[Rolling News]

Poor wording there on my part - should have said on-air shift s wasn't the 1 usually paired up with the 5 or sometimes the 9-11 shift.

A shame that with London now in B it wouldn't be possible but even having the 1/6/10 stay on air for the rest of the hour would add some content, rather failing that an overnight style UK headline summary leading up to the top of the hour.

Often the One was paired up with another shift - for pretty much all of March the 1 team presented/produced the 5pm hour (that went out worldwide) and quite often before that, the 2-5 NC shift. (The latter happened much more than you might think - as far back as 2007, in fact! There was a phase where Sophie Raworth would stay on after the One, usually on a Monday, and co-present the afternoon shift on News 24. On those days the One would come from N8, rather than N6.)

From about April 2021, when Covid restrictions were lifted, whoever did the One also did the 5pm hour. During Covid, it was a case of whoever did the One stayed on the NC until 4pm, then somebody else took over until 6pm. Before Covid, there was far less predictability and only occasionally whoever did the One would do the 5pm hour, or even the Six! 

And as you say, sometimes they would stay to do 2-5, but only back in the day when that shift was double headed.