London Live

Oh dear. That's a change from what they've done previously and even between Christmas and New Year. Didn't they previously do breakfast and two extended London Go programmes from various events around London on Bank Holidays didn't they? Maybe just two one hour news shows during the day of three 30 minute shows or, worst case, just a few bulletins here and there? Surely that wouldn't be too much to expect? Having said that, and it has been mentioned here already, the weekend news usually features a lot of repeated stuff from the week before so that's not exactly ideal even then.

Is it because after the cuts they don't have the resource to do that anymore or maybe it's because they now do more on an ongoing basis they have effectively stored up enough local hours so can cut back at other times? Either way, not the best decision imo. Wouldn't it also be a really good chance to maybe pull in a few more viewers or at least focus on the fun side of the Bank Holiday and get out there and be seen at various events? Or maybe some sport or sport previews? Odd. I see there are repeats of the dull (and hardly A list) Movie Talk programme, repeats of Playout performances, repeats of old news and repeats of repeats of gigs. Even channels such as Mustard TV manage to keep a local service going (although they appear to have Saturday off) but I guess the tiny team they appear to have now need a few days to catch their breath, get some sleep and update their CVs.

The changes started off strong but these last couple of weeks the strain is showing. The lack of noise around the first anniversary was deafening too and I was expecting some sort of something at least especially after the changes. I bet there are some interesting conversations taking place behind closed doors in that building at the moment.

In this week's Private Eye. The most viewed show on LL is a Danny Dyer film, which scraped 65,000.

Out of interest has the editor of The Evening Standard, Sarah Sands, ever appeared on London Live?

Perhaps that's a sign of some of the internal politics between the paper and London Live?

Yes Sarah Sands has presented quite a few editions of The Headline Interview

Amol Rajan, the editor of the Independent has also presented The Headline Interview, although since the changes, it's been a LL presenter.

I agree with TVGB that the changes made at the beginning of March got off to a good start, but since then the holes have begun to show.

Taking a look at their website shows very little 'real' news - lots of arts coverage (not bad, but not nearly enough to base a news service around), a few feature packages but a real lack of relevant, London news.

Without wishing to harp on about the fire in Kingsway - the only mention of it on the 'news' section of the website is a piece the following day by Jon Naylor who was reporting from an industrial estate fire in Park Royal. Incidentally the situation around Kingsway has not got a lot better. Theatres, hotels, shops and offices are all still being affected by power outages.

As for not running any sort of news service across the weekend - its a very poor show.

I agree. There seems to have been a shift too and it's a bit hit and miss as well as seeming a bit more random than before while also being quite a lot of the same type of stuff - especially TV which would surely make the audience tune out of LL? It doesn't feel quite as big if that makes any sense? Also, I crosschecked to see if they are putting more/different things on different platforms and noticed they haven't updated their YouTube channel for ages which I would have thought would have been a good way to draw an audience in? But digital seems to have slowed a lot too in general which seems very odd in this day and age. And the quality seems a bit more varied. But if they're going for local news as their hook - which it seems to be by changing all the shows to homogenous News and getting rid of the specific daily entertainment shows - this doesn't line up alongside that. It just feels a bit uneven and scattergun somehow.

Either way, it would seems that the audience isn't watching it en masse regardless. It needs another rethink.

I think the theatres will be more concerned about the Park Royal fire, as it was one of the biggest entertainment lighting hire companies in the country who burnt down, and who may well own kit in those theatres.

I think they're both strong stories and both affect theatre but I think one has more of a direct relevance to the actual 'everyman' London audience who needs to get from A to B in/through the centre of the city and those people with tickets for big shows that night including the Benedict Cumberbatch Letters Live.

Either way it's either due to a) a lack of resource post cuts making it not possible to cover it which does not bode well for anything that size again or bigger in the future or b) poor news judgement internally or c) both. None of those are good. If I was a new viewer turning to them to try and get information either online or on TV that day I probably wouldn't bother coming back. If I was a regular viewer I would have felt pretty let down and have turned to rival TV/radio/online news.

Next weekend, the lunchtime bulletin of London Live News moves from noon to 1pm.

Oh I agree the Holburn fire is more relevant to a wider audience, but its important to realise that even from the small list of people superdave listed, they may well have a different view of how important the stories are. It's very easy to dismiss a warehouse fire that you're not interested in as being unimportant, but that fire is very important to everybody in the entertainment industry, which makes up a notable number of London businesses and residents.

That said, I'd still be reporting from holburn...

I wasn't dismissing the warehouse fire, merely making the point that the Holborn fire was still raging at the time and the subsequent chaos was affecting businesses across a wide area (it still is).

In the 56 second package on the warehouse fire, no mention was made of it being a lighting specialist - it would have given the story a lot more bite if the connection had been identified.