BBC News: Presenters & Rotas

David Eades has been doing a lot of weekends nowadays, like Peter Dobbie...

I think David Eades is becoming more like Peter Sissions before he left the bbc to retire, leaving the flagship slots and moving to weekends

I'm not so sure, ever since Robin Lustig left the world tonight on radio 4 at the end of last year he has regularly presented that.

Anyone seen Katya Adler as of late? She has been off screen for quite some time, probably not much news from Europe, since the Greece financial crisis and Pope Benedict's resignation, as she seems to be stationed there.

David Eades has been doing World weekends for quite some time now, combining it with BBC Radio work during the weekdays. David also occasionally fills in on GMT and World News Today.

Meanwhile, on BBC World News this morning, it's Alice Baxter in place of Martine Dennis.

And comments above re Mishal Husain 'being good enough for Impact, but not for network..........' : how do you figure that one out? I'm not particularly a fan of Mishal Husain as many of you will know. But, to be good enough to broadcast for tens of millions of Impact viewers worldwide, but not good enough to present BBC News at Six with a vastly smaller audience, is a very odd notion.

I've said it before but she really is a superb newsreader - I wish she had a permanent place on the news channel. She's plain evidence (as was Julia Somerville on the national bulletins, but she seems to have either left that role or she's been ditched) that older female newsreaders should be used far more.

I think the truth is that Julia didn't come across as a more impressive or talented newsreader than any of the alternatives, and certainly appeared to struggle the most with the demands of a rolling news channel. Someone like that shouldn't be in that role purely their name and age will bring the BBC better PR - they should be in the role because they're the best person for the job.

I genuinely believe Moira Stewart was dropped because she didn't have the flexibility needed to present a modern television news service, so hiring her to present brief news updates at weekends was a waste of licence payers' money when other on-duty staff could effectively handle them. I'm glad that, in Radio 2, they managed to find Moira a job that was more suited to her experience and skills in the modern age, and I presume the same is true of Julia on 'Rip off Britain'.

Fiona Armstrong, on the other hand, is a dab hand on the News Channel, and I'm sure the same is/would be true on BBC Breakfast and BBC One bulletins. She has an ease but authority both in introducing reports, handling breaking news and interviewing guests - sometimes better than some of the regular channel presenters.

And Carole Walker has improve significantly over the past couple of years, and it's good to see her used more often.

I don't usually dip into rota threads, but Fiona Armstrong presented Breakfast last year with the one from North West tonight and she did very well.

Absolutely agreed regarding Julia Somerivlle - I did quite like her on the national bulletins as relief but she couldn't keep up on the news channel. She once ended up leading the news channel with Sue Thearle and she was really beginning to struggle with camera mix-ups and breaking news situations. I don't expect her to return to the news whatsoever as I don't think she's been on at all for about 10 months or so.

Carole is also a lot better than she used to be and I really hope both Fiona and Carole have changed the BBC's stance on older female newsreaders - there's no need to drag lots of older presenters in for the sake of it but neither is there the need to discount them.

You mentioned Fiona Armstrong doing BBC Breakfast - as Critique says she did present an edition with Roger Johnson and she was great - however there was a lot of negative comments on BBC Breakfast's Facebook page about bringing on a pair of nobodys to present Breakfast which I think is probably the reason she's never been on since. I hope she gets another chance.

She has, however, presented the BBC News at One since, she did this on her first appearance at broadcasting house.

Out if interest, what would the daily audience of impact be?

I seem to find Impact a bit boring nowadays, not sure why, it doesn't feel very engaging.

To be fair, Mishal has her good points. She has one of the clearest pronunciations of a newsreader that I've come across. It's very hard to miss what she is saying. Her slow pace also suits the international audience well, including those not from English speaking countries. Anyway, hope she could work on smiling a little earlier for the cameras, she looks scary before she smiles, and the camera always captures her before she starts smiling.

Impact would be sort of a prime time program in places like South East Asia. Singaporeans for instance get to watch it at 9pm. In UK, I suppose that would be midday or lunch hour and probably isn't an attractive time slot to invite audience to the news.