BBC News: Presenters & Rotas

Chris Eakin reporting from the Cardiff newsroom tonight on a Cardiff city player being arrested - it does appear he's (temporarily or permanently) become a general news correspondent. I suppose it's happened before - Ben Geoghegan being an example - but it's a shame, I quite liked him on 10:30 to 00:30 shift. I wonder if Martine is staying put on daytime schedules now?

If he is now just a reporter - that is a great shame (he is one of my favourite - if not my favourite presenter on the channel, when Karin Giannone isn't on anyway ). He is one of the presenters with personality and is very good flying solo on the evening bulletins. I remember when he used to present in the daytimes and seemingly got pushed to late evening/night shifts. Is this the BBC doing away with presenters with any sort of personality on screen?

It is a shame if he is now just a general news correspondent, easily one of, if not the best presenter on the channel, although I feel he is/was wasted in the 2230-0030 slot

If this is permanent, who do we think will take over the late night shift? Martine Croxall perhaps?

It could always be temporary, but it's hard to see why it would be. Martine would be the obvious choice, but would leave them short of overnight presenters. Chris does have a lot of onscreen personality, especially for someone presenting solo.

Like we were saying with Matt Frei, he is maybe just having a bit of variety! Other presenters like Jon, Ben and Matthew all cover stories and report from time to time so maybe this is just Chris' turn to do something different!

Not really a fair comparison - the BBC never sends Ben Brown or Jon Sopel to Dublin to report on random stories for a week, they send them out to cover significant stories, be it Haiti or US elections to London street protests and key Westminster votes. But they rarely send one out to talk about Victoria Beckham's pregnancy or the different types of coaches.

I suppose you're right - I don't know...maybe he just wants to get out of the studio! We'll see!

Really would be shame not to have him present on NC, especially with so many bland male anchors that occupy the daytime. Send them to do these meaningless stories.

Who are these 'bland male anchors' you speak of, ginnyfan?

Surely not Tim Wilcox, he hasn't been seen for days (not on the domestic news channel, anyway)

Well most of all Matthew A. Ben Brown too.

Jon and Simon are fine.

I think Matthew is fine for the slot he's on - the 11-2 slot is usually dominated by developing news and interviews so often little time for chemistry and banter, but the 7-10 slot really needs some life injected into it. As much as I like Martine, I'd rather she was given a weekend slot and Chris Eakin kept on the late night slot.

Big mistake by Beeb bosses if this is their doing and permanent.

Sally Nugent presenting with Simon this morning - his co-presenter must have been unable to come in last-minute. The curious thing is Sally still did the sports update, from the desk, and said afterwards 'that's your sport update', to which Simon thanked her, only for her to present news just a minute later.

Sally's not a bad presenter at all, and seems to have some good chemistry with Simon.

Edit: For the 10:15 headlines, Simon did the news headlines and Sally the sports, both from the desk. Actually works quite nicely.