[Alf Stewart]

I think it's wishful thinking... The only glimmer of hope of anything changing is that the top dogs did say the channel would roll out and develop over time. 

These Chief Presenters have been with the BBC for decades, certainly the majority of them and it's hard to believe they'll be content with how things have gone. The only presenter who seems totally at ease and happy with things is Matthew Amroliwala. 

I don't watch it as I did once upon a time, certainly isn't playing on the wall at my office anymore. I dip in and out when alerted to events.

I must admit my first port of call yesterday, with the Commons report into Mr Johnson, was to Sky News whereas before it would have been to BBC News. Just feels like BBC News has lost it's way.

[Brekkie]

According to Martine's Twitter, they're working out the details of what their role will be and they hope to be back on air soon. But beyond that....

Really is odd - they either have a role for them or they don't, and given they've been off screen nearly three months it looks like the latter.   It's as if the BBC are aware of the optics of how most of the news channel presenters affected are older women and are therefore willing to pay them to do virtually nothing rather than make them redundant in an attempt to avoid claims of discrimination.

[bkman1990]

Another spelling error was seen on the Six tonight. Nick Beake Europe Cortespondent was seen on the lower 3rd's while he was reporting from Kalkata in Greece.

[Dougal]

I think it's wishful thinking... The only glimmer of hope of anything changing is that the top dogs did say the channel would roll out and develop over time. 

These Chief Presenters have been with the BBC for decades, certainly the majority of them and it's hard to believe they'll be content with how things have gone. The only presenter who seems totally at ease and happy with things is Matthew Amroliwala. 

I don't watch it as I did once upon a time, certainly isn't playing on the wall at my office anymore. I dip in and out when alerted to events.

This.

I used to have the News Channel all day. I dip in occasionally now and rely more upon the BBC’s journalists on Twitter. That being said… yesterday’s coverage of the Report from the Privileges Committee was excellent.

You’re right - Matthew Amroliwala appears to be the only person who is comfortable with the new format/style, but that’s to be expected. The consummate professional.

I went delve much into the conversations around presenters (as I know it is frouned upon by some people here). But I do wonder where Lucy Hockings is. They've launched the new show, BBC News Now, 3 weeks and still no sign of Lucy. I do wonder if they're planning on some changes to how they present these shows, and possibly she's practicing. Wishful thinking.

She’s returned home to New Zealand. Her brother was one of the unfortunate victims of the hostel fire in Wellington and the funeral was yesterday. If anybody dislikes that I’ve shared that information, it’s widely available from reports in the New Zealand media and is in no way speculation.

[Rolling News]

Great to see Nuala McGovern on air tonight, first time since the merger, if I'm not mistaken.

Yes it was, this in response to somebody asking her, with a glimpse of what the DIY autocue looks like:

twitter.com 

[London Lite]

Visual radio: I should remind myself that people do actually read this newsletter, and sometimes if I’m criticising something, I’m criticising someone’s hard work.
So it was that I got an email from the BBC, noting that I’d be in MediaCityUK and “would I like to have a look at the visual radio setup for Nicky Campbell”. Yes, yes I would. And so, I did.
Everyone was very kind to me and nobody mentioned that I’d been quite rude, writing about “a big microphone partly obscuring (Nicky’s) face, big chunky headphones on, and a computer monitor also in view”.
It turns out that the brief from the TV people was that they wanted Nicky Campbell’s show to look like a radio programme. I’m not sure I agree with that decision, but that was the brief that the team were given; and the implementation of that brief is, actually, quite thoughtful.
A few bits of their implementation which struck me as being quite nice: when Nicky opens the talkback to his producers, the camera automatically changes to a wide shot that’s carefully positioned behind Nicky, so you don’t see his mouth moving. The big microphone both communicates that it is a radio programme as per the brief, but also affords the opportunity for Nicky to hide his face. If you’re on-air and in vision for two hours, you’re likely to want to hide your face at least some of the time. Fair enough.
Nicky’s normally in London, in fact, but in an identical studio: the camera is connected to the Salford gallery so appears just the same as any other. Nice.
I learnt that the project took nine months from the initial brief to on-air: that’s light-speed for the BBC. And, as someone who’s done my share of big projects at the BBC, what I found most impressive was how non-gold-plated it all was. Everything, from the cameras and lighting to the re-use of an existing radio studio was done in what seems to be an economical, sensible way with minimal extra staff - yet, drives two hours of national TV every weekday. (Broadcast Bionics have made much of the vision tech: automated vision mixing so good that they rarely have to touch it.)
It appears to be working, too - the programme gets many more callers than it used to, and also the callers are more female than they used to be. (5 Live has a lot of sports output, which means it skews male in audience).
I looked forward to watching a little more, now I understood how it worked: but that wasn’t to be - Big News Events overtaking the phone-in on the rare times I was able to watch. However, I’m grateful to the team for their kindness shown to me in Salford.

From futurologist James Cridland's weekly email, he was given a behind the scenes look of the Nicky Campbell studio at 5 Live.

[DAL1189]

Honestly, I think the Nicky Campbell show has got a bit more flack than it deserves. I''ve enjoyed watching it when I've been flipping it on, I just don't think its worthy of being on the News Channel. In ideal world, it would absolutely have a place on BBC2, whilst the news channel takes whatever the rest of the world is getting.

[Alf Stewart]

Honestly, I think the Nicky Campbell show has got a bit more flack than it deserves. I''ve enjoyed watching it when I've been flipping it on, I just don't think its worthy of being on the News Channel. In ideal world, it would absolutely have a place on BBC2, whilst the news channel takes whatever the rest of the world is getting.

Given the amount of times it's been been dropped this week, I don't think anyone could disagree with you on that one!

[freeview87]

So they want it to be a radio programme. Fine, but as they are finding out that doesn't work on TV. Look how quickly Talk TV has changed.

[watchingtv]

Someone went overboard in the BBC News archives for the weekend lunchtime Bulley News reports for the Honours list and mortgages had old BBC News titles/themes.