BBC Breakfast

Noggin - *you* are very correct. Very well said.

This is an interesting one. We have a split in the consensus between some very bright folk.

I guess we'll have to wait and see who turns out to be right.

(me).

But surely in the long term, the move of the BBC there will encourage ITV and others to do programmes from the North West or other areas outside of London. Once something as big as the BBC moves into an area the creative industry in the area will grow and thrive and the BBC won't be the only game in town. Unfortunately, someone has to make the first move.

Give it 5 years and in theory a PR junket up to Manchester might well start on Breakfast, pop into Smooth Radio mid morning (which is soon to network all it's programmes from Manchester), Five Live in the afternoon, maybe an ITV or C4 chat show recording. And of course there's all the local media, Piccadilly is a big station and one of the few who still do stuff locally.

Just a thought, but it's worth remembering that the beeb won't be there in isolation

Long since branded Key 103 and Magic, dragged into the networked void of Bauer, it's parent company.

Many years ago, I remember when BBC Radio 4 tried to do a 'double-hander' with a presenter in London, and the sadly-missed Brian Redhead in the Oxford Road Studio in Manchester for the early morning "Today" programme


It lasted about six months.

I think you'll find that the arrangement lasted for quite a few years from the late 70s to early 80s, although I can't seem to find exact dates.

Two presenters from 6.30am on a Sunday? Nicholas Owen and Louise Minchin both behind the desk before 7am this morning.

I think the 6 to 7 hour is normally double headed on a Sunday; it's Saturday there's a single presenter, when the show goes on until 10.00 usually.

A lot of the networked stuff comes from Manchester, and if they are anything like Viking FM (also part of Bauer) just over half the programming, mostly daytime, will still be local anyway

Re Smooth, it's a surprise it will be networked from Manchester as all other national groups (Global who own Gold for instance) network from London.

I guess it's bye bye to 105.7 Smooth from Brum then?

I think it lasted two years - the first Radio Times I've got with that format is from May 1977 and the last is June 1978, but I think it started in late 1976. This was also the period when Today was only broadcast in two half-hour chunks, from 7 to 7.30 and 8 to 8.30, the reason being that apparently the controller of Radio Four was obsessed with the idea that current affairs programmes were too long and if they were shorter they would be more concise and hard-hitting, so as well as that he cut PM from an hour to forty minutes (with a filler show called Serendipity at 5.40) and The World Tonight from 45 minutes to half an hour.

From 6.30 to 7, and again from 7.30 to 8, there was a "programme" called Up To The Hour which featured all the non-news stuff from Today like the sport and Thought For The Day, and even some records, presented by the day's announcer. Everyone hated it because it was such a pointless show, there's a famous story of Peter Donaldson introducing it by running through what was on all the other stations and then saying "But sadly, here on Radio Four it's Up To The Hour". And the Today team were of course devastated because it had been cut to nothing.

Anyway, late 1978 it was back to one long show again, and all done from London. I suppose the idea was to make it less metropolitan but it just sounds awkward.

Have to say that if the Salford move means fewer people plugging things within the confines of a news programme, I'd say bring it on.

It could be that the One Show will have a better choice of guests if they're not having to make sure they don't book the same people as Breakfast.

Also in some areas on FM there was regional news during that slot. Wrotham carried London+SE news, Rowridge South of England (usually read by Bruce Parker). Of course Today wasn't heard at all on FM in East Anglia and (on FM or MW) in the South West, because of full regional news shows Roundabout East Anglia ?, and Morning Sou'West. Those programmes vanished when Radio Norwich opened in 1980, and Radios Devon and Cornwall in 1983.