BBC News: Presenters & Rotas

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Nick Robinson does Sport

Interesting overnight last night, first hour of Newsday presented by Lebo Deseko, then Babita Sharma afterwards from London (with Sharanjiyt every hour in Singapore) with Lebo returning for the rest of the overnights.

Might be Lebo is doing the Mike Embley shift, but is already in the studio during Newsday and Babita had some unexpected things to handle so she covered for her, or she was trying to rehearse so that she will present Newsday once in a while in the future, like her frequent appearance before the format change. More probably the latter.

Alice Baxter tweeted she's happy to be back on Newsday.

As BBC World News continues (to this very day) to lose long-serving and highly experienced presenters, the recent crop of (very) new additions (with the exception of one "trainee" in particular) have made the channel quite unwatchable at various periods during the week, but moreso at weekends.

I appreciate this is a highly subjective matter, but the tendency to prefer looks over substance has started to become so obvious that one wonders just what direction is the channel taking these days.

Rant over.

Totally agreed. The inexperience of many of its presenters is completely transparent, often making for unbearable watching.

Exactly what happened. Lebo returned after Newsday until the TWT slot I presume.

I couldn't help but notice a few weeks ago when Babita was away and Kasia covered for her and then Kasia did her usual slot after a few days of Babita. I'm not sure if the BBC have heard of shift swapping during these times of austerity.

At 8am Singapore time, take a look at the screens and you'll notice the Newsday Singapore branding on the screen.

I wonder if it's worth trying to bring former presenters back into the fold. Hopefully permanent presenters are announced for the slots that don't have one.

For those of us who dont watch 24-hours a day. Which long-serving and highly experienced presenters have left most recently? Who are the recent crop of new additions and "trainee" that have made it unwatchable?

Assuming the BBC has the inclination (doubtful) and the money (not a chance) to 'bring former presenters back into the fold' who do you suggest? Recent departures like Dennis, Husain & Sopel? or do you want to bring back Brancher, Coe, Finighan, Gowing, Jessel, McNaught, and Pillai? Hell whilst we're at it why not just copy-paste the entire of BBC World circa 2002.

I find some of them don't tend to lead very good interviews/ask overly relevant questions. This can possibly be put down to a lack of international news experience. I've forgotten the exact example(typical), but I remember watching an edition of World News Today with Dani Sinha a month or so back and thinking that she'd missed the point somewhere along the line and not at all asked the right question, perhaps because she has more of a background in UK regional news. Everybody has to get a start somewhere I guess though.

Sometimes I think the format is at fault, for example Outside Source hasn't endeared me to Ros Atkins. There's also a certain warmth lacking - something which the circa 2002 had plenty of (I miss Nisha Pillai!). While I'm at it, I don't find being shouted at endearing, especially at midnight/1am/2am (Rico...!)

The few presenters that I can think who are apt at interviews and off-script breaking news handling currently are Geetha Guru-Murthy, Mike Embley, maybe even Adnan Nawaz. I haven't seen Lucy Hockings for some time but believe she can as well. Martine Dennis has the same capability as well, but she's left. And now Dobbie is leaving too. I guess it shouldn't be overly surprising considering the 'toxic pit' news that he generated some time ago.

I haven't been watching Impact a very long time too since Mishal Husain left. I guess part of the reason I used to watch it often has to do with her good presentation skills.

I agree that BBCWN is lacking good presenters nowadays - maybe budget, maybe brain drain. Weekend news coverage has always been rather weak on BBCWN. But at least a while back we've had Martine Dennis regularly on the weekends.

I think that's the point I'm making. All of the above were highly capable presenters. They will never come back, for a variety of reasons. When I contrast the above with the very recent intake (and I won't mention names), it's night and day.

Whilst I agree that "everyone has to start somewhere", should it really be a global, rolling news channel where the newbies are sent to learn the craft? And by that, I don't mean being worldly-wise, travelled and seasoned field correspondents, I mean the basics of being able to read the autocue, look to the correct camera, be able to handle slight unscripted deviations and, some would argue most important of all, be able to pronounce names correctly. I mean, since when was Ashton Kutcher a member of the Obama administration??

And a short two-way interview, come on. These are the basics.

If you look at the pedigree of some of the most successful and capable presenters on the channel, they started-off out in the regions and developed their skills there. Being plonked in front of a global audience in World Studio C as your first outing in tv news is not a wise move by the BBC.

To answer your other question as to which professionals have recently left the channel: Peter Dobbie, Nik Gowing and Martine Dennis have left the BBC. Mishal Husain, Jon Sopel and Zeinab Badawi have been moved to other parts of the corporation, or side-lined (ZB) to some extent.

Admittedly, Karin Giannone, Lucy Hockings, Adnan Nawaz, Philippa Thomas and David Eades remain at BBC World and are all extremely capable across the entire range of the channel's programming. But that's too few...........

Where has Peter Dobbie gone to?