Huws at Ten - but for how much longer?

[Radio_man]

James Reynolds would be a good fit for BBC News at Ten, I think.

But in the real world, a newsreader/presenter that has never presented a BBC 1 evening bulletin before is not suddenly going to be catapulted onto the News at Ten, as replacement for it's longest ever serving presenter.

[DTV]

The last few presenter reshuffles have usually followed the pattern of lunchtime presenters getting promoted to evening and evening presenters getting promoted to late, with newer presenters added at lunchtime. While the boundaries between the bulletins are much less fixed now, I would suspect that a new 'lead' presenter will come from the pool of people who already present the evening or late bulletins. Even if it is part of a wider shake-up, I'd be surprised if any 'new blood' came in anywhere other than the News at One.

I would expect that Sophie Raworth must surely be the favourite. She is already a regular presenter of the News at Ten and is probably the most senior newsreader other than Edwards and Alagiah, certainly the most senior who doesn't also have other presenting commitments.

Fundamentally, finding a new presenter for their flagship news programme is something I'd expect the BBC to play somewhat safe. It just isn't the place where you experiment - that's what the weekend bulletins are for!

[chris]

But how much exposure had Huw Edwards and Fiona Bruce when they took over the 6 in 1999? That was a major and bold move that paid off that wouldn’t go amis today.

[bkman1990]

If Huw Edwards leaves the 10; Sophie Raworth should be the perfect replacement with Clive Myrie doing the cover for the 10 on Friday whenever he is available. Likewise with the 6; I think if George Alagiah calls it a day & leaves due to his illness or age. I think Reeta Chakrabati will be a good fit to replace him with Fiona Bruce doing the 6 on Monday as usual with Clive Myrie doing the 6 on Friday.

It might make sense doing it this way if other presenters are doing other BBC programmes outside of the newsroom; if Huw Edwards finally decides to call it a day on the 10. I would also say what others are suggesting here in that Huw will not go very far away from presenting special programmes if he still wants to focus on his work as being the lead events presenter on the BBC like what David Dimbleby did in the past.

The viewers of those events on BBC One or Two will see Huw there if he is on those programmes. I think a change in his work routine to not do much night-time work for the BBC will be good for him. He does have other interests including his family & his hobby in boxing to look after in his spare time. If he wants to be happy doing those things away from being on the 10; then that is primarily his choice & people should respect it.

[JLav25]

But how much exposure had Huw Edwards and Fiona Bruce when they took over the 6 in 1999? That was a major and bold move that paid off that wouldn’t go amis today.

Yes I was thinking that myself. With the new BBC logo being realised, we may well see a full refresh and reshuffle, although last time there was still 18 months with the new logo before the new look news was introduced.

Both Huw and Fiona had been occasional co-presenters on the six before 1999, as well as both making appearances on Breakfast News, the One and Weekend bulletins. One that surprised me rather recently, Huw was one of the few presenters to have presented a bulletin from the Nine/Darker set. (OK maybe not few, but I think the number was in single figures). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKY1dCcUhQ8&t=170s

I think they were both fairly well known, in that you'd recognise them as BBC names, but not associate them as one of the main team. Not sure who the equivalent would be today.

[DTV]

But how much exposure had Huw Edwards and Fiona Bruce when they took over the 6 in 1999? That was a major and bold move that paid off that wouldn’t go amis today.

I doubt they'd have been household names, but they both certainly had a fair bit of experience. Huw Edwards was a semi-regular presenter on BBC News before the promotion.

And looking back at the old presenter count thread, it is clear that their profiles were already on the rise by the mid-90s. Huw was already co-presenting the Six as early as 1994 (presenting 5-12 editions a year between then and 1997), with Fiona also having appeared at least a dozen times on the Six before becoming its main relief presenter. Huw also made 36 appearances on Breakfast News from 1995-97 and it suggests he also presented a few episodes of Newsnight at some point. There doesn't appear to be any data for the One in the mid-90s, but I believe that Huw was a regular relief presenter on that before the change over.

[itsrobert]

From what I remember, Huw was more well-known pre-1999 than Fiona. As described, Huw appeared fairly regularly from the mid 90s onwards as a relief presenter across the BBC1 bulletins and Fiona to a lesser extent. Huw, however, had also been a political correspondent, if I recall correctly, and had had a fairly prominent role on News 24 when it launched in 1997. He was definitely working his way up the ranks but his taking the helm of the Six in May 1999 certainly catapulted him into the spotlight and made him a household name.

Personally, I think the time has come for a similar bold, radical shake-up. BBC News has been tinkering around the edges for years now, never really making a bold move. It's always been the same old mantre of "evolution not revolution". The time has come to grab the public's attention again and reassert itself as the UK's most prominent broadcaster.

I can't see them doing anything too radical with Huw's replacement on the Ten. They've always been cautious with their flagship. However, what they could do is to install a more well-known safe pair of hands on the Ten, but reshuffle the One and Six to bring in some fresh faces. That's effectively what happened in 1999 - the Nine was left untouched, but the One and Six were radically shaken up. Four years later and Huw and Fiona were ready to take over the Ten.

Above all else, though, I really do think Breakfast needs looking at. I used to be a regular viewer but I really can't stand it anymore. I just can't warm to Naga as a presenter at breakfast time. With Louise leaving, I hope they take the opportunity to radically rethink the presenting line-up. They also need to address the studio set and inject some new life into the whole programme.

[Rolling News]

As much as I would love to see a 1999 style shake up of presenters and presentation, sadly I can’t see it happening. Wasn’t one of the main reasons for it back then because the general consensus was that the pool of presenters in the 90s were basically too old fashioned, staid and unapproachable? It’s not really a way I could describe (most of) today’s presenters, in fact some of them, even Huw himself, look younger and fresh than they did 20 years ago!

[ginnyfan]

IMO Sophie should get it. She's already the face of BBC national news, appearing the most of all of them, on both 6 and 10. Whenever I tune in she's presenting. She's a familiar face, a pleasant news deliverer and a seasoned professional.

[Steve Williams]

From what I remember, Huw was more well-known pre-1999 than Fiona. As described, Huw appeared fairly regularly from the mid 90s onwards as a relief presenter across the BBC1 bulletins and Fiona to a lesser extent. Huw, however, had also been a political correspondent, if I recall correctly, and had had a fairly prominent role on News 24 when it launched in 1997. He was definitely working his way up the ranks but his taking the helm of the Six in May 1999 certainly catapulted him into the spotlight and made him a household name.

The other point is that Huw almost certainly wasn't first choice for the Six. He was about the level of someone like Reeta Chakrabarti or Ben Brown is today, a regular newsreader but not one with a regular slot and they would float around the schedule for whatever needed covering, and of course in those days they needed twice as many presenters on the Six.

At the time there were lots of stories in the papers saying they were having terrible trouble deciding who should do what - for a while Jill Dando was the favourite for the Six, but apparently some people behind the scenes didn't think she had the gravitas so didn't want her, and eventually she decided to jack in newsreading altogether - and there were rumours about who was going where, and eventually Huw got it but, as I say, that was only after a lot of internal debate.

[all new Phil]

I had no idea who Huw was when he started on the Six. In fact when I read about it, in my head I pictured Justin Webb, but then again I never watched BBC News back then for all the reasons listed here, ie it was cold and dull.

Agree that they need a full on change now but not convinced it’s coming.

[Brekkie]

Ideally for me it would be Clive and Mishal sharing duties on the Ten and relatively new faces on the One and Six - Christian Fraser would be a good shout for the Six. Agree with itsrobert they need to shake things up again which means promotions for some and in turn demotions for others.

I think we're all agreed it's unlikely they'd bring someone in from outside the BBC but if they did who do we think would be the realistic candidates? For me from ITN it's probably only the Newsround alumni of Julie Etchingham and Krishnan Guru Murphy, whilst from Sky I think they'd only consider Dermot Murnaghan or Mark Austin thanks to their previous terrestrial profile, although they're 63/62 so I doubt they'd want to consider such a potentially short term solution.

[MrUdagawa]

With regards to "THE most senior television presenting role" I was referring to being effectively the BBC's chief presenter for national events (elections, royal events etc.) rather than as the BBC's senior newsreader. I'm not sure when he officially succeeded Dimbleby, but I'd say it would be fairly quick to leave the position after just four or five years - especially given a fair few major events on the horizon. Apologies if I wasn't clear.

Well, that's true enough, although Huw has been very prominent for many years even before Dimbleby retired, he did William and Kate's wedding and that was a decade ago now, and the Festival of Remembrance for even longer. It's actually probably a bigger role than anyone's had before, because in the past there were specific departments for news, current affairs and events, and they would all have their own presenters - so you'd never get the main newsreaders anchoring the election because that was a current affairs production, and the events department would have their own hosts for things like VE Day and so on (John Tusa did them in the nineties, long after he'd stopped reading the news, as a freelance, as the Head of Events liked him, even though when he left BBC News he'd really slagged off John Birt). It's only now Huw happily works across all of them.

You can't ever predict when these events are going to come either, Alastair Burnet was at the Beeb for about eighteen months in the seventies and managed to cover two General Elections, a Royal Wedding and the resignation of the US President. Indeed you can well imagine that quite a lot of news presenters and reporters might be feeling a bit burnt out given they've probably had about a decade's worth of news in the last few years. You're always at the mercy of events, I remember Jeremy Vine talking about when he was a Political Correspondent in the mid-nineties and he said it was the best time ever to be in that job because the government appeared to be completely falling apart and there were so many fascinating stories. Less so a few years later when it was all boringly professional.

Buerk and Sissons both left in January 2003, in time for the revamp with Huw and Fiona taking over.

Yeah, it was quite big news, albeit the emphasis was on Huw and Fiona taking over rather than Beurk and Sissons retiring, I remember Roger Mosey being interviewed in the Radio Times and saying that when people moved on, the aim was to replace them with people with the same kind of experience as they had when they started.

Sissons used to scare me when I was a little kid - proves how much of a good, authoritative newsreader he was.

Well, maybe, though it's worth remembering that BBC News was incredibly unpopular with the public in the mid-nineties, when Birtism was at its height. There were loads of surveys which suggested the audience thought BBC News was remote and irrelevant, with unsmiling presenters like Sissons sitting in giant sets with ridiculously over the top graphics and theme tunes, shouting the news like it was carved on tablets of stone. John Stapleton was doing Breakfast Time in the early days of Birt and he's said he hated it, he thought the news agenda was all wrong as they did too many foreign and economic stories that the audience weren't interested in. The Day Today didn't have to exaggerate the self-importance of the news in that era too much.

What they've done since is not dumb down but take lessons from ITN at their pomp, where the news is still taken seriously, but presented with a bit more warmth and made a bit more relevant. It's nice to look back on the virtual set of the mid-nineties and marvel at how clever it looks and how impressive it all is, which it was, but at the time it also seemed incredibly forbidding and pompous, and it put viewers off.

I must be in the minority because I much preferred that style, both in presentation and content. Today the output both on TV and online feels incredibly dumbed down in comparison.

[Bluecortina]

Ideally for me it would be Clive and Mishal sharing duties on the Ten and relatively new faces on the One and Six - Christian Fraser would be a good shout for the Six. Agree with itsrobert they need to shake things up again which means promotions for some and in turn demotions for others.

I think we're all agreed it's unlikely they'd bring someone in from outside the BBC but if they did who do we think would be the realistic candidates? For me from ITN it's probably only the Newsround alumni of Julie Etchingham and Krishnan Guru Murphy, whilst from Sky I think they'd only consider Dermot Murnaghan or Mark Austin thanks to their previous terrestrial profile, although they're 63/62 so I doubt they'd want to consider such a potentially short term solution.

I’ve think you’ve made a realistic call with Krishnan Guru Murthy, particularly if Jon Snow is replaced by Emily Maitless. We shall see, and I say that as someone who hasn’t watched a BBC news broadcast in decades.

[Col87]

Does Chris Rogers still do any cover work on BBC News. He has always been decent when he covered the 6 and 10 in the past ( when the BBC staff went on strike) and when he has presented on the news channel. So if Huw George and Fiona do all leave could do Have Ben, Maxine, Anita, Chris Rogers, Christian Fraser, Tina Dahealy, on the 1,6 and weekend bulletins alongside continuing to do shifts on the news channel with Clive, Sophie and Reeta and Jane Hill becoming regular presenters of the 10 with the others presenting on occasions. Could also maybe try Dan Walker on some 1 and 6 bulletins alongside his regular work on breakfast.