BBC World News: Presentation

Martine Dennis was presenting World News Today for South Asian region. It was good to see her present at other times.

She often does The World Today, or BBC News at 0500BST is often very disorganised and messy. She deserves to be on a programme that looks neater and more professional.

I too enjoyed seeing Martine Dennis presenting my main evening news digest (8pm Dubai time / 5pm London time) a couple of days ago, although the later shift obviously played havoc with her body clock, leading her to be caught napping on the hand back from sport, proceeded to call Sonja McLaughlin "Sally", and then corpsed herself laughing through the next story to the extent that she could hardly read it at all (it was all about fluorescent puppy cloning in South Korea).

Good old Martine! I loved it! It is always nice to see a balance of professionalism coupled with human reality on the news, and I feel that Martine in particular connects well with the viewer.

And my goodness! I just realised I have now been watching her on BBC World for 15 years, and she looks exactly the same now as she did then..............................sigh. I wish I did.

Hey BBC WORLD, do you live in Dubai, because I do too.

Yes, Mohamed. I do! Good to meet you!

Watching World tonight and Lyse is on duty with WNT. The head-on regular shot is very very much a close-up tonight, almost as though they are trying to ensure that something inside the newsroom backdrop is not shown on camera! I was quite alarmed to flick over to World and find the larger-than-life image that I did.

I see Geeta Guru Murthy is co-presenting today's double header bulletins with Arthur Askey! Great to see him on our screens after such a long time. And he's looking well!

Never heard of him really

Arthur Askey?! He died in 1982!

He has been re-born as David Eades, who today was almost certainly wearing Askey's trademark spectacles.

Poor Owen Thomas had to contend with a few cock-ups during his bulletin just now. Firstly, a guest live from Pretoria couldn't hear Owen's question from London so the interview was aborted for a later slot. Then a live link to Katya Adler for a two-way in Jordan on the Pope's visit. Katya wasn't ready and bent down to tie her laces (or something) so cut back to Owen, who then didn't know what was up next, and politely requested us to "bear with him, because we are having some problems here and I don't know what the next story is". He eventually found it and proceedings continued.

At least Owen is able to see the lighter side.

I didn't see that but I think Owen's a complete breath of fresh air for BBC World. While some presenters on the channel are so dull and lifeless, he's one of the few who actually have a personality and puts some energy into his presentation. I spend half my life in London and the other half in Switzerland so have little choice but to watch BBC World and admirable journalists like Nik Gowing and Zeinab Badawi, but they're all so serious even when reading lighter stories. Owen can do the hard news but actually looks human. I don't understand why he's only on Saturday and Sundays.

I think it is because of seniority. If he gets a weekday slot then Nisha, Peter, and Alastair should get it first cus they've been there for a long time.
The only person who have gotten a permanent shift quickly is Lucy Hockings and Geeta Guru but I personally prefer Nisha having that Friday slot and Geeta take the weekend European prime time slot. Lucy is great and she is very lively and beautiful. Also one of the few New Zealanders on Intl TV. Her slot is good due to the Aus/NZ prime time.
With all the changes BBC WORLD NEWS have made and they have been great and have stabilize the channels and there are fewer mistakes from David Eades shift onward.Why don't they deal with a fix the Morning Shift 5 to 8 GMT. There are so many mistakes and errors. There is always something going wrong. From shots to sound and constant anchor changes. WHY O WHY.