[Critique]

I wonder how much leeway presenters had to play around with the 'up to news' line.

I noticed some presenters seemed to deliver it absolutely word-for-word every time, while others seemed to go off-piste regularly. Jeremy Vine often used to shorten it to something akin to "smart speaker, Sounds app, and 88 to 91 FM".

(Tarbuck in a league of her own in that regard though. An absolute gem.)

I can’t remember where I read this but allegedly it used to just be Steve Wright and Liza Tarbuck who had dispensation from the standard script at the TOTH. Why it would just be the two of them I do not know though!

As you’ve noted, that didn’t stop other presenters from going off-script occasionally - a lot of the ex-Radio 1 DJs seem to struggle at first with how they don’t have to mention the upcoming news bulletin in the TOTH script. Jo Whiley in particular went through a phase of either occasionally missing the TOTH altogether or doing a somewhat garbled link that often linked directly to the news or spoke about the music on the way (which was, and still is, generally the format of the intro to Newsbeat bulletins to Radio 1). I guess old habits die hard!

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