The NEW Central West and BBC Midlands thread

Friday on WM.

After a few months of working fine, the text machine breaks down on Mollie's programme.

I heard about this 20 mins later, but Goldie & co had to move studios, due to technical problems.

As trailed by Nick Owen on last night's MT, WM in CWR land were due to have a special programme presented by Annie Othen, when the news came through about Jaguar in Coventry(I couldn't hear it obviously, because I live in 95.6 land, plus I was at work), plus Franksy came live from Browns Lane in Coventry too.

MT providing plenty of coverage too!

The 95.6 footy phone in is scheduled to have WBA's chairman Jeremy Peace as a guest.

I guess Gaunty's phone in tomorrow will major on Jaguar(because the p**t owns one, so he says!), plus the recent security breaches !

I really don't think much of Central News' new "window", it was a very fuzzy image; I bet Midlands Today are a bit miffed too - it's rather pinched their idea for their canal view backdrop (all be it in the other direction) beyond the newsroom.

fab to hear chris moyles' show coming live from pebble mill this morning - with plenty of references to the mill. unsurprisingly there were cock-ups a plenty and poking of fun at the old equipment in the radio 2 studios. and even a reference to brmb!

quite possibly the mill's last appearance on radio 1

And probably the first! Have they ever done programmes from there before?

surely some live sessions for radio 1 must have come from there with the fantastic radio studios they have? i know moyles has done atleast one recent 'on the road' breakfast from the mill before.

but yes, pebble mill is more at home with 6music, asian network, radio 2, radio 4 and radio 5.

I visited Gas Street the other day and Central court has no signage at all up now.

All the Carlton signs have disappeared leaving nothing at all to say what the building is anymore.

Apparently ITV Central signs are to go up at some point.

Are the old WM studios unavailable now?

I was under the impression they were still available until everyone moved out, in case there was a massive technical cock up at the Mailbox !

Fat Boy Moyles was in the area because of some Radio 1 thing in Birmingham & visiting Kidderminster Harriers ! (His producer's from Kiddie!)

They won too !

No Franksy tonight ! (Is he off all week?)

Mike Taylor sitting in instead. (Obviously short of presenters, because surely they would've got Bernadette Kearney in from MT otherwise !)

i believe they are still available - but id imagine the radio 2 studio is more geared up to providing output for network radio.

interesting that there was no mention of one big weekend on midlands today. especially with bbc midlands/bbc birmingham's little bit of involvement in it.

also interesting to see bob, llew and nick at the atv/central guy's funeral.

Don't forget that Birmingham (along with Manchester) are both network production centres, as well as having their own self-contained local stations they also make a large number of network radio programmes for all 5 networks. Moyles would have been in one of these - they haven't moved to The Mailbox yet

Well Franksy was only off for one day, & tonight he interviewed Michael Howard, the Tory 'vampire' / leader. (I assume it was the real one, it could have been Jon or Kevin from 'Dead Ringers', because I heard his pronounciation of 'peepil' !)

(Anyone guessed my political leanings yet ? )

Bit of good news on the Malcolm Boyden front.

According to both Mollie & the official Beeb press site, he will be working for BBC Hereford & Worcester every Tuesday from next week, between 7pm & 10pm, doing a mixture of fun, games & sports coverage, which has puzzled me because I thought he left WM, because he didn't want to concentrate on sport !

(By the way, Alex Trelinski has popped up on BBC Radio Leicester drivetime. I'm off next week, so I'll have a fiddle with the radio, to try & pick it up! (Naughty me, forsaking Franksy !!))

MT are working on a new trail for their new look, & have asked for contributions from us the viewers!

Talking of Alex Trelinski who used to do the pan-regional Late Show that Frances Finn now hosts (Alan Clifford's in for her this week though)... do you know which station the Late Show is networked from? I always thought it was Nottingham but Nottingham opted out for some football some time last week while the late show carried on elsewhere - maybe they moved for a night? Secondly, do all the stations taking the late show take the feed from wherever it comes from, followed by Five Live, then switch back to do their own thing in the morning? This week, Rob Underwood who normally does 5am-7am on all the East Midlands stations is covering Lincolnshire Breakfast, but is still doing 5-7 on Nottingham according to the radio times (I haven't listened in to see if he actually is, or if it's just duff info in the RT).

Radio Nottingham has a couple of radio studios - it's still possible for them to produce the late show and pipe it down the line like they usually do, but also broadcast their own coverage.