The Newsroom

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Suzanne Virdee's sudden departure from BBC Midlands (September 2004)

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WE
Westy2
Inflatable Dartboard posted:
Beep posted:
he is one of the few people who stood up the dominant money grabbing idiots that ran the BBC in the '90's.


I remember when this happened: Laughing

Wikipedia posted:
In 1997, Towers announced his resignation from the BBC on-air and left viewers with a disparaging comment about the state of BBC management: "This is my last programme for the BBC after 25 years. When I first joined the corporation, it was led by giants. Now, I'm afraid it's being led by pygmies wearing blindfolds. How sad."


It was a Saturday-teatime short bulletin, in the "bronze ribbons" era of the programme, and Mr Towers' last ever bulletin.

He delivered the whole bulletin ridiculously fast, and sounded indifferent about every story (presumably to create time for his rant at the end). My eyes were popping out! His photo was on the front cover of Sunday Mercury newspaper the next day, with the headline "The Final Insult". I was torn between finding it hilariously funny, and shockingly unprofessional.

Was surprised to see him turn up as one of the ex-presenter special guests for the final Pebble Mill 18:30 programme, as I'd have expected there to still be bad-blood between him and the Beeb.


I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned on WM, certainly on the 7am & 11am bullys, which I caught earlier, bearing in mind he was a big name at BBC Brum & he had, since leaving TV, covered a odd few WM shifts a few years back!

Shame Uncle Ed's down under & no longer doing Bank Holidays anyway, or else he would've give it a mention & got a few people on. (I assume Tom Coyne is still with us?) Would I be correct in thinking not many people from that particular era still work at BBC Brum? Only Kay Alexander from memory & she only does(or appears to do ) one morning a week now!

At least MT gave it a mention quite rightly.
MI
m_in_m
tellywatcher posted:


Could well be - there was a post a few weeks back saying that the BBC were increasing local weather forecasts. Julie from Look East has been on both Bank Holidays on the Sunday with a forecast. Jim Bacon and Phil Garner from Weatherquest have been appearing recently forecasting once or twice a week.
DV
dvboy
Westy2 posted:
Caught the last half hour or so of 'Up & Happy' on WCR too! (When are you back Lee BTW? You only said Autumn!)


Up and Happy's been going at least 5 years now. I used to be a regular contributor to the show that followed it c.2002.
RD
RDJ
Inflatable Dartboard posted:
Beep posted:
he is one of the few people who stood up the dominant money grabbing idiots that ran the BBC in the '90's.


I remember when this happened: Laughing

Wikipedia posted:
In 1997, Towers announced his resignation from the BBC on-air and left viewers with a disparaging comment about the state of BBC management: "This is my last programme for the BBC after 25 years. When I first joined the corporation, it was led by giants. Now, I'm afraid it's being led by pygmies wearing blindfolds. How sad."


It was a Saturday-teatime short bulletin, in the "bronze ribbons" era of the programme, and Mr Towers' last ever bulletin.

He delivered the whole bulletin ridiculously fast, and sounded indifferent about every story (presumably to create time for his rant at the end). My eyes were popping out! His photo was on the front cover of Sunday Mercury newspaper the next day, with the headline "The Final Insult". I was torn between finding it hilariously funny, and shockingly unprofessional.


Has anyone got a clip of this? I'd love to see it.
MW
Mike W
RDJ posted:
Inflatable Dartboard posted:
Beep posted:
he is one of the few people who stood up the dominant money grabbing idiots that ran the BBC in the '90's.


I remember when this happened: Laughing

Wikipedia posted:
In 1997, Towers announced his resignation from the BBC on-air and left viewers with a disparaging comment about the state of BBC management: "This is my last programme for the BBC after 25 years. When I first joined the corporation, it was led by giants. Now, I'm afraid it's being led by pygmies wearing blindfolds. How sad."


It was a Saturday-teatime short bulletin, in the "bronze ribbons" era of the programme, and Mr Towers' last ever bulletin.

He delivered the whole bulletin ridiculously fast, and sounded indifferent about every story (presumably to create time for his rant at the end). My eyes were popping out! His photo was on the front cover of Sunday Mercury newspaper the next day, with the headline "The Final Insult". I was torn between finding it hilariously funny, and shockingly unprofessional.


Has anyone got a clip of this? I'd love to see it.

I second this!
MI
mizzb
m_in_m posted:
tellywatcher posted:


Could well be - there was a post a few weeks back saying that the BBC were increasing local weather forecasts. Julie from Look East has been on both Bank Holidays on the Sunday with a forecast. Jim Bacon and Phil Garner from Weatherquest have been appearing recently forecasting once or twice a week.


Great , another presenter, the more the merrier. Move over Shefali and Simon.

Julie Reinger in on a Sunday ? Confused I wonder why, unless it's competition against Anglia's superior big Sunday forecast Weather Week .
MB
Mr.B
Westy2 posted:
Caught the last half hour or so of 'Up & Happy' on WCR too! (When are you back Lee BTW? You only said Autumn!)


Ah, I have a fan! At last! Gawd bless ya me old Westy2. Wink

Yeah, s'true I'm taking the summer off to recharge my batteries. All the best Saturday shows had the summer off, so I thought why not!! (hey if it's good enough for Tiswas...). Ha Ha...

I have some plans and ideas that I want to spruce up for the 'new series'. Some of which you'll have heard on Saturday and over recent weeks, so I'm hopefully gonna put them into more regular action in the Autumn if that makes any sense.

I'm aiming to be back during September or at the latest the start of October (Oct 11th, 1999 was the first show BTW).

dvboy posted:
Up and Happy's been going at least 5 years now. I used to be a regular contributor to the show that followed it c.2002.


Who zat? Cool

Y'know it's actually coming up on 9 years in October! I'm one of the 2 remaining shows from the beginning of the old WCR AM days. The other being Steve Morris' 'Roots & Branches'. My mate Katy Jay was also on AM in the beginning, but in a different show, under a different name... Wink

---

On the subject on Alan Towers, I do feel sad that he's died. I used to enjoy watching him on the show, but despite what he said on his final bulletin, I hear that there was never really any bad blood between him and his colleagues/bosses. Indeed he was apparently a regular visitor to the offices for a long time after he left.

I remember watching his final show, and watching his parting shot go out. I couldn't believe it at the time, but I admired him for having the guts to do it. Funnily enough, those beady eyed viewers watching the tribute clips on Midlands Today during yesterday will have noticed that they actually used a clip of part of that 'outburst' ... you could just spot/hear Alan saying "When I joined the corporation..." as the final clip.
DV
dvboy
I used to phone up Tim all the time.
RD
RDJ
A very nice tribute done at the end of tonights show for Alan Towers.

A lookback on his career including the skateboarding duck report. And ending on the aformentioned clip of his last bulletin however only showing him saying goodbye.

Methinks if it wasn't for his outburst, he would've got more of a tribute but it was nice and fitting nonetheless.
ID
Inflatable Dartboard
In The Yorks & Lincs Thread, South Today posted:
London UK posted:
I was in Skegness when the Central team where on there summer holiday about 2 years ago, and got caught in the crowd, to this day, I still don't know why they where there when Skegness is not covered by Central. Confused


Well Boston is part of the Central region and Skegness is only mere miles away. Plus maybe they wanted to go to the coast with being landlocked?


Both the BBC and ITV news programmes for the East Midlands include a labelling of Skegness on their weathermaps I believe. For as long as care to remember, the odd Skeggie news story makes it onto EMT/CNE on some rare occasions, too. So, the (east) midlands desperately trying to pretend that it's not land-locked is a long-held tradition, it seems.

Clearly, the Central News (West) sub-region can't possibly claim any coastal associations, by any stretch of the imagination. Yet, the first year that the Summer Tour Bus feature appeared, one of CNW's destinations was Weston-Super-Mare! Shocked To be fair, they didn't claim that it was actually within the CNW region, just that it was one of the nearest seaside places.

Given that CN South still existed back then, and therefore CNW's patch didn't even stretch as far south as Herefordshire, it really was a bit daft sending the CNW bus to Weston.
NH
Nick Harvey Founding member
Inflatable Dartboard posted:
Yet, the first year that the Summer Tour Bus feature appeared, one of CNW's destinations was Weston-Super-Mare!

You ought to walk round Weston in the first two weeks of August.

Nearly every accent you hear is Brummie.

The old saying that Birmingham goes to Weston on holiday is as true today as it's ever been.
ID
Inflatable Dartboard
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