BBC News: Presenters & Rotas

How many times does she do her regular slot? surley deputising on Breakfast and News at 1, presenting at weekends, One Show deputy and Real Rescues is enough for her? Im not saying sack her or get rid her but theres no point putting her on a shift she never does.

What you seem to be missing is it may well not cost them anything to cover days Louise is absent. If Louise is covering Breakfast, for example, it may be she's not paid by the News Channel but is paid by Breakfast. If she does Real Rescues, she may well be on a short-term sabbatical from the News Channel. She may, in fact, be a freelancer (many of the BBC's onscreen 'personalities' are) or may be naturally contracted for fewer shifts a year. So don't assume the current situation costs more than if they had a single presenter there.

And I really doubt they'd save on lighting, equipment, hair and make up or wardrobes. Any savings would be the £92,000+ a year* allocated to that presenter or slot.


*Source: Carrie Gracie

A fairly obvious way of getting more worth for their money would be have main presenters who can present a whole week...

08:30-11:00 Simon and Carrie
11:00-14:00 Matthew and Annita
14:00-17:00 Jon and Joanna
17:00-18:00 Huw (Jon on Friday as well as 2pm shift)
18:30-22:00 Chris and Jane
22:30-01:00 Ben

Swap Chris and Ben as Chris is more consistent and we need consistency in the new schedule. Any presenter not willing to be a main presenter for five ways should be axed or demoted to relief. Jon can now do five days since he has been axed on Politics Show. Then on weekends...

09:00-12:00 Charlie or Susanna
12:00-18:00 Maxine (also lunchtime and evening news)
18:00-00:00 Clive (also late news)

Therefore Rachel, Martine, Julian, Emily and Clive would be axed from weekdays. Nicholas and Tim would be axed from weekends.

^^ That's a good schedule and you have a point, they need to use their regulars 5 days a week, that would save them from spending money on freelancers.

But presumably once Breakfast moves to Salford, it's being presented from there 7 days a week, so the presenter wouldn't really be available to cover the 9-12 or 10-12 News Channel shift.

But they could carry on presenting from their for a couple of hours

Also why don't they use Ellie Crisell on 60 seconds as well as the 8pm summary if they want to save money. It is produced by the same team, so why not presented by the same team?

Firstly, these people are not employees. At best they are contractors, many are freelancers. So when you talk about 'making them work five days a week' you make little sense. They could reduce the shift or day rate they pay, or change the contracts of contractors (if they actually could - you know both parties in a contract do have rights, not just the employer...) to increase the shifts or reduce the pay, but this 'we can axe some freelancers' idea is ridiculous.

Reduce the number of shifts (clearly one way or the other that will reduce the number of staff, assuming you don't have to pay more per shift to compensate hours) or reduce the pay-per-shift (which again may hit contractual/legal problems). But making 'axing this person, making this person work longer, making the Edinburgh regional news presenter work three hours on the News Channel) type comments aren't constructive or helpful unless you're an employment lawyer with all the relevant contracts in front of you?

I still standby my earlier comments: make far greater use of the primary presenters from the flagship programmes 1, 6 and 10.

Which is why i originally posted this...

And my comment wasn't aimed at you...

Has Maxine Mawhinney got changed? Wearing blue now, could have sworn she was wearing pink during The Politics Show news summary.

Does the Politics Show use blue screen or green screen? Maybe there was a technical issue with what she was wearing meaning she had to briefly change.