Final election programme for David Dimbleby

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2014/general-election-2015.html

The BBC is delighted to announce that David Dimbleby will be the lead presenter of the general election programme on the night of Thursday 7 May 2015, covering the results from the close of the polls at 10pm through to the following morning. Huw Edwards will take over as lead presenter from 7am through to the 10pm bulletin, tracking the final results and the formation of the government.

The general election special will be the ninth fronted by Dimbleby. He presented his first election results programme in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher became prime minister. After 2015, Edwards will take over as the lead presenter of the BBC’s general election coverage.

For the 2015 election programme, Dimbleby will be joined by many well- known BBC presenters and correspondents in the studio and at key locations around the UK as results come in through the night. The programme will open with the results of a joint BBC, ITV and Sky exit poll.

Huw Edwards
At breakfast on Friday 8 May Dimbleby and the rest of the overnight presentation team will hand over to Edwards and a fresh line-up of BBC presenters and correspondents who will take the programme on until the final result is clear. Dimbleby will present a special edition of Question Time that evening, discussing the vote and the prospects for the next government. He will also chair the expected general election leaders debate on the BBC.

James Harding, Director of News, said: “This election is likely to be one of the most complex and closely fought in recent times and we are delighted to have such an experienced team to lead our coverage.”

The 2015 results programme will have complete coverage at all the key constituencies with a full results service and analysis from a team of psephologists led by Professor John Curtice, interviews with all the major political players, and the latest state-of-the-art graphics.

Dimbleby will present the local and European election results programmes in May 2014 from BBC Elstree. Edwards will present the Referendum results programme from Glasgow in September 2014.

Er... do they usually announce that well over a year in advance?

Well, no, but this is quite big news because it confirms that Dimbleby is retiring. Presumably they've just been renegotiating his contracts and want to announce it now it's sorted to stop speculation. I seem to recall that when Peter Snow said he was retiring from election coverage it was announced ages before the next election, just to get it out there.

Anyway, this sounds all good to me, it was obvious Edwards would take over and this seems as good a way to do it as any. Someone on Media Guardian has already got confused, though, so while it says Edwards will continue "until the 10pm bulletin", I'm assuming that doesn't mean continuously.

I still don't think Huw Edwards is the person to take over. I've long said that Kirsty Young would be my choice.

Had we heard that election results were coming from BBC Elstree before? Quite a change from N9 (or Millbank, which I believe happened once or twice)

As TV Studio History points out, when Studio D was refurbished at Elstree they made sure it had loads of comms equipment installed to make it suitable for this kind of thing. No surprise the General Election was going to come from there because Millbank is clearly too small for that, though for the smaller-scale election programmes I guess Broadcasting House doesn't have any N9-esque studios spare they can occupy for 24 hours or so.

Course, while Elstree is a bit out of Central London, it's not much further away than Sky News are, and on election nights the various MPs are all over the country anyway.

Jeremy Paxman would have been my choice. A lot of what Dimbleby does is interview party representatives, not simply report statistical updates. Not only is Paxman still one of the finest interviewers, but would make the coverage far more entertaining than Edwards will.

Honestly a little disappointed this will be Dimbleby's last - certainly in 2010 he was on top form, and adds a special quality to the broadcast that betrays the BBC's current transition to very competent, yet straight/boring presenters (a la Edwards). At least the BBC has gone for a transition to a new presenter, instead of just not inviting Dimbleby back again. My suspicion is this will be Nick Robinson's last election, at least as political editor, but I could be wrong.

It is worth noting that the article doesn't say Dimbleby is retiring per se, so much as being replaced as lead presenter. I suspect it's unlikely (when you consider the role the likes of Beurk and Sissons have played in coverage [of any kind] after being replaced), but I'd like to think Dimbleby will continue to play some kind of secondary role in election coverage for as long as he can and wants to. I certainly can't imagine them replacing him on Question Time any time soon.


I suspect Mishal Husain could well be part of election coverage next year, either for Today or the main television programme. Ditto for Laura Kuenssberg - it will be interesting to see what her role is compared James Landale.

Also, while this press release hasn't provided details of the rest of the onair team (and indeed such decisions might not yet have been made), I wonder if Jeremy Vine will return at the green screen / swingometer? I can somehow imagine someone like Laura Kuenssberg taking over this role sometime in the future...

?? I'm pretty sure Paxman did 90% of the interviews with party representatives last election night. Dimbleby spent most of the night talking to Nick Robinson, the Politics Professor and all the correspondents across the country especially the chosen 3 (John Simpson w' Gordon Brown, Andrew Marr w' David Cameron and Kirsty Wark- Nick Clegg).

I love Kirsty but really give the biggest BBC News/Current affairs role to her? Who by Election 2015 will not have presented a news or current affairs programme in 8 years and iirc has never presented one nationally on the BBC.
Andrew Neil would have been my choice but I see why they didn't pick him.

Odd that at ITV, elections are Alastair's ground yet big events (news or state occasions) are Mark's yet the BBC are giving everything to Huw.

Errr, that's a very likely date for the GE, but it's not a 100% certainty. What an extraordinary piece of speculation dressed up as fact !

Interesting line at the end of that press release. It says Edwards will present the referendum coverage 'from Glasgow'. That backs up what I thought might be the case. They have permission to keep the Commonwealth Games studios at Pacific Quay in Glasgow until the end of September.

Since the passing of the Fixed-Term Parliaments Bill in 2011, each government now lasts five years with an exact end date, rather than the prime minister being free to choose a date as previously.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/historic-bill-establishes-fixed-term-parliaments