BBC News: Presenters & Rotas

The senior producer for Six and Ten said on Twitter that weekend bulletins on nationals would be coming from London for next two weekends, so this week and next. No reason why though. I can't think of any either when all of it is being produced in Salford.

Amanda Davies tweeted a pic of the empty BBC Sport newsroom before. She said there are only 3 people there now! Their new space in Salford really does show the age and need for change at TVC.

Also, are the connections between Salford and London satellite? I was just thinking their isn't too much of a time delay, but there cold be another reason for that. I'm just curious.

There's a simultaneous discussion going on about the lighting issues in the BBC News Channel thread - one of the things I've just pointed out in there is the distracting background as well as the poor lighting. The computer monitors and TV screens making up the background are far too bright (helped along by the poor studio lighting) and also too much in focus. I don't know about anyone else, but I find my eyes being drawn to the background rather than the presenters. Some frosted perspex would make the world of difference in my opinion. I just can't believe the studio made it to air in this state; surely it should have been picked up during piloting and fixed?

I don't think that's the case. They just moved the screen and Karthi is sitting where the main presenter sits during single bulletins.

Like the rest of the BBC's contribution network, it's fibre.

Even before you take the MPEG encode/decode into account, it takes 250ms to get a signal to a geosynchronous satellite and back. Do it by fibre, and it's something like 0.8 × the speed of light - so a couple of milliseconds from Salford to London. Add few more ms for the encode/decode, and HD-SD conversion, and it's rather speedy.

Most contributions and OBs are fibre-based these days. Occasionally you'll get something by an RF link to a suitable nearby tall building and then fibre backhaul from there, but satellite links are generally reserved for places which don't see OBs very often (such as lower league football grounds), short notice news hits, and locations to which BT wouldn't be able to provide a fibre, like music festivals in the middle of fields. Or Hull.

What are the odds of it turning out to be that the office lights are sensor controlled and can't be turned on if there's nobody in there?

When was the last time Huw Edwards presented the ten? It feels like an age!

Last Tuesday...I think he is doing something for BBC wales this week - I think I saw something on his twitter about it. Sophie presenting tonight which is the first time in a while (maybe this year)

The Story of Wales, I think is the thing Huw is doing.

Nice to see her back. I can't remember her presenting on the ten since the riots last year. >7 million saw that!

Could someone please tell me (and the owner of the video) who is this presenting the news and are they still with the BBC?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDs_FnOqnns&feature=plcp&context=C4d3303fVDvjVQa1PpcFNQKywEwhV5MkzG-L10bhyFBMawekL6FEs%3D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55upIi61Tyg&feature=plcp&context=C42236c1VDvjVQa1PpcFNQKywEwhV5Mm73TThjMr_bCND-R_FSZd4%3D
(I know Matthew but who is the lady?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK2bDAOpWc8&feature=plcp&context=C488f291VDvjVQa1PpcFNQKywEwhV5MszrR2r4_hr7rznzfhBqXbE%3D

The first video is Philip Hayton and Anna Jones. Philip Hayton was a long-serving BBC newsreader who presented across BBC1, News 24 and BBC World until about 2005/2006. Anna Jones left the BBC to go to Sky News.

The second and third videos are Liz Pike with Chris Eakin/Matthew Amroliwala. Chris and Matthew are still with the BBC and I haven't seen Liz Pike for several years now. By my guess, she probably left some time around 2006? Again, she was quite a long-serving presenter for the BBC. She presented on BBC World in the 1990s and then was a regular relief presenter on BBC News 24 in the 2000s.

Thanks for that, as I mentioned in the World thread, it's worth checking out that youtube channel, some great HQ clips from the mid noughties BBC News24/BBC World presentation.

That Youtube channel is just amazing. Some really good quality stuff on there from what I consider the 2nd best period for BBC News 24/BBC World pres.

Also, for how long was Ben Brown a BBC World presenter?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OUAOGSQuko