BBC London
South East and East Anglia | |
Key people | Mike McFarlane Head of Regional and Local Programmes |
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Launch date | 2000 |
Official website | www.bbc.co.uk/london |
BBC |
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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 bulletin and weekly Sunday Politics on television, the BBC Radio London radio station and local coverage of the London area on BBC Online and BBC Red Button. The region's headquarters are situated in the new eastern extension of the BBC's Broadcasting House.
Services
Television
The staple of the local television service is
BBC London also produces current affairs, features and sports programming for the region including the topical magazine series Inside Out, a 20-minute opt-out during Sunday Politics.
Radio
BBC Radio London combines speech and music based programmes 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Broadcasting across London on 94.9
The current Breakfast show presenters are Penny Smith and Paul Ross and the mid morning phone-in show is presented by Vanessa Feltz. The Breakfast and Drivetime shows feature a wealth of local London news and comment with roving reporters out and about. Other programmes such as JoAnne Good or Robert Elms include varied speech and music with local news bulletins every half-hour.
News bulletins on BBC Radio London at the top of the hour are traditionally longer than other BBC radio services at 5 minutes to fit in international, national and local stories with local sport and weather. In addition to the News service, a dedicated travel news service is operated by BBC London on TV, Radio and Online using information supplied by Transport for London, National Rail and National Highways. The travel news on BBC Radio London is updated at 31 and 58 minutes past each hour during off peak times, and every 15 minutes, starting at the top of the hour, during evening and morning peaks. It is one of the few radio stations to have access to TfL traffic cameras.
Sport is a major part of the radio schedule, with a three-hour sports based programme each weeknight evening and four-hour sport specials on Saturdays and Sundays. This is more than most other BBC local radio stations and reflects London's large number of sporting teams and events.
History
The bulletin launched on 1 October 2001 following changes to the coverage areas of BBC transmitters allowing for the establishment of new editorial areas. The main result was a reorganisation of the BBC's
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
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 Medway – were often ill-served by a London-biased programme.
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, Hampshire, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and West 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.
Studios
The previous news services for the area, in the old BBC South East region, were variously based in Shepherd's Bush, White City and Elstree in Hertfordshire. Following the launch of BBC London, the region moved into facilities in Marylebone High Street, where the news service was based alongside BBC London News and the BBC's Governance Unit.
The arrangement was only a temporary one, as at the time the BBC was trying to consolidate its London portfolio into a few properties. This included, most notably, the planned closure of
See also
- BBC English Regions
- BBC Radio London
- BBC Radio Surrey
- BBC Essex
- BBC Three Counties Radio
- BBC Radio Berkshire
References
- ^ "TV & Radio Bits – BBC South East – South Today". Retrieved 3 April 2007. [dead link]
- ^ "The TV Room Plus – BBC South East News". Archived from the original on 23 July 2012. Retrieved 5 April 2009.
External links