BBC News: Presenters, correspondent & rotas

Sorry, but a lot of this is simply not true.
The Saturday early evening, for example, is often no longer than the lunchtime bulletin and contains no more than one live which will usually be someone and something that has been covered on the NC throughout the day. Furthermore, it is pretty clear that neither of the early evening bulletins are fully presenter scripted as you state, as the presenter has been able to remain on air for a significant period prior to the start of the bulletin on multiple occasions over the past few weeks (with no noticeable change in the quality or content of the bulletin and at a time when the numbers of people in the newsroom is lower than normal). The only weekend bulletin that is produced by the six and ten team is the Sunday late and this is more as a product of history rather than any essential need.

Just because they covered the press conference before that doesn’t mean that now the press conference is not airing at the weekend that they don’t script it. It was a simple case of being busy, and therefore some content having to be written by somebody else. And just to say that works as a temporary measure doesn’t mean that it was entirely convenient and practical.

The Sunday evening is produced by the same team as Sunday late so is definitely 6/10 team. I also remember reading up the thread that Saturday 10 was also but I don’t really buy that. Either way, the programmes are produced by a separate team to the duty NC crew, so it would be inconvenient to merge content. Also, it would be odd to get an NC presenter who (assuming the evening news airs between 6-7) has been on air for four hours to then present a normally very tightly timed and prepared bulletin. You also then leave presenters without a shift, which could be worked around. Finally, if you have the NC presenter on air before the papers, they have no time to chat to their guests and prepare for the programme therefore meaning that it would again, cause further inconvenience.

Unfortunately for those unwilling to accept that the savings need to be found and therefore things cannot stay the way they are, the bulletin presenter handling the daily conference has shown that there is no need for them to write the bulletin and that it can be done by someone else (who is lower paid) without any effect as to quality. The need for savings also makes the point that using the BBC One presenter on the channel will leave presenters without shifts rather mute as unfortunately the savings will almost certainly require redundancies so these presenters will no longer be employed and therefore not in need of any shifts (while I'd agree it'd be insensitive to speculate over who should be made redundant I don't think the same applies to pointing out that the BBC has quite openly said they'll be redundancies). Furthermore, it is far from unknown for the papers to follow on from NC only content with the same presenter meaning that there are already occasions where it is presented with little preparation.
The late NC presenter also already has 90 minutes off air between 20:30 and 22:00 which is unlikely to change which should give sufficient time for them to modify the script and rehearse the late bulletin.

All teatime and late BBC One bulletins, including the weekend evening & late news and the axed 8pm summary, are produced by the Six and Ten team.

There was a period of time when the NC first started simulcasting the weekend bulletins (2008) that Peter Sissons would do the early evening bulletin on a Saturday as part of his News Channel shift. I think they could get away with now using the NC bod for that bulletin but the Sat late & Sun bulletins (which are more senior) IMO need a dedicated presenter.

Is the late NC presenter allowed a break?

Peter says in his book, when he renegotiated, it was agreed he'd do the Early Evening bulletin as well if it fell during his shift. Did he stay for the late bulletin as well during this era or did the late presenter do it? I vaguely remember Joanna Gosling started to do a few weekends around this time, was she the late presenter or Peter's relief?

Their shift is no longer than either of the other 2 presenters who don't get one, so realistically they don't need one. For many years the weekend evening shift was either 7-12 or 8-1 with no break without any complaints so the idea that they need a break to do such a shift is clearly a new one.

Saturday and Sunday teatime and 10 are both produced and presented by Six/Ten staff.

As I remember it he only did the early evening, and then somebody else came in to do the late bulletin.

Maybe this is the case in theory but I'm not sure it's the reality. Of course whoever the BBC1 presenter isn't doesn't just rock up a few minutes before and leave the second the bulletin finishes and there is of course preparation for the bulletin.

However, much of the time the content is pretty similar between the BBC1 and news channel bulletins during weekends and I'd argue the news channel presenters perhaps have it tougher as they will have a few live interviews with a guest that require thorough preparation whereas the average link with a correspondent on one of the BBC One interviews can often be of the 'What's the latest'/'What does this mean?' variety and it's veryrare to have a guest on any of the BBC1 bulletins.

And there's a fair bit of available preparation time if the duty news channel presenter were to do the BBC1 bulletin - most back half hours are canned programs and the evening bulletin is usually after 10pm and World takes over coverage of BBC News anyway for the 9pm hour. And this is without mentioning that sometimes up to a quarter of the weekend bulletin is covered by sport and the sport presenter so even less preparation for the main presenter than a weekday edition ('And now over to Olly Foster at the BBC Sports Centre for today's sport' surely isn't the sort of thing that should takes ages to script).

Most of the BBC1 weekend presenters too are presenters who have done news channel slots over the years whether that be Clive, Mishal, Reeta, Kate or others.

Especially in a era of budget cuts, bringing in an extra presenter at weekends for what amounts to only 45 minutes on air does feel one of the things that may be easier to get rid of.

If you want budget cuts, why affect some of the news outputs highest rated programmes to save a couple of quid? Millions view BBC One, thousands view the News Channel. That should always be their priority.