BBC Breakfast

Yes, but often on the principle that:
"if it snows in the rest of the country, it's mentioned in the weather report; if it snows in London, it's headline national news" .

How much coverage of politics is actually done from the Breakfast studio at the moment? It's usually with a guest at Millbank/on College Green/in their constituency.

Just another thought on presenters - could Declan Curry be an option with the demise of Working Lunch? He does some stuff for 5 Live as well, so might be up for a move to Salford, but taking a stand in presenter role on Breakfast?

Just wondering, I know the announcement's been made, but could this be flag waving and be a move that'd be easy to cancel 'to show restraint in difficult times'?

Spot on !!

I thought Breakfast was a NEWS programme anyway, I'm far too busy being at work at 08:30hrs anyway, as are the vast majority of the UK population at that time. I'm on holiday this week, so I did see the 08:30 to 09:15hrs segment today, it's rather like a morning version of The One Show. If the BBC really must put that fluffy stuff on at that time, make it a separate London originated programme.

Let's just get back to basics, BBC Breakfast should be a news programme and no more, to that end, then presenting from Manchester rather than W12 makes no odds, as others have pointed out a great deal of interviews are DTL from Millbank/Bush Ho/BH anyway. Simon Jack can go back to the LSE studio, I'm sure they can afford that if they're moving out of TVC.

Stuart: apologies if you've responded to this, but what do you say in response to shows like the One Show and This Morning moving to London in order to get guests? Sure this shows that people are not willing to make the journey for 'their own sake'.

Wonder what this means for Saturday and Sunday. 7 day a week programme from Salford with the same production values all week, or weekends from the News Channel in London still?

Now I understand the idea of moving large parts of the BBC to Manchester is reducing costs long term. Fine. But isn't moving breakfast just going to mean an empty studio first thing in the morning in London? Or with Working Lunch going is the idea to reduce the studio requirement by one? (Finding a new home for Newsnight and the Sunday shows in the process)

The weekends also remain a mystery. The current set up keeps costs low - move to Manchester and the news channel studio becomes empty for 3 or 4 hours. Or keep in London and it will mean major changes to presenting shifts (weekday presenters needing to work 5 day weeks) or the weekend presenters having to commute from Manchester to London on a Friday afternoon

Will be interesting to see how the issue of relief presenters is handled. No doubt we will see some travelling between London and Manchester. That shouldn't be a huge issue - CNN/US are often sending presenters between New York, Washington and Atlanta, and of course Breakfast have done it in the past sending the likes of Jon Kay, Noel Thompson and Michael Peschardt to London. The most efficient way would be to base a male and female relief presenter in Manchester who could do general reporting when not needed to present

As has been said can possibly work with 5Live a bit too, especially for sports relief presenters. And also maybe the Northern regions too, including for weather (if that moves)

As for the guest issue - that's mostly after 8.30 and make a spearate show if need be. Will cost more but I'm not sure that reducing costs is the reason for the move any way

They could go back to the old format, whereby the two sofa-sitters are based in Manchester, whilst the newscaster, sportscaster and weather presenter could all be at the London newsroom. (Like it was in the days of Moira. Whilst I know Moira was actually seated at a podium just a few feet away from Sophie and Jeremy in those days, the use of split screens gave the impression to the viewer that she was far, far, far away in a distant land.........)

I am sure BBC News have thought of all the logistical nightmares of getting guests onto the sofa, etc. So, if they really thought it would not work, I guess they wouldn't be doing it!!!

For me, the real query is whether Sian, Bill and co will continue to present the programme and shift to Manchester. These days, commuting isn't so bad, is it?

I think some others have suggested that the move from Liverpool to London for This Morning was as much to do with Richard and Judy's desire to base themselves there, as it was for getting more guests.

However, both of those are fundamentally different to Breakfast which is essentially as news programme. They rely heavily on the celebrity tat and trivia element.

What others? Where? I have never heard this - and the move was widely discussed on this forum at the time.

You just made that up.

This forum didn't exist when Richard and Judy moved to London. I believe they moved primarily because the airline they used to fly guests up stopped flying to Liverpool, they found once they moved to the capital the calibre of guests they could get improved. That's the way Richard always tells it anyway.

My mistake.

Certainly widely discussed at the time. There was life before TV forum - however bland it may have seemed.