Re: The recent new female BBC announcer...

The three new announcers at UTV (Marc, Lynda and Sarah Dobson) are all journalists whose reports have featured on the station's news bulletins, as well as those on U105.

I can't recall seeing UTV plc advertise any vacancies for CAs in the past few years, so I'm sure the presentation department are just borrowing the services of news department staff rather than recruiting brand new staff of their own. Who knows whether or not Marc, Lynda and Sarah are paid extra for their announcing duties, I'm sure someone here mentioned before about UTV managers looking for staff to contribute to U105 without getting extra pay.

Again, it's hard to judge whether the staff seconded received any announcer training - and, given that UTV don't do daytime continuity, the only chance potential new announcers have to shadow the existing staff is at evenings or weekends, which is an inconvenience. It wouldn't surprise me if the new announcers were just told one day while working in the newsroom they'd be working continuity shifts and not given any further guidance.

In that respect, I feel sorry for the new trio as anytime I've heard them on CA duty, it seems obvious they'd rather be in the newsroom chasing stories rather than introducing programmes, and only Marc seems to put in any effort into announcing. I'd have pulled Lynda and perhaps Sarah off CA duties by now if I was in charge of UTV presentation (but then again, I would make a lot of changes if I had that job...)

In terms of UTV announcers using scripts - Julian definitely writes his own scripts, I am certain Robin does, not sure about the others.

I heard her on BBC One today.
She talked too long when the Ident had finished and then she carried on another 5/10 secs before going to Cash in the Attic!

i remember paul vasey on central once got distracted by a who wants to be a millionaire trailer and said "now on carlton central, who wants to be ... sorry! news"

Oh yeah, slips happen alright. Neville Wanless at Tyne Tees made one years back, which was handled well by both announcer and transmission controller. Went something like this; "Now on Tyne Tees, Coronation Street, and Rita has a tough decision to make, <slight pause> and that's in half an hour, after more real-life hospital drama in Jimmy's". He went about 3 or 4 seconds over, and was on the verge of bursting out laughing at the end. TX controller thought on his feet and cut straight to a static TTTV ident which was then faded seamlessly into the programme, slickly covering up the YTV ident, which by then will have been half way through.

I got the impression that his mistake will only have dawned when he saw the YTV ident playing on his monitor -- it was that close.

You can still recover cock-ups if you know what you're doing!!

A sample of the hoarse tones of the new BBC2 announcer... Listen

Has DCI Sam Nixon crept into Red Bee and found herself a job?

The BBC has gone down the road of hiring non traditional voices for continuity like most other comapnies have.I prefer the traditional announcer but lets give her a chance she is not that bad.

Give her a chance? Give her a packet of Strepsils more like.

She is awful - she can't speak properly for a start !

I wonder how she managed to pass the audition process?

...and take away the packet of fags.

She sounds terrible IMO. Who wants to be the first to send her a pack of Halls Mentho-Lyptus?

Incidentally there's a similar-sounding continuity announcer on ITV1 - she's on most evenings, sorry I can't be more specific, but she sounds just like the announcer on the uploaded clip - except without the sore throat..