The Murder of Jill Dando

Yes, I'm not sure about the references to "the other studio", I'm pretty sure they used the same one for all the news bulletins in that era (maybe they had a CSO one they could use as a stand-by, I don't know). The only time I remember them using another studio for a newsflash was when the Good Friday Agreement was announced and BBC1 was about ten minutes from the end of Ben Hur, which had been on for four hours, so rather than interrupt the film that close to the end, they did the first newsflash on BBC2 from the Breakfast News studio.

As I say, Jennie Bond would presumably have been doing all the hourly bulletins that day. That era of BBC News was a bit of a free-for-all in terms of who cropped up.



As I mentioned, she'd already stopped reading the news and was just about to leave Holiday, as we know she was on the cover of the Radio Times that week and the interview inside was about how she was moving into some new projects, of which the first was Antiques Inspectors. That series seemed cursed, the first series, which Carol Vorderman presented, was delayed by a week because it was supposed to start on the day Diana died. Of course, they showed the rest of the series posthumously later that year, although I don't know if it was that good an idea, it didn't do very well in the ratings and I'm not sure people felt that comfortable watching it.

She was also supposed to be presenting the BAFTAs a few weeks later. I remember it was suggested that 2000 Today would be presented by Des Lynam and Jill Dando, although by the time we got there neither were available, for very different reasons.

I presume today she'd be doing light factual like Fiona Phillips or Angela Rippon do, things like The Truth About... and all that stuff.

Or main/lead presenter of The One Show..

On the day in question, Jennie Bond presented the Jill Dando News flash. And Jennie was also the co presenter of the Six O'clock News on the day in question, so was indeed in the building of course.

I cannot recall who the presenter of the One was.

Was she not rumoured to be a part of the BBC News revamp?

She was also the cover star of that weekend's Daily Mirror 'Look' magazine with the headline "Why I'm Looking Forward To A Bright Future". The magazine had already been printed but was pulled and pulped at a cost of £200,000.



She was offered the new look 6 but turned it down as I recall.

I didn't say I hadn't heard of her, it was just when I was told I couldn't immediately think who she was or what she presented.


Now her name is infamous, then she was just one of many presenters who popped up on the telly. She was never someone who stood out to me



Yes Anna Ford is a 'name'.... but she wasn't there!

That definitely makes sense. My recollection of that era was that the Six second presenter read the daytime summaries. So, it wasn't out of the ordinary for Jennie to have presented the newsflash. The One presenter may have already left and Jennie was the duty bulletin presenter at that moment. That would have allowed the Six main presenter to prepare for the Six.

Or perhaps the One presenter was a particularly close friend of Jill.

Anyone recall how News 24 covered it, especially as at the time they were still at arms length from the network news.

She'd be to old for that gig. All of its premanant presenters have been much younger.


Obviously we'll never know what could have been, but I don't think she'd necessarily be as high profile today. Firstly she doesn't sound like she was ruthlessly ambitious and was refocusing her career at the time, reducing her workload. Also about to get married and one would assume start a family.

However it's sad to say but there is still a degree of ageism in broadcasting, if you look at her contemporaries in TV they've a mixed bag of career paths. Would she have been a Carol Smilie and gone elsewhere then disappeared? Would she have been got rid of from her long running gig and then been just a contributor like Carol Vorderman? Or would she have left the public eye to raise a family and do other things, then come back in low profile gigs like Anneka Rice? The nearest person in terms of age and talents I can think of is Lorraine Kelly who has basically been doing the same thing for 30 years.


Personally I think she'd have done Crimewatch with a few odd factual series here and now she'd probably have a high profile radio gig, Desert Island Discs or lunchtime Radio 2 would be the two she'd have been best suited to, or Woman's Hour

That was mentioned in the obit package on the day of her death.

I am sure I read somewhere she was meant to be presenting the Six that day herself?