BBC News: Presenters & Rotas

Has Martine Croxall ever presented on location before? I don't recall seeing her, so it'll be interesting to watch. They seem to be sending a lot of anchors out and about at the moment. I wonder if this is because of the new guidelines which are being introduced about reducing the number of presenters doing outside broadcasts and they're making the most of sending out their presenters.

On another note, was Carrie Gracie on her own in the NC studio this morning? The picture below from the BBC News Presenters site suggests she was. Just curious.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-f2j4-dCTW-g/T8XuaCX4N3I/AAAAAAAAA1w/xpCcp-9ziW4/s600/carrie.jpg

Nope, she was definitely with Simon earlier on.

No they did present together, we just didn't put a picture of the two of them together.

He definitely was. I remember being surprised seeing him there. I think he left the BBC, or at least took a sabbatical after his release from captors for quite a lengthy period of time. I think it was the former rather than the latter.

I think he took a short time off but for the last few years he was presenting From our own Correspondent on the World Service. According to wiki it was from January 2008 so he only took about 6 months off.

How long would you suppose he should take off?

I hardly think the previous poster was wishing to spark a debate about Alan Johnston's choices after his kidnapping, he was merely contributing to the conversation about the journalist's rotas and professional appearances on the BBC. Is it necessary to always initiate arguments here?

I wasn't making a judgement on how long he should take off. The use of 'only' was to point out that out of the time he disappeared from TV Forumers eyes, comparatively little was actually 'off'. Hope that is clearer.

They're not guidelines. What's changed is the BBC Trust will no longer require two presenters in the studio when another presenter is on location, and it won't require a presenter to be sent for major breaking news stories. It says the channel controller and producers will instead be able to use it at their discretion.

Sending one of the two studio presenters out to Central London probably won't cost them more than if they were in the studio, and I'm sure they're using the same crew(s) who would otherwise be there for the OB correspondent who would otherwise be there.

It does make sense to send a presenter, as far as I can see. You see all too often an on-location guest struggling to hear the in-studio presenter's question in their earpiece because of London traffic. It also allows the presenter and producer at the scene to focus solely on that story, when preparing questions and updating scripts (and a lot of it is ad-libbed, so even just fact gathering must be easier), while allowing the studio-based presenter to handle everything else.

Hopefully this won't change as budgets are squeezed, particularly when BBC News are based at Broadcasting House (and are therefore so much closer).



As for Martine, she was fine when I saw in there 1300 hour. I'd imagine presenting on location isn't that different to presenting breaking/rolling news on a news channel, for which she's had plenty of experience.

[quote="House" pid="756761"]

They're not guidelines. What's changed is the BBC Trust will no longer require two presenters in the studio when another presenter is on location, and it won't require a presenter to be sent for major breaking news stories. It says the channel controller and producers will instead be able to use it at their discretion.
/quote]

It seems like a common sense approach is being used now. When someone is on location for a large part of the shift they are only using one presenter in the studio.

Bit odd to see Julian Worricker at this time in a morning! Can't recall him ever being on this early before. Prefer Simon with Carrie though..

Right, who threw the dice on BBC World this morning???


Furthermore, there is something very unsettling about hearing him say "bisexual porn star" on the BBC World News.