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Question Time

30 years since it began on BBC. (September 2009)

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MI
Michael
623058 posted:
James Vertigan posted:
He can't retire yet - I think I heard a while back that he's pencilled in to anchor covrage of the death of the Queen... and she's still holding on for a while yet!


that another 15 years then! ( I wonder if she will send herself a card?) I bet she there out of spite, not to let charles in. Another two years she will beat George III, and anther 6 years and she will beat Victoria


It's not a card any more, it's a telemessage.
CW
Charlie Wells Moderator
623058 posted:
A better question would be Who could replace him? he is 71 and in few year he may wish to retire?

I imagine Jeremy Vine would be a likely candidate (I believe someone else mentioned his name in the Michael Jackson coverage thread). He seems to handle discussions on his radio show well, even when it gets a bit heated.
:-(
A former member
Charlie Wells posted:
623058 posted:
A better question would be Who could replace him? he is 71 and in few year he may wish to retire?

I imagine Jeremy Vine would be a likely candidate (I believe someone else mentioned his name in the Michael Jackson coverage thread). He seems to handle discussions on his radio show well, even when it gets a bit heated.


but I like him on his radio 2 show, and and no one seems to come close to covering him.
DV
DVB Cornwall
You can have JV for QT. Providing he leaves R2. Can't stand him, far too interventionist in interviews. The R2 programme is a shadow of it's former self.
SC
scottishtv Founding member
I saw a wee bit of QT tonight and I actually liked Humphreys in the Chair. Usually find him a bit pompous, but I liked how he really focused the show on being a *question time* - drawing the panel back to giving solid answers and challenging very specific elements where they were trying to avoid the actual question.

Dimbleby has a habit of letting the panel slide a bit off topic and go into the realms of giving popular mini-speeches and veering away from the thrust of the question being asked, but I liked how Humphreys was on their backs when they strayed but not to the point of talking over them or being an interruption.
BU
buster
Inspector Sands posted:
buster posted:
Interesting choice - I don't think John has had a regular TV gig since On The Record was axed in 2002,

Mastermind?



Oh yeah - duh! A regular news/current affairs gig, then.
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
623058 posted:
James Vertigan posted:
He can't retire yet - I think I heard a while back that he's pencilled in to anchor covrage of the death of the Queen... and she's still holding on for a while yet!


that another 15 years then! ( I wonder if she will send herself a card?) I bet she there out of spite, not to let charles in. Another two years she will beat George III, and anther 6 years and she will beat Victoria


I hardly think Her Majesty wants to "spite" her eldest son. Nobody realistically plans to live to a certain age just to upset somebody else. After all, Her Majesty could quite easily be run over by a bus tomorrow, though if Charles was driving it that would be interesting to see what would happen legally - could the next King be King by virtue of murder? However it is true that the longer the current reign goes on, the less chance there is of Prince Charles becoming King and more chance of it passing to his son, Prince William. William is almost certainly guaranteed to be King at some point in his life, if not him then Prince Harry.

And since you've explained HM's longevitiy quite badly, here's a more detailed rendition:

Should Queen Elizabeth II still be reigning on:

* 12 May 2011, her reign would surpass that of George III.
* 10 September 2015, she would surpass Queen Victoria as the longest-reigning monarch in British history.
* 25 May 2024, at the age of 98, she would become the longest-reigning monarch in European history, surpassing the reign of Louis XIV of France who reigned for 72 years, 3 months, and 18 days.

Queen Elizabeth II living to 98 is certainly plausible, since her mother lived to 101 and a half.
Last edited by Neil Jones on 13 November 2009 3:58pm - 2 times in total
SP
Steve in Pudsey
James Vertigan posted:
He can't retire yet - I think I heard a while back that he's pencilled in to anchor covrage of the death of the Queen... and she's still holding on for a while yet!


I think he was meant to do the coverage of the Queen Mother's death, but was on holiday at the time, leading to the Sissons purple tie incident.
BR
Brekkie
He'd only anchor the funeral, not the breaking news. Sissons was only there to break the news in his role as that nights newsreader - they wouldn't wait for Dimbleby to arrive to inform the nation (though C4 and ITV have already broken the news whilst the BBC stuck with a holding caption for about ten minutes!).
SP
Steve in Pudsey
Would the BBC not get the news much earlier but under an embargo?
HC
Hatton Cross
I was producing a football match commentary for a radio station on that Easter Saturday when the Queen Mother died, and it flashed up on the Sky News feed wires at as a *Snap* event 4.42pm that she had died, but the Buck House embargo was in force until 5pm.

That's why I've never really understood why Sissons got it so wrong, and sounded stunned like he'd just heard the news as he went to air at 5. There was a full quarter of an hour between newsrooms having the not for broadcast official conformation at 4.45 and the public broadcast at 5.
He could have spent 5 mins rehearsing in the studio beforehand - but, it appeared he spent the time thumbing through the BBC News tierack.
MA
mansoor
Hatton Cross posted:
I was producing a football match commentary for a radio station on that Easter Saturday when the Queen Mother died, and it flashed up on the Sky News feed wires at as a *Snap* event 4.42pm that she had died, but the Buck House embargo was in force until 5pm.

That's why I've never really understood why Sissons got it so wrong, and sounded stunned like he'd just heard the news as he went to air at 5. There was a full quarter of an hour between newsrooms having the not for broadcast official conformation at 4.45 and the public broadcast at 5.
He could have spent 5 mins rehearsing in the studio beforehand - but, it appeared he spent the time thumbing through the BBC News tierack.


Here is Peter Sissons in his own words explaining what happened that day:

Quote:
Which brings me to the death of the Queen Mother. For years, BBC News had rehearsed for that day. By chance, the rehearsals usually fell on my shift, and I must have done five or six of them. They were largely technical, but also had a prewritten storyline to give them shape.

Such rehearsals never involved a meeting to discuss the editorial tone. Indeed, on the day the Queen Mother died, Easter Saturday 2002, I wasn't aware that there was an editorial policy. I was wrong.

It had been revealed in a little-reported speech, some months earlier after 9/11. And remarkably, it had been announced not by the Director of News, but by the Controller of BBC1, Lorraine Heggessey.

Coverage of the death of the Queen Mother, she said - its tone, style and maybe the amount of coverage - had all been reviewed. Coverage of the death of a Royal who had reached 100 after a fantastically full life, 'would be in tune with the times'.

On the day, I was the duty BBC1 newscaster. It was a slow news day. The weekend team was on, understaffed as usual.

The Queen Mother died at about 3.15pm. Unknown to me or the news team, Jennie Bond, the Royal correspondent, had been alerted by the Palace soon after the death. Jennie had immediately phoned the Head of News.

But nobody informed me or my team until 5.35pm, when we were told that we would go on air just before 6pm with the announcement, which the Palace would not make formally until 5.45.

To this day I do not know why the top brass didn't give us more notice. Little had been prepared. I had no time to write anything myself. But I did have the presence of mind, before going to the studio, to check which tie to wear of the two I had in my locker.

I asked one of the many senior figures now arriving in the building whether he wanted the black one or the less sombre burgundy one. He pointed to the burgundy one.

We went on air with me feeling, and probably looking, distinctly uncomfortable.

I had not seen the opening announcement until I read it off the autocue because it was being written right up to the last minute, and the text was less than polished. We were short of subsequent material, relying heavily on the experienced Jennie Bond to fill the time.

Then I was told in my earpiece to interview a close friend of the Queen Mother (actually her niece), Lady Margaret Rhodes. It was only when I asked her when she had last seen the Queen Mother, and she said 3.30pm, that I realised she had been at the deathbed.

I asked one or two questions that I thought were acceptable, such as who else was there, which elicited the information that the Queen was present.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1199006/PETER-SISSONS-I-drove-Television-Centre-final-time-month--I-dont-pang-regret.html#ixzz0WsOoYzJr

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