BBC News: Presenters & Rotas

With Emily a frequent cover for Newsnight and the Sunday night news, and occasionally on weekday BBC1 bulletins and doing documentaries, I can't see her picking up any extra days on a regular basis. She would just be another Louise hardly ever doing a full week

If Sophie Long doesn't get Louise's shift then possibly Joanna Gosling allowing evenings to just be one presenter?


It was total tokenism with the over 50's females. But it has brought two great presenters back to newsreading (Fiona and Julia), so it's achieved something. Fiona as ever was great this morning with Simon and very ably filled time waiting for the Queen to appear

Can't help that feel that the good old Daily Mail is using this as Beeb bashing as ever. Fiona would have known that she is cover for x amount of days minimum. That is how it was announced right from the start. It appears words put in her mouth here.

Of all of the older women presenters, Fiona is head and shoulders above the rest on rolling news

I agree. It's interesting that of the two, Julia Somerville is arguably the more highly experienced newsreader. Fiona spent her time at ITN mainly working on the News at 545/540 and Weekend News, although she did occasionally deputise on News at One and News at Ten. She then did a short stint on GMTV before going back to regional news. Julia, on the other hand, has presented some of the nation's most highly regarded bulletins, such as the Nine O'Clock News and News at Ten, as well as a long stint on the ITN Lunchtime News and a spell on the ITN News Channel. However, Fiona is definitely the better rolling news presenter. Horses for courses, I guess?

It's like Peter Sissons - he didn't easily move across to rolling news either, I think Julia is in the same boat. She has gotten better though and does a decent job. Saw her dealing with some breaking news the other week and she wasn't too bad although she was doing a lot of err-ing.

She did once take the lead on the News Channel a long while ago with Sue Thearle and it resulted in her getting very mixed up with cameras, and oddly she seemed to say 'This is the BBC News, the headlines" and "Welcome back to the BBC News" which seems an old fashioned way of saying it. Don't think she's done it since but I would like to see her back in the main chair, I'm sure she'd be better now!

Fiona definitely the superior presenter, yes. It's a shame she always takes the secondary role on the news channel when co-presenting like Julia does - most presenters swap about each day.

Regarding the news article - I bet the Daily Mail contacted the over-50s presenters at the BBC in hope of a reply, and Fiona was the only one to reply with a short answer, and they've stretched that into an over-hyped article. It certainly was a token gesture though.

Adam Parsons will be out on location for Breakfast later this morning. He sure gets around these days.

Fiona before and now Julia in NC. What on earth would the DM say?!

Tim staying on as well into second shift of day. Some good banter between him and Julia!

Looks like we're getting quite a random mixture of Sports presenters in anticipation for Monday's launch of BBC Sport Centre bulletins. We had Jonathan Legard before and now Arron Armstrong on NC.

Matthew Amroliwala presenting the one today

I certainly wasn't expecting that today. If I had to put him on one of the main bulletins it would probably be the One.

Does Sophie do the One on a Monday then, or dare I say, does she do a 3 day week?

Saying that, she joined domestic BBC News with the view to presenting four days a week on the News Channel (in the evenings) and, for the record, is regarded as one of the four main presenters of Newsnight (rather than 'frequent cover'). They could easily pass some of those Sunday shifts to someone else - Sian Williams, Kate Silverton, any number of News Channel presenters. And the BBC traditionally has no problem with a screwed up schedule on the News Channel for presenters taking on other assignments - Emily herself when she was on evenings, Kate Silverton on mornings, Louise Minchin on afternoons. Besides, she's done at least three days this week already.

I suspect they'll leave it as a freelance shift, though, so it will probably stay a mix of Emily and Sophie, and then any other presenter they can think of.




Also, Fiona Armstrong is great. She really is a pro - I see no reason they couldn't offer her some weekend shifts on BBC World to bolster her schedule. I also wonder if it would be possible to have her on Breakfast every now and then - if she's prepared to travel down to London for the News Channel, perhaps she would be to Salford for some weekends.

Does seem quite odd Sophie on Mondays. Looks like she might do three days a week. Not as if everyone else does now. Because a four day week is just too hard for newsreaders to cope with.

Emily doing a rare shift on a Friday. Don't normally see her on with Julian.