Imagine a bidding war for Gregg Wallace

The whole move is a total disgrace. Why do popular shows have to be uprooted to a different part of the country? Just to fill a quota of how many shows are produced up North?

Breakast and Question Time moving is plain ridiculous. How many celebrities are going to bother going up there to plug their project for 10 mins max? Why is a political show moving away from the heartland of politics in Westminster to Edinburgh?

Here is a radical idea BBC and Coalition, why not just make more new shows in different regions instead of uprooting existing shows at the detriment of the quality.

Presumably Breakfast will get around the problem of guests by bringing the cameras to them and using a split screen rather than forcing guests into the studio.

Daybreak might benefit in this regard as they might be able to source better guests from now on, and interviews tend to work better in the same room rather than down the line. However, there were quite a few major guests lined up in the early weeks of Daybreak, and the ratings did not improve one jot, so I'm skeptical to say the least that Breakfast's relocation will have any impact on the numbers whatsoever.

I think at breakfast time people just want reliable news and weather and that's why Breakfast does so well. Most people have gone to work/school/college etc before Breakfast descends into celebrity interviews and plugs for BBC One primetime.

Location is important, the American breakfast shows are all in New York rather than Los Angeles and in Australia, Sunrise is in Sydney while Today is in Melbourne. I'm sure if guests want to promote a product they will travel up to Salford but I think for things like West End shows, it might not be so easy.

NBC and ITN are partnering on Royal Wedding Coverage. Good ol' Martin Bashir will be in London and hosts of The Today Show (Meredith Viera and Matt Lauer) will present a primetime documentary the night before.

In fact, all of NBC Universal seems to be getting into it. Even Telemundo and The Weather Channel are listed as part of the combined 20 hours coverage across NBCU's portfolio. You can even buy a Royal Wedding App!

Sticking to the theme of Brits in the US - albeit slightly less refined - Shameless hit a series high for its first season finale on Showtime last night. The first broadcast drew 1.16m (1.51m combined), the first time the show has passed 1m.

Agreed, Breakfast doesn't have any 'star' guests between 6.00 and 8.40, the odd time they do it's prerecorded outside the studio and repeated throughout the morning. Most politicans are interviewed via satellite from Westminister. If anyone is to gain it would Lorraine and not Daybreak.
And even then the type of celeb being interviewed on Lorraine is usually quite differnt to the type on Breakfast.

Those who watch Breakfast now between 6-8.40 aren't watching for celebs.


Bucket loads, Less would be a blessing. And the vast majority are plugging BBC projects, Novelists or are Musicians, Playwright/actors. The latter who would give there right arm to plug their play in front of 2m viewers.

I don't know why you're blaming the coalition the pressure to keep to the Salford move was from, Mr Gordon Brown and Labour.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006...oadcasting.bbc
Andy Burnham said it was his proudest achivement getting the BBC to spend more in the regions

it would be nice to see it do 400,000 without the clocks changing, but that may not be realistic. I wonder if the move to ELEVEN will mean it will get more, the same or less of a boost, by the clocks changing.


we can only dream of such a world, where that would happen.

I hope one day to live in that world, but I fear I maybe dissapointed.

Surprised they didn't send either Meredith or Matt to London, they can afford to as they send Meredith to London to cover Susan Boyle on BGT.

I wonder if other newsreaders will be sent to London, I imagine Katie Couric will be sent there for CBS. I know in Australia, they've sent some of their Breakfast show presenters to London to cover The Royal Wedding.

Shameless has grown into a bit of a hit for Showtime, I imagine they'll move it to 9pm next season.

I don't think its quite so simple, though.

I've had a couple of interesting conversations with BBC employees about this and the point they were making is that you have to create a 'critical mass' in order to make new regional production centres work. Currently, most of these centres are simply too small - both investment and the workforce wind up drifting to London. And if the workforce and investment isn't there, no ideas will be generated; no new shows will be made.

The question is how you achieve this 'critical mass' of talent (I know, horrible phrase!) and money outside London? Well, relying on new shows is extremely difficult, perhaps impossible. After all, we know from this thread that a large proportion of new shows fail. The work they offer is too unpredictable and is never going to tempt a graduate to head to Manchester to seek their career, rather than London. Long running shows or even whole departments, that offer stable, regular production is really the only certified way of making this work.

Take BBC Wales in Cardiff as a good example: it had the good fortune of playing host to a huge new drama hit, Doctor Who. The BBC have supplemented this by moving more drama productions there (Being Human, and soon Casualty, I believe) which has given that city the 'critical mass' it needs in a particular genre. If you're a budding drama producer, Cardiff is now a legitimate alternative to London. As a result, its becoming self-sustaining, creating new ideas, new shows, and dragging production out of London. But if wouldn't have happened without that initial burst, and some manipulation from the BBC.

It's true, the move to Salford is forced, expensive and reeks of top-down engineering - but you probably couldn't achieve a wider geographical range of production centres without it. Whether you think regional production is necessary, is of course another argument...

(Sorry for this essay - I realise I have drifted wildly off-topic here, but I've been meaning to make this post for a while! )

Ok, I will redirect my anger towards Labour then.


Its a good post and is just as on-topic as a lot of other posts in this thread.

I dont disagree that encouraging and expanding production centres in other parts of the country is needed and a good idea. I do have a problem with moving exisiting shows that I have mentioned that will impact the quality and to keep it on-topic, ratings of those shows. Breakfast is going to lose key production staff and presenters who are unwilling to uproot their family to the other end of the country. To those people who say my point about celebrties not bothering to travel up to Manchester to push their products not being a big issue, your right its not a big issue but its another small example of the unwarranted hassle involved. Likewise, I read that Question Time's producer had quit because he didnt want to move to Edinburgh. Why does Question Time have to move over 300 miles away from Westminster? I dont see how the benefits of that particular show will outweigh the problems associated with the move.

Im not against existing shows or major productions being located. I dont have an issue with a show like Being Human moving, it followed the storyline of the show and allowed the show to explore a new location. The decision to make Doctor Who in Wales has been excellent and as you said it has created a fantastic infrastructure in Cardiff.

However, with Breakfast and Question Time, I think there are better productions to move to help increase regional output.

Breakfast was originally going to stay in London and only Radio 5 move to Salford. Then last year the BBC mysteriously discovered some additional space in Manchester. Instead of moving another, non-news programme (or renting out that space) it was decided to ship Breakfast up north.Breakfast staff have until the end of March (ie Thursday) to tell the management whether they will move or not. I understood Sian was going too working Monday-Wednesday. No doubt a job will be found on the BBC News Channel if she's not.

Question Time comes from a different location every week. Only the production office is moving to Edinburgh, not the programme.


Susanna Reid is cute. She certainly gets my vote over Sian.

The QT production office is moving to Glasgow actually so fewer lunches with MPs at the BBC's expense.

Surely a timezone decision? In the US they go out live from New York and time shifted in the west.

Daybreak's average audience in February 2011 was 682,000; GMTV's average audience in February 2010 was 908,000. Source: BBC

EastEnders is sent in East London, it should come from East London.

Crossroads was set in Birmingham. ITV/Carlton decided to make the revival in Birmingham and a deciscion like that is STUPID!

Casualty is set in Bristol, so why is it currently being made in London and soon to be Cardiff and not Bristol?????

Come on TV companies! Make a show where it's set!

At least C5 got it right with Murder Prevention, Tripping Over and Minder!

I do wonder whether these average audiences are for the same timeslot (06:00 to 09:25) or different timeslots.

Casualty is actually made in Bristol (the fictional Holby) and is moving to Cardiff in the autumn because the BBC has built a big new drama centre in Cardiff.Holby City is made at Elstree which it shares with EastEnders.

Moving a guest-led show like Breakfast seems odd but in light of what "sn_22" said about critical mass you can sort of see the point.

But they were in this position because of a failure over many decades to address the centralisation issue. Government after government did nothing. New Labour did something at least and it was always going to be traumatic at that point.

What public service can possibly work well when it's centralised?

Well for a start, they could move Casualty and Holby City to Bristol instead of Cardiff.

Look at Company Pictures. They produce Shameless in Manchester and Skins in Bristol. They produce the shows where they are set.

Why can't other companies do this? Even the BBC?

Well they should move Holby City to Bristol and EastEnders to the old sets of Night and Day (located in the 3 Mills Studios - contingent with where EastEnders is actually set)

The figures come from Kevin Bakhurst at the BBC News channel, he doesn't make it clear in his Twitter.But with or without the last hour they are down on the same period last year.

A few of last night's overnights:

32 Brinkburn Street (BBC1): 1.6m (24.3%)
Mrs Brown’s Boys (BBC1): 3m (20.5%)

Neil Morrissey: Car Home Kid (BBC2): 1.9m (7.6%)

The Dales (ITV1): 4.2m (17.1%) exc HD

Fern (C4): 990,380 (7.8%
One Born Every Minute (C4): 2.4m (9.6%), +1: 493,300 (2.7%)

Thailand Tourism and the Truth – Stacey Dooley Investigatesed (BBC3): 776,700 (3.1%)

Everything and Nothing (BBC4): 344,800 (1.4%)

Source: Attentional

Mrs Brown Boys has been a real hit for BBC1 for the 22:35 slot, I wonder if they will move it to a 21:00 - 22:00 slot for the next series?