters often are about BBC issues, that is a pretty weak response.

I don't think it's legally possible to force people to go part time (especially considering the pay cut that it will entail). While the presenters in some regions may themselves opt to do if they don't need the full time salary or have other earning opportunities that they'd like to spend more time on while retaining a screen presence (or have other opportunities within the BBC that are unaffected such as Roger J on breakfast and final score), it is likely that some would opt for redundancy over going part time.
While I can understand the outcry at the proposed cuts it is hard to argue that some consolidation in terms of presenters shouldn't be possible in many regions. Midlands today, for example, already relies solely on 2 presenters a day and uses a combination of local radio presenters and the weather team to handle weekends, whereas some other regions seem to have separate presenters for each of breakfast, lunch, 18:30 and the late bulletins as well as a dedicated weekend presenter.

Yes, that’s what I think is disappointing - there’s no allowance for a region to deploy its team of journalists in the way they think best. The double headed regions don’t get extra money for being double headed but have decided that’s how they’ll use their resources. If one does lunch and 6.30 and one does 6.30 and 10 that seems like a sensible use of the team to me and I don’t understand why they can’t have the flexibility to keep doing that.

If Midlands today are managing to spend the same as certain other regions either somebody is getting rather rich for doing relatively little, there is one hell of a lot of wastage somewhere along the line at MT, or certain other regions have next to no reports by anyone other than the presenters in their bulletins.

What happens with the older veteran presenters will be a minefield. They will be on the highest salaries so it would be a big saving, but it’ll cost a fortune to make them redundant, and many will be retiring before long anyway. But there will be lots of bad press if they make someone so popular in the region redundant.

I doubt any of the main regional BBC news presenters are likely to be on salary so unlikely to be made redundant. More likely that contracts will not be renewed or paid off early.

From what I have seen lunchtime is shared amongst a number of presenters so sometimes the breakfast presenter while other days Susie or Stewart. Amelia sometimes does lunchtime and late. There is nothing to say that any of the presenting team work full time pre Covid-19 and they may not wish to afterwards.

A routinely renewed contract though isn't always a get out of jail free card - indeed after 4 years they're considered an employee unless there is a good reason for them not to be and they're entitled to redundancy after 2 years.

I guess it'll vary from region to region but how many on screen talent do we think each region would have?