BBC London
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
|
| Headquarters | London |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Greater London Bedfordshire Buckinghamshire Hertfordshire Essex Kent Berkshire Surrey Sussex |
| Nation | BBC English Regions |
| TV Transmitters | Crystal Palace |
| Radio Stations in this area |
BBC London 94.9 |
| Key people | - |
| Websites | www.bbc.co.uk/london |
BBC London is the BBC English Region producing local radio, television, teletext and online services in London and parts of the surrounding area.
Its output includes the daily BBC London News and the weekly Politics Show on television, the BBC London 94.9 radio station and local coverage of the London area on bbc.co.uk and Ceefax. BBC London News can be viewed throughout the UK during BBC Breakfast on BBC News 24 at 6:28, 6:58, 7:28 and 7:58.
The region's headquarters are situated on Marylebone High Street in Central London although it will move to the new Egton Wing complex of Broadcasting House in early 2009.
Contents |
[edit] History
BBC London launched on 1 October 2001 following changes to the coverage areas of BBC transmitters allowing for the establishment of new editorial areas to be possible. The main result was a reorganisation of the BBC's South East region; the London area was to break away entirely while a new programme, South East Today was to be created for the new South East region. BBC London as it came to be called replaced the longrunning Newsroom South East.
Greater London and its environs has had a regional BBC television news service for many decades, but the boundaries of the region have always been somewhat nebulous due to the coverage areas of the transmitters used, as television signals do not tend to stick neatly to administrative or historic boundaries. Therefore, while the main focus of "regional" news coverage for this area has always been on the capital itself, it has for much of the BBC's life had to offer coverage of other parts of the "Home Counties" as well.
There were many incarnations of regional news programmes in this area before the current programme was introduced in 2001. These included the London segment of the Nationwide from Lime Grove Studios; in this case, the regional presenters for London were also usually the main presenters of the national sequence of the programme which followed. Other identities for the London area coverage were "London Plus", and finally "Newsroom South East".
Originally, the BBC London and the South East region took in the whole of Greater London, together with parts of Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Surrey, Hampshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Sussex, Bedfordshire, and Oxfordshire. This meant that sizeable communities which probably deserved dedicated programming of their own — such as Oxford, Luton, Crawley and the Medway towns — were often ill-served by a London-biased programme which was variously based in Shepherds Bush, W12 and Elstree in Hertfordshire before the move to the present studios in Marylebone High Street, also home to the BBC's Governance Unit.
The area created for the BBC London programme to broadcast to now covers a much more tightly-defined area, chiefly Greater London but still including parts of Bedfordshire, Essex, and Hertfordshire in the East of England region and parts of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Kent, Surrey and Sussex in the South East England region. There is also some overlap with the editorial areas of other BBC regions in this part of England. Somewhat bizarrely, parts of Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Wiltshire, Northamptonshire, Berkshire and Gloucestershire now take an opt-out of South Today[1] — rather than the Midlands region it might be expected to identify more with — while most of Kent and East Sussex is now covered by the new BBC South East region based in Tunbridge Wells, which produces South East Today.[2]
The television news programme launched as BBC LDN onscreen, an abbreviation of 'London' though it was never referred to as such by presenters.
[edit] Television
[edit] BBC London News
The BBC London News programme broadcasts daily on BBC One, appearing with short bulletins during BBC Breakfast, after the One O'Clock News and after the Ten O'Clock News. The flagship programme is broadcast between 18:30 and 18:55 each weekday evening, following the end of the Six O'Clock News and is presented by Riz Lateef.
Lateef superseded Emily Maitlis who had been the main presenter of the flagship programme from launch until March 2006 when she left to join BBC News 24 and BBC Two's Newsnight.
The programme has had several brand refreshes, the most recent having been on 12 December 2005, with a new title sequence designed by Red Bee Media and theme music composed by David Lowe. The titles now involve a series of videos showing different parts of London life, separated by a white translucent band which crosses the screen until the BBC London logo appears. The title shots change every single night to reflect landmarks and activities that symbolise home for a potential audience of more than 11 million people - bigger than Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined.
Comparisons are inevitably made to the commercial TV regional competition, in this case ITV1's London Tonight, which is produced for ITV by ITN.
The programme can be viewed in any part of the UK (and Europe) on digital satellite channel 974 on the BBC UK regional TV on satellite service.
[edit] Radio
BBC London Radio combines speech and music based programmes 24 hours a day, seven days a week. [1] The station has a diverse range of presenters that host varied shows from sometimes controversial phone-ins - Vanessa Feltz to Norman Jay's Giant 45 show including old and new soul funk and house music, although Jay is known for not conforming to one particular style of black music.
[edit] Travel bulletins
A dedicated travel news service is operated by BBC London on all three mediums using information supplied by Transport for London, National Rail and the Highways Agency. Updates within the Breakfast programme on BBC One are shown at 06:28, 06:58, 07:28, 07:58, 08:28 and 08:58, Mondays to Fridays.
The travel news on radio is updated at 31 and 59 minutes past each hour during off peak times, and every 15 minutes, (starting at the top of the hour), during evening and morning peaks. BBC London 94.9 is one of the few radio stations to have access to TfL cameras.
The travel news online is updated from an independent travel information supplier. This data is fed from their main system onto BBC London's website, via the BBC Travel News portal. The online section also has features on various aspects of travel in London.
The current regular BBC London travel presenters are Jules Lang, Steve Phillips, Billy Reeves and Kate Allen.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ TV & Radio Bits - BBC South East - South Today. Retrieved on 2007-04-03.
- ^ TV & Radio Bits - BBC South East - South East Today. Retrieved on 2007-04-03.
[edit] External links
|
|
|
|---|---|
| Services | Television (station list) · Radio (station list) · bbc.co.uk · BBCi · BBC iPlayer |
| Nations and regions | East · East Midlands · London · North East and Cumbria · North West · Northern Ireland · Scotland (Alba) · South · South East · South West · Wales (Cymru) · West · West Midlands · Yorkshire · Yorkshire and Lincolnshire |
| Subsidiaries | BBC Worldwide (BBC Books · BBC Magazines) · BBC Resources · BBC Films |
| History | Timeline · British Broadcasting Company · Board of Governors |
| Departments | Children's · Monitoring · Natural History · News · Research · Sport · Vision · Weather |
| Key properties | Broadcasting House · Bush House (rented) · Media Village · Television Centre · White City · Pacific Quay |
| Finance | Television licence (history) |
| Management | BBC Trust · Sir Michael Lyons (Chair) · Mark Thompson (Director-General) · Mark Byford (Deputy Director-General) |
|
|
|
|---|---|
| FM Stations | 88.8 • 89.6 • 91.0 • 91.8 • 92.0 • 93.2 • 94.3 • 94.9 • 95.8 • 96.9 • 97.3 • 98.5 • 100.0 • 100.6 • 102.2 • 103.3 • 103.6 • 104.4 • 104.9 • 105.4 • 105.8 • 106.2 • 107.1 • 107.3 • 107.8 |
| MW Stations | 558 • 720 • 909 • 963 • 972 • 1035 • 1089 • 1152 • 1215 • 1305 • 1332 • 1413 • 1458 • 1503 • 1548 • 1584 |
|
United Kingdom Radio Markets: London • Manchester • West Midlands |
|
