BBC News: Presenters & Rotas

I *think* Big Al used to do a Sunday afternoon quite regularly actually, back before Sissons started doing News 24... It's a shame if he's gone, he was really good... authoritative yet friendly.

Ah, thanks for the info. I have to say I don't personally recall that, but I seem to have a mental block as far as Sunday afternoons go in the early 2000s. As I recall, in 2000/2001, Saturdays were presented by Maxine Mawhinney, Philip Hayton and Chris Lowe with Gwenan Edwards/Anna Jones. I'm sure Sunday afternoons used to be two shorter shifts back then (they later merged into one long shift, like Saturdays) but I really can't remember who presented them. As I recall, Peter Sissons joined BBC News 24 in 2002/2003 and Alastair Yates only re-joined BBC News in 2001, so he can't have done Sunday afternoons for long. I really wish I could remember properly! I seem to remember weekends on BBC World more clearly - they were mostly presented by Martine Dennis, Lyse Doucet, Anita McNaught and Adrian Finighan at that time, with Mike Embley, Lucy Hockings, George Eykyn and Jane Dutton later replacing Dennis and Doucet in the rotation, both of whom moved to weekdays.

If you look on Alastair Yates' TV Newsroom profile, on the 3rd page of pictures there's a picture of him doing an evening shift with Joanna Gosling. Possibly one of the only times he co-presented instead of presenting alone..

http://tvnewsroom.co.uk/people/alastair-yates/

I also remember an outtake being shown on 'Outtake TV' from BBC News 24 from when he covered a 3pm slot.

Alastair Yates, please come back to overnights!

Rebecca Pike is bad! Stuttered, hesitant delivery. Wooden reading - she could at least make it sound less obvious that she is reading from an autocue. Her speech just doesn't flow.

She needs to put a tad more personality and charisma into her reading. She sounds and looks very robotic.

She broke some breaking news at 1 and she didn't handle that very well at all. ROBOTIC!

Bring back Big Al!! I love his voice and his authoritative delivery of the news.

She also needs to push down her laptop screen!!

She seems worse [edit: tonight] than she was last time I saw her. I'm guessing we're seeing a lot of Deborah Mackenzie (a good thing) and the likes of Rebecca Pike and Rachel Hodges because James and Juliet have both left the BBC, and Kasia and Babita are no longer overnight relief presenters?

So was there any kind of pattern to shifts, or was it just whoever was booked in on any given night? In the way that Martine Croxall covered Sun-Tue, Karin Giannone Wed-Fri and Al Saturdays.

Overnights seem to have changed dramatically over a very short period of time - it was only a few months ago that Croxall, Munchetty, Yates, Dunlop, Dagwell and Madera were all overnight presenters, yet it seems they've all moved on. I agree with others that Babita is very good indeed - she seems to handle interviews and breaking news with ease - and Adnan Nawaz is very much qualified. I seem to find him less annoying than I did Naga on that shift (she really wasn't suited to it). Rachel Hodges seemed a little wooden when on a week or two ago, which surprised me as she's not bad on the News Channel usually, and we've already mentioned Rebecca Pike. Deborah Mackenzie, on the other hand, deserves more airtime.

Not the news channel as such, but Julia Somerville has done at least one Saturday on BBC1 since February (when the NATO strikes against Libya begun in March)


She was on weekend evenings with Chris Lowe at one point around 2006 or 2007 IIRC


I remember Carrie was on Weekend 24 in the mid-noughties. I feel sure as late as 2005. At one point at least Bill Turnbull used to stay on as co-presenter (this was back when there was both Breakfast and Weekend 24 on a Saturday)

Carol has also done a few shifts in the past few weeks and Fiona did a week of cover for Joanna not that long ago.

Lots of BBC World presenters playing out of position this weekend. Babita Sharma did the News Channel yesterday afternoon. Komla Dumor is doing the Sunday afternoon shift on World. And tomorrow, Naga Munchetty is doing Breakfast News.

Argh, I know... I watched her at 2.00 maybe, last night, she was so wooden and stuttery.... not good for the BBC.

I agree with the sentiments that Babita is good, I really enjoy watching her and she's shown that she can deal with light-hearted (the royal wedding) and serious breaking (osama bin ladan) news. I'm not keen on Adnan- he's OK but I'd rather see someone else on the overnights, with him just being a relief. Deborah Mackenzie is experienced and I'd like to see more of her, although IIRC she's got commitments elsewhere in the BBC (radio?)

I'd really like to see Al back, but I think others may be right, and we've lost him, which is a dreadful shame!

I'll hazard a guess at saying it was around 2004-5 when Al was still doing Sundays (if only he had Twitter, we could ask him ). Sissons would do 1.00-7.00 on Saturday and 5.00-7.00 on Sunday, Al used to do 1.00-5.00. I think.
Meanwhile it was Carrie Gracie or Tim Willcox on the mornings, Chris Lowe and Joanna Gosling on the evenings, and Martine Croxall or Deborah Mackenzie on nights.