And maybe they could have aped the C5News 90s launch format. Moscow24 is also interesting format. But certainly Miss "Celebratory/Knowing-News" Cook has to be held to task for her lack of vision. They are literally sitting on a news content gold-mine in the Evening Standard. Ugh. Sloppy. Sloppy. Sloppy.
According to their own PR puff - London Live employs just under 70 staff - of which 10 look after technical operations (again from their publicity). Sales are handled by The Standard; Transmission by a 3rd party - so the remaining 60 or so staff are editorial, marketing and management. This is significantly more than Nottingham and Glasgow who are managing to put out a better product.
They have the resources - they clearly don't have the vision or the leadership.
What's frustrating about London Live is that it doesn't seem to acknowledge its problems or try to improve itself.
Even without a drastic overhaul, I think some fairly simple changes to say Wake Up London could yield some positive results.
Like introducing a dedicated newsreader to present half hourly summaries, instead of the main presenter. The summary should run no more than 3 minutes, be illustrated with a couple of pre-recorded packages and a live cross to the major story.
Weather and traffic with some decent graphics guys! Every 15 minutes, immediately following summaries at the top and bottom of the hour, and headline updates (1 minute) on the quarter hours. Structure. Regularity. The key requirements of a successful breakfast show.
Main presenter to interview guests, handle live crosses, review the papers, read out emails and generally inject some personality into the show.
Ditch the fashion forecast and other stupid gimmicks and focus on producing half a dozen good features per hour, some of which can be replayed later in the show.
I've not seen Headline London and avoid Scodievison so can't comment on these. What do others think?
Headline London at launch was heavily reliant on guest led debates which went on for far too long.
There is some actual reporting now, but these tend to be lives from the lead story, with other segments for interviewing guests, although there still are much shorter debates. Repeating interviews from Wake Up London is also part of the show.
Scodievision continues to be the weakest of the pack. Panel led discussion for the full hour with some guests clearly not having any real insight into the news stories. There's also a weekly pre-recorded fashion segment which continues to baffle me for why it's there. The Big Question is still the best of the segments, but isn't always on.
NTOS I must admit is my biggest disappointment. I was hoping for something similar to The Project in Australia. Same premise - a group of panelists discussing the news, but in a completely different league.
The Project (Network Ten) is funny, sharp, sometimes intelligent, sometimes mad. It's informal and the perfect antidote to soaps, hard news and current affairs, reality shows etc.
As I say, I can't bring myself to watch because of Scodie. She has to be the most annoying person on telly.
Last edited by SuperDave on 18 September 2014 12:40am
Like introducing a dedicated newsreader to present half hourly summaries, instead of the main presenter. The summary should run no more than 3 minutes, be illustrated with a couple of pre-recorded packages and a live cross to the major story.
Weather and traffic with some decent graphics guys! Every 15 minutes, immediately following summaries at the top and bottom of the hour, and headline updates (1 minute) on the quarter hours. Structure. Regularity. The key requirements of a successful breakfast show.
Main presenter to interview guests, handle live crosses, review the papers, read out emails and generally inject some personality into the show.
Ditch the fashion forecast and other stupid gimmicks and focus on producing half a dozen good features per hour, some of which can be replayed later in the show.
Good suggestions. I would make the Wake Up London wheel even tighter. Run down the top stories @ .30 past then do traffic/travel every 10mins including a small weather inject but then a complete forecast sprinkled across a 3 hour or more program. Starting at 5:30 am or 6:00.
Do they also still do the national headlines separately? I haven't watched for a while, but always thought this to be completely out of kilter with the needs of the viewer.
Local radio (and local TV overseas) has always managed to weave together the most important local and national stories, so there's no reason why London Live can't do it.
Wake Up London for some reason does it's half hourly heads at x35 past the hour as they're in a commercial break.
And can Gavin please stop doing his timechecks over emphasing on the A.M. part.
Don't get me wrong I've grown to like Gavin but I agree with the last bit.
Another thing that's annoying is his delivery of news at the top and '35. He has a tendency to be all bright and cheery welcoming everyone to the show then plunges in to the latest stabbing with the same cheeriness! All a bit jarring.
He's not alone - even Alex has done it. It's a though they've not seen the script before (though sadly it's often exactly the same script running throughout the show).