London Live: announce News presenters - Page 265 - Post 1069221

LL

London Lite Founding member 7 July 2017 8:34pm

In the mid-eighties, there was a brief period when, before they split FM and AM full time, they split on Sundays and branded FM as CFM, which was aimed at a more upmarket adult audience with AOR and intelligent talk and so on, and they poached Richard Skinner to front it, while the usual mix of current pop continued on AM. Of course, when they split full time, that idea went out of the window.

CFM had 'Sunday Brunch' a satirical look back at the weeks news, presented by Roger Scott, and aided by Angus Deaton and Jan Ravens. I can't remember Richard Skinner, he might have followed at lunchtime. This was 1986 ish, as you say when the full FM AM split came along a couple of years later, any 'upmarket' programming like this was ditched. That's the point I drifted away from Capital being my default station

Capital started splitting FM/AM again at weekends in February 1988 with Capital Gold with the CHR service on FM which was still called Capital Radio. November 1988 was the permanent split to Capital FM and Gold.

MA

Markymark 8 July 2017 10:39am

London Lite posted:

Markymark posted:

Steve Williams posted:

In the mid-eighties, there was a brief period when, before they split FM and AM full time, they split on Sundays and branded FM as CFM, which was aimed at a more upmarket adult audience with AOR and intelligent talk and so on, and they poached Richard Skinner to front it, while the usual mix of current pop continued on AM. Of course, when they split full time, that idea went out of the window.

CFM had 'Sunday Brunch' a satirical look back at the weeks news, presented by Roger Scott, and aided by Angus Deaton and Jan Ravens. I can't remember Richard Skinner, he might have followed at lunchtime. This was 1986 ish, as you say when the full FM AM split came along a couple of years later, any 'upmarket' programming like this was ditched. That's the point I drifted away from Capital being my default station

Capital started splitting FM/AM again at weekends in February 1988 with Capital Gold with the CHR service on FM which was still called Capital Radio. November 1988 was the permanent split to Capital FM and Gold.

Which also was about the time the nine hour needletime directive was repealed.The ILRs could cease finding and
devising ways to fill the remaining airtime which (for stations such as Capital, and Wolverhampton's Beacon) meant an end to all the live recordings, esoteric white label and imported discs that livened up off peak hours. Instead it was tight, safe, familiar playlists 24/7.

Last edited by Markymark on 8 July 2017 12:28pm

VM

VMPhil 8 July 2017 10:46am

I know it's not directly related to the time period we're talking about, but I'm not sure what other time I'll be able to post this, so, here is an interesting look at all the format and name changes that Capital went through during its crisis decade of the 2000s (with insider information)

http://web.archive.org/web/20160304030738/http://www.gareth53.co.uk/blog/2009/06/capital-fm-logos-1999-2009.html

MA

Markymark 8 July 2017 12:34pm

VMPhil posted:

I know it's not directly related to the time period we're talking about, but I'm not sure what other time I'll be able to post this, so, here is an interesting look at all the format and name changes that Capital went through during its crisis decade of the 2000s (with insider information)

http://web.archive.org/web/20160304030738/http://www.gareth53.co.uk/blog/2009/06/capital-fm-logos-1999-2009.html

Still in use !

https://www.dropbox.com/s/n7jnhce2wvdcvsr/2017-07-08%2012.30.41.jpg?dl=0

LL

London Lite Founding member 8 July 2017 4:48pm

I was going to post this in the Pride 2017 thread, but as LL couldn't be bothered to do any special titles.

JO

Jon 8 July 2017 6:36pm

London Lite posted:

I was going to post this in the Pride 2017 thread, but as LL couldn't be bothered to do any special titles.

It didn't need them to be fair and would have been either a waste of money that could have gone into the production or a cheesey transparent rainbow flag over the titles. Really good two hour programme, local telly for London at it's best. And as me and my husband really considered making the trip it really brought the event into our home.

PC

p_c_u_k 8 July 2017 11:54pm

Credit where it's due, good example of local telly providing something that isn't of significant enough nationwide importance for BBC and ITV coverage, and at the weekend when both are down to their bare bones in terms of regional staffing.

There's something to be said for London Live owning big weekend events and demonstrations, especially in this era when people seem to support political parties and causes like football teams and blame the nasty "MSM" for not covering whatever's happening that hour. It would be a much better use of their mandated couple of hours of local news content than an under-resourced one hour studio-based show.

NT

Night Thoughts 9 July 2017 12:44pm

Markymark posted:

London Lite posted:

I remember eventually Capital had their own news team, but in those early days as will all ILR, they took IRN from LBC. In the aircheck I posted earlier, Douglas Cameron (an iconic LBC presenter and newsreader in addition to IRN) read a lead London story and then the rest of the news was national.

Yes, Capital's own newsroom closed in 1974. They had always used IRN for the raw news feed ( IBA directive) but ( as with the other big city ILRs) they repackaged with their own presenters and style. A lot of the redundant Capital journos joined LBC/IRN and were instrumental in turning both those services around. Slowly from the late 70s Capital begun to build up a newsroom again, starting with the 7pm nightly, 'The Way It Is' show

Never knew Capital launched with its own newsroom and bulletins - but that fills some gaps in my understanding of how both those stations developed. My earliest memories are late-70s MOR pop on Capital with Douglas Cameron reading the news from IRN. The man behind the The Way It Is (mid-80s?) was Matthew Bannister, who used that very punchy style of presentation in setting up GLR.

Those airchecks are fantastic - they've reminded me how many of the most memorable Capital/LBC ads (as well as Thames/LWT ads) were from London-area retail chains or big independents which have disappeared, gone national or been absorbed, meaning that source of revenue has largely gone now. Those big London secretarial recruitment agencies (whose ads also funded mags like Midweek and Girl About Town) have largely gone the same way too. Currie Motors (...nice people to do business with!) is still going strong, though!

p_c_u_k posted:

Credit where it's due, good example of local telly providing something that isn't of significant enough nationwide importance for BBC and ITV coverage, and at the weekend when both are down to their bare bones in terms of regional staffing.

There's something to be said for London Live owning big weekend events and demonstrations, especially in this era when people seem to support political parties and causes like football teams and blame the nasty "MSM" for not covering whatever's happening that hour. It would be a much better use of their mandated couple of hours of local news content than an under-resourced one hour studio-based show.

Agreed. There's loads to be said for that as a way of clawing something back and reminding them why they put "Live" in the name. But they'll have to put some sponsorship money into events to remind the public that the station still exists...

MA

Markymark 9 July 2017 5:35pm

Night Thoughts posted:

Markymark posted:

London Lite posted:

I remember eventually Capital had their own news team, but in those early days as will all ILR, they took IRN from LBC. In the aircheck I posted earlier, Douglas Cameron (an iconic LBC presenter and newsreader in addition to IRN) read a lead London story and then the rest of the news was national.

Yes, Capital's own newsroom closed in 1974. They had always used IRN for the raw news feed ( IBA directive) but ( as with the other big city ILRs) they repackaged with their own presenters and style. A lot of the redundant Capital journos joined LBC/IRN and were instrumental in turning both those services around. Slowly from the late 70s Capital begun to build up a newsroom again, starting with the 7pm nightly, 'The Way It Is' show

Never knew Capital launched with its own newsroom and bulletins - but that fills some gaps in my understanding of how both those stations developed. My earliest memories are late-70s MOR pop on Capital with Douglas Cameron reading the news from IRN.

Yes, the first incarnation only lasted a year. As part of the radical shake up (taking on Aspel, reducing the AOR music etc etc) the newsroom was closed. I recall the last Capital produced bulletin was at 7pm on a Friday.
They played 'The Last Post' at the end of it !

From then onwards it was just the three minute networked IRN bulletin that the smaller ILRs took.
In fact in 1974 none of the small ILRs had launched so it's conceivable Capital and LBC itself were the only
stations carrying the bulletins (at least in peak time) that year.

A few years later they built up the newsroom again, although it was a long time (early to mid 80s ?) before
the IRN bulletins were replaced completely.

Throughout all of this though, the actuality reports, and raw news scripts from IRN had to be used (The IBA said so) . IRN/LBC would play out the cuts down the line at xx:50 mins, and the for those stations to record onto carts, and (telex ?) the scripts for assembling their own locally presented bulletins (which were often a mix of IRN supplied nat/international stories and local ones)

HC

Hatton Cross 9 July 2017 8:12pm

Ahhh. Happy days sitting in front of a Sonifex cart recorder, finger poised on the red square waiting for the tone to end.
(Peeeeep)
"Hello network, one new cut for you. It's cut 34 - Train Strike - 12 seconds and the out is 'they are to blame'
In three....two...one..(peeeeep)

SW

Steve Williams 9 July 2017 8:31pm

Night Thoughts posted:

Never knew Capital launched with its own newsroom and bulletins - but that fills some gaps in my understanding of how both those stations developed. My earliest memories are late-70s MOR pop on Capital with Douglas Cameron reading the news from IRN. The man behind the The Way It Is (mid-80s?) was Matthew Bannister, who used that very punchy style of presentation in setting up GLR.

The Way It Is was also the inspiration for On The Hour, Armando Iannucci said he used to be fascinated that the half hour would feature about two minutes of news, and 28 minutes of jingles telling you how they were getting the news.

MA

Markymark 9 July 2017 10:19pm

Steve Williams posted:

Night Thoughts posted:

Never knew Capital launched with its own newsroom and bulletins - but that fills some gaps in my understanding of how both those stations developed. My earliest memories are late-70s MOR pop on Capital with Douglas Cameron reading the news from IRN. The man behind the The Way It Is (mid-80s?) was Matthew Bannister, who used that very punchy style of presentation in setting up GLR.

The Way It Is was also the inspiration for On The Hour, Armando Iannucci said he used to be fascinated that the half hour would feature about two minutes of news, and 28 minutes of jingles telling you how they were getting the news.

He was spot on !

London Live

announce News presenters (December 2013)