The NEW Central West and BBC Midlands thread

theyre still very slow off the mark - the story has developed so much and they really havent gone out of their way to cover it. i know they cant match bbc mids with the live OB at breakfast time - because GMTV are holding the purse-strings for those bulletins, but i really would have expected bob or jo have been at longbridge for lunch/afternoon. although i guess the strike has affected them today. for example they interviewed the leader of the council many many hours after bbc mids, also bbc mids hgad a good chat to chinny at lunchtime - i know he is mr rent-a-quote and he can talk alot of pap, but for a story like this needs a bit of emotion to cut through the "x-thousand job losses" phrase that becomes meaningless after a while.

How come they're never consistent during the GMTV bullys?

One day it's 4:3, the next day it's 14:9 etc!

Onto the Rover situation now, apart from both news programs coming live from Longbridge(Noting Bob Warman was at Rover & so is Nick Owen, I wonder if they had chance to say hello off air to each other?), BBC WM had Goldie live there for Brekky & all the other news based shows had coverage into them too.

Chinnie was busy as well, appearing during the Goldie & Doolan shows(He even managed to pop over to Lea Hall bus depot to interview people there too, because it's 50 years of buses from there & they have a open day there tomorrow between 10 & 2), plus Nick interviewed him on the 130 too!

Other things to note.

The Express & Star reports that the BBC Shop at Merry Hill is shutting, in favour of the Mailbox facillty.(Remember when Merry Hill opened, they were still at the Mill )

Listening to Mollie Green earlier this week, Jane France said she donated some money towards sponsoring a woolly monkey, which prompted several texts, including one from yours truly, asking 'Was it the ITV Digital Monkey?'

(Normally I would have been at work today, but I prebooked the day off so I could go to the Walsall Beer Festival last night, & lucky I did, as I was a bit 'unwell' later & recovering from an hangover all day today!)

it closed a while ago, shame really - but when you weigh up the fact they had to pay rent at merry hill ... while siting the shop *in* their bit of mailbox means wm dont have to pay rent for the shop, it makes sense. rumour has it the next shop to appear will be at radio leicester.

central finally got their arses into gear and did fantastic coverage tonight. was bob wearing a wax jacket or a bomber jacket - or was it a mixture of both. his hair was everywhere. chris james was doing a report tonight ... actually, lets not start all that again.

back when fox hunting was banned i remarked that in the old days central would have quickly turned around a documentary ... well they are for the MG rover story - 12.15 on sunday, replacing central newsweek. so credit to them for that. oh and no mention of the strike at all.

oh and keep your eyes peeled for

POLITICAL: Central Choice
Channel: ITV1 Central 03
Date: Wednesday 20th April 2005
Time: 23:10 to 00:05 (starting in 12 days)
Duration: 55 minutes.
Election debate.
Excerpt taken from DigiGuide - the world's best TV guide available from http://www.digiguide.com. Copyright ©1999-2004 GipsyMedia Ltd. Information copied from DigiGuide cannot be re-distributed, sold or used without prior written consent from GipsyMedia Ltd. All rights reserved.

no word about any election shows on bbc midlands ... last time they had 2 programmes every week, the pan-midlands "its your call" with nick owen, AND the west midlands only (i think) "big debate" with patrick burns. they must be doing something ... surely

What did you make of Chris James' contribution tonight? "Average" comes to mind...

well he certainly isn’t credible is he. i think he ought to be locked in a cupboard until the summer time "fluffy bunny who does hand stands" stories come out to play. i certainly wouldn’t want him sniffing round for a story if i had just lost a pope or lost my job.

i hoped we were getting rid of him anyway. arati has gone quiet recently, oh how i haven’t missed her "ventriloquists dummy sat on bob's knee" performances and wind being forced out of an old pair of bellows voice over the last few days. that’s something the rover workers can cling onto; their fate was not delivered to them by her.

oh yes, back to chris james, he needs a hair cut.

Midlands today ws splendid on friday night, good coverage, nbcie to see Nick going outside
CNW should follw example

Both shows had virtually the same content and layout item and ob wise, I think MT had a small exclusive with a guy from Rover, Central had a bloke with funny hair generally not doing much to make me sit and watch in this time of crisis for Rover, but still, Bob was outside, so all is well in the world

Tony & Julie return to the airwaves from this Monday 11th April, on 104.9fm BBC Radio Leicester(Also available online & presumbly DAB, if they're on there too!)

It's Waddo solo between 9 & 11am, then together between 11 & 12, then Jules goes solo between 12 & 2, with John Florance moving to 2pm.

(I'm off w/c 18/4, so I'll have to have a knob twiddle then !)

Sally James has taken part in some cosmetic surgery TV prog, so she wasn't presenting today with Daz Hale, apart from a brief phone call about 845am from hospital.

(I guess the Tiswas Online guys are more up to speed on this !)

Oh & Tony Butler was in for that prat Gaunt too, using Gaunt's team, including Fat Matt the Taff the tech op !

Well this was interesting because of the MG ROver thing Central ews did a spoecial rogramme in their regional slot, also being shown in the Est did anyone else notice then? Was nice to see him though, a good news personality

Nice to see who? Come again??

Oh BOB i mean, we never see him as i pick up the awful central News East, whic is becoming as tabloidy as Granada Reports.

the special central news programme was a bit of a re-hash of everything that we already know, possibly because it was (i am presuming) pre-recorded yesterday afternoon. titles were weak, and no graphics to talk of really. oh and the sting before the break said "central news at six"

i think, given the nature of the story, a live programme would have been far better - bit of a debate in the studio crossing live to the newsroom for an update on the details. not just repeating reports from friday. odd decision to show it on central south and east. i know it will affect suppliers accross the midlands - but the programme replaced central news week east and central news week south. perhaps would have been better to have newsweek as normal, and opt out of that yorkshire regional programme that was getting a network airing between 11.45 and 12.15.

having said all that - atleast central did something - shame bbc midlands couldnt have done a special programme.