BBC North West Tonight

NWT has been really good this week, I think.

It seems to of had more news and issues rather than competitions, apart from the dinasour one.

Notice once the show mentions something, it seems to go on and on forever. For example, we had the garderns, the ice cream and now the dinasours.

Apart from tonight when it ran tickets for a football game and dinosaur!
But I agree they have got some of their news values back.
Maybe someone has won a battle to get it back to that agenda rather than the fluffy rubbish - note the absence of Jane Barrett recently!!
I watched both GR and NWT.
I thought both were v dry.
GR ran lots of features that seemed to have been forced on them like Britain On The Move.
While I totally thought it was insensitive of NWT to show Ken Bigley pleading for his life. The terrorist video should NOT have been used for entertainment - just to mark one year on from his abduction.
shpo

I always enjoy Jane's reports...she always seems to put a lot of thought and imagination into the script. Consumer affairs is a bit fluffy unfortunately.

I wonder whether she's been seconded somewhere or is producing?

I think Jane is a great reporter but as you say news woman, consumer affairs is a bit of a fluffy field.

Agreed she is a good reporter but sometimes it appears she is given some poor stuff to do.
Remember the BBQ item in the BBC garden?
Or the food around your region spot - which seems to have disappeared? (Maybe because it didn't go down well?)
But when she is giving a strong consumer news story to do she does it well.
However take her off consumer and I think, on a general had news story, she struggles.

Waiting with baited breath for Dave Guest and his interview with Dionne Warwick on tonight's programme where she reveals...she doesn't like rap music

Do I detect some sarcasm here!

With reference to todays edition, I have never seen so much g******* in all of my life. Showing cards made by children? what the hell is going on, turning it in to CBBC (I seem to remember seeing a similar feature on there when I was younger!)

Im sorry, but I am bloody offended that my license fee is going in to making supposed "news" like that.

3 ways to improve NWT:-
At least 20 minutes of News, Sport, Weather and a maxium of 4-5 minutes of fluff.

Dual anchored, by serious journalists, not former game show hosts. Annabell Tiffin and Stuart Flinders springs to mind.

A new chief reporter, to replace Stuart (perhaps Peter Marshall) with one of the anchors on location at major stories. A new team of heavyweight reporters... try to lure Tony Morris back, put Jim Hancock out in the field more, and balance the three of these with a female reporter, Jane Wolstenholme from the Liverpool Daily Post may be a good idea.

Though Gordon is best known for hosting The Krypton Factor, he is a serious journalist, he used to be a presenter/reporter on Granada Reports during the 1970's and before that he used be at Ulster Television, doing the same thing there.

To be fair the Warrington pensioner who starved to death story was treated well, not just following the usual "family demanding answers from those in authority" line. Thought this was sensible, particularly given that the victim had 10 children and 30 grandchildren, yet the family insist they have no responsibility for her death.

The cards thing was just cringeworthy, particularly Gordon trying to look impressed. Almost as bad as at the end when, to fill for time, he did a list of most unusual objects people try to get on board planes at Manchester Airport, including sex toys. He ignored Diane's quip that they would at least guarantee a good holiday.

And the Dionne Warwick package was a disgrace. Where were the questions from the LIPA students, or perhaps some anecdotes/insight into the music industry from her answers? Or perhaps following one of the students as they met their idol? Or at least a vox explaining what they thought of her. Instead, all we got were some GV's of her sitting on the stage and a mind numbing interview with Dionne during which she said nothing of any interest at all.

The problem about putting anchors on the road is that it costs and it does dilute the impact if you do it every night because some nights you just don't have strong enough stories.

Morris I don't rate as an anchor, much better putting his creativity to work in packages. Jim I think struggles to get his voice heard now because politics is more marginal than it used to be and he's old school, although excellent with it.

Not sure about Jane Wolstenholme (I think she's still on maternity leave isn't she?) plus she's not done telly before. And with the greatest of respect to her, she was hardly regarded as a heavyweight when she was a reporter.

I've got to agree that the last ten minutes of last night's show was very poor.
The Dinosaur competition is awful.
It's being mercilessly plugged and as you say Gordon waving around a card was pretty dire.
Has this been forced on them by senior managers or is it the latest wonderful, let's get the viewers involved idea, by the Editor.
And as for the forced banter over a survey from Manchester Airport I seriously thought they had lost the plot or a item had failed to make.
If I want to watch this sort of news I would watch GR - which while it does do that fluff - at least its news values have improved 100% in the last 12 months.
By contrast the news values held by BBC NWT have declined by the same amount.
Sport is also a joke - sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not.
Sometimes they have a goals round up, sometimes they don't.
Why for instance show goals from the Premiership on Monday but not from the huge number of Football League clubs in the NW.
Just because ITV have the rights to the latter doesn't stop the BBC from being able to broadcast brief highlights on a Monday?

Yes, Jane is still on maternity leave. I think Mark Thomas is now filling in as editor.

I'm not sure about how much of what I know I am allowed to repeat, but she is apparently returning to work soon, and then perhaps off to pastures new.....

but that is all that I can say!