Blue Peter

Wasn't it Richard Bacon, Katy Hill, Konnie and Stuart Miles at the time?

I'm sure there was three presenters on the show after he was sacked.


EDIT: This video confirms this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hPubr7JVcs&feature=related

It went from two to three presenters when the show went twice weekly. When it went three times a week and Katy Hill joined in 1995 it started the four presenter format. It even reached five when Zöe Salmon joined to help out as Liz was pregnant.

The press relase sounds depressing for the programme. The bullying item sounds more Newsround. and launching the appeal the next day is way to early.

On another forum former Editor Richard Marson has stated that there is no Summer Expedition or book planned this year.

Surely it was always three presenters right from the days of Val Singleton, John Noakes and Peter Purvis?

No, bcause initially it was Chris Trace and Leila Williams, and than Trace and Val Singleton - and in the days when it was only once a week sometimes only one presenter would do it. It didn't go up to three until the end of 1965 because Chris Trace said the schedule was killing him and he'd quit if they didn't get someone else in (and the BP team decided it would be good not to have to rely on the whims of just one male host). There have been occasions when there have been just two hosts for a while, though, such as after Peter Purves left in March 1978, where Noakes and Judd presented alone for two months before Simon Groom arrived in May. It was indeed three hosts for a few months after Richard Bacon went.

As for the appeal, the launch of it depends on what it entails, I guess, last year they launched it around this time too because it was to design the Christmas cards that were being sold that Christmas so it needed sorting quick. The convention was that they'd launch it later in the year, according to Biddy Baxter as that was when ratings were at their highest, although it's not set in stone. As long as they're doing it.

I think that can be considered old news: if by book you mean the annual, it was already obvious - the annuals have been out since July. They're dying out across the board, Dennis and Gnasher lost theirs this year as well. And no summer expedition = financial cutbacks. Again, was already known, as they usually reveal where they're going in the final show before the summer break, this year they didn't.

A little bit of me confesses to being sorry this year's BP appeal is ultimately just about getting their viewers to proactively help Children in Need. Not that it's a bad thing, for a second, for viewers to do that. But it tends to sound like an admission that the days when BP could do amazing things by itself are over.

Similarly, if heaven forbid, BP came off the air it would be easy for another CBBC programme to take up the baton and help Pudsey out. Is it another bit of the slow death of BP as was from 1962 to 2007?

Kind of ironic if that's the case - I was thinking they might have moved it as they always seemed to launch it just before Children in Need - so you'd get a couple of appeal episdoes then a Children in Need special - though of courses that's back in the days when it was on Fridays.

Helen Skelton has posted a picture of the new set on Twitter...

http://yfrog.com/hwyrosj

(looks like the logo isn't changing then)

Same lgo. but new opening titles: http://www.how-do.co.uk/north-west-media-news/north-west-broadcasting/blue-peter-gets-mighty-giant-fresh-look-for-new-series-20110922100955481

Blue Peter Pets being phased out? WTF http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/sep/23/blue-peter-no-pets-allowed?CMP=twt_fd

No Blue Peter Annual this year.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8781973/End-of-story-for-the-Blue-Peter-Annual.html

The whole show's being phased out, I'm quite sure it won't be on air within in two years.