[interestednovice]

Frankie McCamley is presenting now on BBC News. She has occasionally presented before, but is mainly a reporter (previously covering domestic news stories in the UK).

Maybe I’m reading too much into this, given that we are likely to have unusual presenters filling in during the transition period anyway, but could we be seeing a sort of “live auditions/trials” for the presenter-report roles?

No, they’re wheeling out a cast of names at the moment - many of whom are unlikely to be seen again once more output moves to Washington - who want one final hurrah for their showreel.

We don’t yet know if the presenter-reporter roles are finalised.

They are not - as I said earlier in the thread, up until a few days ago the interview process hadn’t even been completed and I understand some names who’ve turned up as semi-regular corrs or anchors on overnight output are out of the running.

There was talk in Private Eye a while ago of producers being offered presenting shifts. I know that’s not the same as reporters doing such, but it’s something to keep in mind.

Think PE have got mixed up with the wider shakeup at the NC where everyone was forced to reapply for their jobs under the merger and Senior Journalist roles at grade D had the job description changed so producers at that level could jump onto the UK breakout stream as an on-screen reporter if circumstances required.

I suspect you are right about all this.

Frankie did well yesterday, from what I saw of the 3pm bulletin, and most of the BBC’s presenters are pros in my opinion. It will be a shame to lose them. At least those from the regions will probably return to those roles rather than lose their jobs completely.

It’s also not unheard of for “producers” to present on the NC or WN, so that element of things is not a huge change. I believe Lucy Grey works primarily as a producer, for example, but semi-regularly appears. I imagine these sorts of people will work primarily behind the scenes but will be on a list of “screen capable” staff who can present the opt if required. We will most likely see them in that capacity on the UK stream, I assume, while they work as producers for the merged channel most of the time.