The NEW Central West and BBC Midlands thread

A question!

If ITV are allowed to axe most of its Regional news what will become of Central Tonight?

Will it be bradcast from the current Central West studio with Bob Warman and Joanne Malin and then an opt out for those in Central East for their "newsbelt" while Central West stay with Bob and Jo or will there be new presenters and format?

Dont know, we will have to wait and see...

I believe the idea proposed, is that all Central bulletins will be pan-regional. The 6pm weekday show would be like Calendar used to be--a short opt-out segement for sub-regional news.

AIUI things are due to become clearer in September, when a descision is rumoured to be announced regarding the future of CNE (or lack thereof)-- along with related redundancies.

Do you think Bob and Jo from Central Tonight West will be the presenters then and the West studio used and then just axe Central Tonight East??

The studio would most likeley be un split and made larger. Bob and Jo are more ,erm, err, suited to presenting it as they have more experience.

Good question...

Maybe they will shuffle the four main Central presenters throughout the week? It will be interesting to see. Or perhaps Bob & Jo present the main programme; then Steve Clamp and Sameena Ali-Khan will do the short sub-regional segments?

I would imagine an East slot would be done from the presentation area currently used for sport at Terry Lloyd House, and a West slot done from the spare studio at Gas Street?

You're way off the mark here. The changes are happening to save cash so they won't have to keep a building like Terry Lloyd House open just to record an opt.

As it stands (for all regions) each opt will be recorded prior to 6pm by the same two presenters who you'll see in the second half. So Bob and Whoever will be across two opts at once.

The information is out there. Why are people speculating about the future of CNE? It's definitely finishing.

BBC's Your News was in Telford this week, and they showed a bit where they were asking people what they watch on the news, most said generally the types of stories they watch or when they watch, but one person said Central News and one said ITV News! No-one said Midlands Today...

They won't unsplit the studio, that would cost money and the whole point of all this is to save as much as you can. They've used the Central studios for a couple of network programmes in the recent past though so I wouldn't be surprised if the Central East studio is mothballed and used for that purpose when required.

I thought Central had had their wrists slapped by OFCOM for pre-recording a news bulletin before?

I'm sure the pre-record of the "news belt" is included in their submission to OFCOM and so would then be acceptable.

Bit of WM news now.

Les Ross returns from his 'train spotting' holiday tomorrow.

(Mollie covered last week, with Tom 'my sister's Sarah' Manners covering Mollie!)

Anyone catch Danny Scouser this morning & his comment about Barry 'I didn't kill Jill Dando honest!' George being a dead ringer for Gauntie?

Who's gonna wind up Gauntie tomorrow then?

Flupton's off on his bike again, this time for the WM Kidney Kids Appeal.

More news on air & on the WM website!