That's great. Just set mine for 6-9 so will be able to watch it all. I do agree that Roger will be rather dull. He's only slightly better than when he started out, but really doesn't take the opportunity to show any personality on North West Tonight. He does mean well though.
I have every confidence that Fiona will very much take the lead tomorrow. And hopefully, she'll be on the sofa much more, like you say. I would prefer her as Breakfast cover any day to say, Kate Silverton.
Breakfast on Sundays must be very little watched during the football season when it leaves BBC1 at 7:30am.
Very few will be up before 7:30, and those who are up before 9:00 might not always think about turning to the News Channel, so these presenters can be tried out in quite a low key way.
Andrew Marr is like the breakfast show on Sundays really.
Having seen Roger leave BBC South for "up North" he now pops up on a Sunday morning on Breakfast with Fiona. What an odd pairing, still it saves someone travelling up from London I guess. They can stay snugly in their beds this wet and wild morning
Why hasn't Fiona been on Breakfast before?!? Keep her on please BBC! Also noticed today that they gave a 'preview' of the weather with Sarah at the TOTH which they don't normally do at the weekend. Roger is also much better than I thought.
Breakfast on Sundays must be very little watched during the football season when it leaves BBC1 at 7:30am.
Some recent ratings from Barb
15th April, the 8am hour got 490,000 viewers - second highest rating hour on the NC all week. The 7am hour got 315,000 viewers, the 5th most watched hour of the week on the NC
8th April the 8am hour had 621,000 viewers, the most watched hour of the week on the NC (7am 252,000, 4th most watched hour)
So not hugely popular, but not a non-existant audience either
I hope we'll see more of Fiona too - as she lives in Scotland, it's obviously easier for her to get to Salford than it is to London so she might be more likely to be used as cover. I think that might be why she is being tried out tomorrow.
Bit of a bold statement. The only 3 ways to Manchester from Scotland are by car, train or plane. If she lives outside Glasgow then its even worse by train, as half the route to Manchester is actually all-stopper (Preston to Manchester). Virgin only operate to Scotland via Warrington and Preston. From Manchester its TransPennine Express. It is actually quicker by plane - but cost effectively speaking would be more suitable to travel to London, than Manchester. If anything the easiest way is by car, and, as said on Newswatch yesterday, Salford is predominantly in the middle of the UK - so yes would be easier than travelling to London by car! (but whats the subsidy per mile???)
Why hasn't Fiona been on Breakfast before?!? Keep her on please BBC! Also noticed today that they gave a 'preview' of the weather with Sarah at the TOTH which they don't normally do at the weekend. Roger is also much better than I thought.
Think they both did a very good job. Fiona is easily as good as Louise so I hope we see her do more in a similar role to Naga Munchetty or Jon Kay, coming in every few months or so to present a few days . I'm not as much a fan of Roger but they got on well on-screen.
Video coming up soon - although my tuner decided to stop recording at 6:42am so I've included anything interesting up to that point.
Now that the move to Salford has had time to bed-in I feel that it is germain to comment on the relocation of the programme. Without wishing to re-open the arguments for and against the move I think that the rationale of having a flagship news programme produced away from the rest of news output when such output itself all relocates to Broadcasting House is subject to challenge. I would also contend that the argument hypothasised by one of the correspondents to Newswatch submitted that as Breakfast now came from the regions it was a regional programme is as inane as it is fatuous.
To the average viewer I would suggest that they would hardly notice the changes that the smaller studio and lower ceiling have brought to the on-screen enviroment. From a personal perspective the proximity of the two presenters is perhaps too close but I'm sure that this can be resolved.
"I hope we'll see more of Fiona too - as she lives in Scotland, it's obviously easier for her to get to Salford than it is to London so she might be more likely to be used as cover."
The comment above from DrewF does beg a question as during the day there are 3 trains an hour from Euston to Manchester Piccadilly directly which take aproximately 2hrs and 8 minutes and about 3 3/4 hours by road for the roughly 210 miles; from Salford to Gretna Green is just over 200 miles by motorway which would take about 2 and a quarter hours and considerably longer by less frequent trains. I am unsure as to where Ms Armstrong lives but unless it is in the lowland border region then I fail to understand how living in Scotland means that one can get to Salford from Scotland in less time than it would take from London to Salford? My timings are courtesy of National Rail Enquiries and Google Maps and are rounded up accordingly. Perhaps someone could enlighten me?
I am unsure as to where Ms Armstrong lives but unless it is in the lowland border region then I fail to understand how living in Scotland means that one can get to Salford from Scotland in less time than it would take from London to Salford? My timings are courtesy of National Rail Enquiries and Google Maps and are rounded up accordingly. Perhaps someone could enlighten me?
From what I read in an article quite a while back, I think she does live in the Scottish Borders somewhere. Would fit in with the fact that she used to present ITV Lookaround regional news show which covers that region.
Just to clarify what I meant - I was saying that it would be quicker and easier for someone to travel from Scotland to Salford, than it would be to go all the way to London. If that's not true when using the train etc. then I apologise.
There are a few small patches where the signal is poor and the picture goes a bit pixelated, sorry about that, but nothing that will ruin the video.
Surprisingly good! Roger and Fiona both seemed very at home and appeared to really enjoy working with each other. I was never really a fan of Roger Johnson but I thought he did OK this morning. Fiona Armstrong was her usual excellent self. It'd be nice if we had a different pairing each week on Sundays to keep it fresh. Week 1 we had Simon McCoy and Naga Munchetty, week 2 we had Nicholas Owen and Naga, and of course this morning we had Roger and Fiona. Jon Kay is down to present next Sunday, I wonder who he'll be on with?It'd be nice to see Fiona again.
Perhaps this is evidence enough that the BBC's stupidity of axing older presenters was indeed the wrong decision... Lady MacGregor is always superb and even more so today. It was also very interesting and great to see Roger Johnson more relaxed. His dynamic with Ranvir Singh on NWT is always somewhat... off.