BBC London TV News

Just noticed another one of their sporadic newsletters has appeared.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/broadcastinghouse/community/pdfs/newsletter18.pdf

There's a rather nice photo of the newsroom with a curly staircase on page one.

The BBC are cutting down the number of buildings they use in London, concentrating on just the BH and White City sites. Therefore they're handing back the lease of MHS.

Assad Ahmed is a good presenter... eyes / smile / etc.... until he opens his mouth. He sounds as though he has permanently blocked sinuses... Hello and welcome to BBC Dundun Dews. I'm sorry, but if you can't speak properly, you shouldn't be on the tele. If you can't sing in tune, you wouldn't be an opera singer. If you're no good at maths, you can't become a rocket scientist. And please... the courderoy jacket? With elbow patches? In brown? Not my London.

Riz Lateef was in the late BBC News on BBC1 tonight...is she moving from BBC London to the Nationals?

Not that I'm aware of. She just occasionally appears during the weekend bulletins to present.

BBC London 94.9 has moved to BH this weekend, with some shows coming from the new studio. According to Tony Blackburn, building work is still going on.

Video here: http://www.twitvid.com/0EBDA

Looks nice, the studios look bigger and airyer than the old ones and having windows will be a nice novelty for those working there (the old MHS offices had just a few narrow windows near the ceiling).

Both the TV programme and the radio station were slated to go into Broadcasting House many years ago but it never happened, I believe the plan is for them to move again in a few years when the national news moves in to the new part of BH.

Sorry - move again? You mean where they've moved to now isn't their permanent home?

That's my understanding, the place they are moving to next month is in the same part as BBC Arabic/Persian (Egton Wing) but AIUI the idea is to move the regional TV news into the national news facilities when that moves to the part currently under construction. If you've seen the twitter videos you'll notice that it doesn't look like the most permanant setup.

I'm not sure whether the radio will move too, but I expect so as the London TV/radio/website are a 'tri-media' operation, they share a lot of resources and staff.

As to why they're moving twice? The BBC are giving up the lease on Marylebone High Street so they have to leave around now, but the news centre at BH won't be ready for another couple of years

I thought that the setup with the radio producers/studio manager sitting in the corridor looked a bit weird.

I know lots of people want to move into the main BH newsroom, but despite it being the largest in the world there isn't the space for everyone to be in there who wants to be. Out of TV News (Domestic and World), English Radio news (Domestic and WS) and BBC London I'd expect London to be down the priority list for space. If they want Radio, TV and Online to remain together then I'd be really surprised if they found the space for all of them in the main newsroom.

Having said that there have been a number of problems caused by BBC Persian being split up as it currently is (only TV is in Egton, as their floor isn't big enough for Radio as well), so the London floor of Egton would be a potential home for the Persians in the future to unify the service if it were to become vacant.


I didn't think it looked much different to the BBC Arabic or Persian floors in Egton Wing. I agree these don't look as solid as studios built in the past, but that's progress for you.