Sky News: Presenters & Rotas

I said it seemed she has left since she changed her biography on twitter, but nobody confirmed it unless I am blind?

Seems a few cover presenters leaving recently.

Mark Longhurst covering for Andrew Wilson on the 1700-2100 Saturday shift.

This would be because Andrew presented the shift during the week while Jeremy was in Iowa.

Beth Rigby joining Sky News as senior political correspondent.

She's currently Media Editor at The Times and before that a political correspondent at the FT.

A fantastic appointment I think!

Looking at Beth's Twitter, Tamara Cohen from the Daily Mail is also joining Sky's political team.

Former BBC Three 60 Seconds bulletin presenter Sam Naz was given a trial run at 2am.

Did she finish at 2.01am?

Colin Brazier solo on 9am-noon.
Jayne Secker in for Dermot Murnaghan at lunchtime.
Sophy Ridge in for Sarah Hewson on Sky News Tonight.

Martin Stanford is leaving Sky News after 25 years. He confirmed the news on his Twitter account, a few minutes ago.

Sad news, still one of the best presenters on the channel.

So it's farewell to Sky News after 25 years. It's been fun. Now, as President Bartlett liked to say, "What's next?" #watchthisspace

— Martin Stanford (@martinstanford) April 4, 2016

Martin is one of the loveliest, most-effortlessly-smooth broadcasters I've ever met or worked with.

For the last 18 months, I've had the pleasure of producing a programme called "World News Review" each week, on which Martin has been by-far the most-frequent presenter. It's mostly distributed to Sky's international syndication partners, but has only rarely been seen on TV in overnight slots when the erstwhile Debate programme was off-air, or if for some reason we couldn't show the CBS Evening News.

But the programme's relative obscurity never mattered to Martin, who would come in during the 11:30 half-hour when Sky Sports takes over on a Saturday morning and just breeze through the links I'd written him (to go between the week's best VTs) with an easy and charming aplomb, and even when he made the (very) occasional fluff, he would always defer to me in terms of how to correct it, even though if he'd wanted to, he could've rewritten the entire script while standing on his head.

In short, he is a total pro... and I shall miss him enormously, as - I'm sure - will the audience who've enjoyed him as a regular presence in their news diet for as long as they've been watching Sky.