BBC News: Presenters & Rotas

I find the show odd - so many people spend their time writing angry over-dramatic letters to BBC News to complain the studio is too red and the presenters read things too slowly. It amazes me people get worked up over such tiny things and I wish the BBC wouldn't listen to them or even air their silly comments.

100% agree. The last time I saw it some old crone was complaining about seeing the knees of the female Breakfast presenters.

And the fact that nicholas withchell was actually reporting on a royal baby

Some of the points raised though are realistic, like the dual anchors finishing each others sentences. Though I support dual anchors to increase diversity etc, they could just take it in turns instead of finishing each others line.

(excluding mishall husian) Do only the senior News Channel Presenters present the 6:00ish and 10:00ish BBC Weekend News.

BBC World's line-up today: Alice Baxter, Katya Adler and, now, Pascale Harter.

It's been an awful long time since we saw Pascale in the anchor chair.

I don't think so. Kate Silverton presents the One O'Clock News and sometimes present the Saturday late bulletin. Peter Sissons says in his memoirs that when he was a senior presenter at the BBC, the three main presenters (himself, Martyn Lewis and Michael Buerk) were required to present some of the weekend bulletins. However, 'practically anyone gets the chance now', so I presume it depends on who's available.

Yes, I remember this happening throughout the 1990s and possibly into the early 2000s. The morning/lunchtime/early evening weekend bulletins were generally presented by anyone - usually Moira Stuart, Jennie Bond, Chris Lowe and others as I recall. However, Peter Sissons, Michael Buerk and Martyn Lewis - and sometimes Nicholas Witchell - were brought in to present the late evening bulletins on Saturdays and Sundays. I can't remember exactly when this stopped happening. Obviously Lewis left the BBC in 1999 and Sissons continued to present weekend bulletins for a few years afterwards - probably until about 2004. I don't recall Buerk carrying on for much longer than Lewis, though. It was during the early 2000s that presenters like George Alagiah, Sian Williams, Fiona Bruce, Darren Jordon and Matthew Amroliwala started to do all the weekend bulletins, as did Sissons. It just carried on from there.

Lewis left at the end of the virtual set era. Sissons and Buerk continued for several years after this, being the main presenters of the Nine and then Ten O'Clock News.

Buerk left (although did stand-ins on Breakfast for a while) and Sissons moved to News 24 for a while.

Yes, I meant I couldn't remember whether Michael Buerk continued presenting the weekend bulletins after the 1999 rebrand, as he had during the virtual era. I know they continued with the Nine and Ten O'Clock News.

We've had this discussion before, I think. The modern era of BBC News presenting started in the autumn of 1981 when they moved from all the newsreaders presenting any slot, with the same presenter doing all the bulletins all day, and instead each slot now got its own regular presenters, as we have now. So for the first time there was a specific weekend presenter which, for the majority of the eighties, was Jan Leeming (and before the Six O'Clock News, that would also include Friday teatimes). When she left in 1987 it was Debbie Thrower and Moira Stuart usually.

But as mentioned, one aspect of the revamp of the Nine O'Clock News in October 1988 was that the presenters would now work seven days a week so Michael Buerk and Martyn Lewis, as you say, would also do the main evening bulletin at the weekend, with another presenter doing the rest of the bulletins. When Lewis and Sissons swapped slots in 1994, Sissons took over Lewis' weekend duties (and Lewis' only appearance on a weekend after that was of course on 31st August 1997).

As you say, at some point Michael Buerk stopped doing weekends (although he had done it for over a decade at that point) but Peter Sissons carried on. A glance through some Radio Times from 2002 suggests that the most regular presenters at weekends were Sissons and Fiona Bruce, who at that point was usually doing the Friday Six O'Clock News. But I'm pretty sure that when Huw Edwards took over the Ten in January 2003, he never did the weekends. And looking at the RTs from 2003, it looked like Sissons did quite a few (now his main job, of course) and people like Darren Jordon and Jane Hill arrived.

By 2004, it seems that it was becoming a bit of a free-for-all. Darren Jordon was probably the most frequent presenter but more or less everyone took a turn, so by 2005 I'd say it was probably Jordon about half the time. He left in 2006 and since then it's been Silverton and Husain most frequently but no real regular presenter. Which I quite like, it gives it a bit of spice.

So, the Royal baby was born, there was no World News America, Joanna Gosling anchored a BBC News Special.
So why is Katty Kay back in London?