Louise Minchin to Leave Breakfast

[XIII]

There’s nothing with being self indulgent once in a while and frankly I’ve seen much more self indulgent send offs elsewhere

[Andrew]

The 20 years on the sofa claim is the most tenuous and over-inflated thing I have ever heard.

If she appeared on Breakfast in 2001 - and it's a big if - it was at most as either a relief bulletin reader (Moira's role) or the presenter of the weekend/bank holiday version of the programme. And certainly not in any regular pattern - ad hoc at best. She most definitely was not on the weekday sofa. In 2001 she was a low-ranking News 24 relief presenter and there's no way she would have been let loose on weekday Breakfast.

The fact that every single clip in the montage except for one clip with Bill and that newsreading clip were all alongside Dan in Salford backs all that up. In the early days she was only relief and hence there are no funny clips of her doing anything, as she basically just read the news from the News24 studio

I always think she worked best alongside Charlie Stayt in my opinion anyway

[Joe]

I’ve no problem with a bit of a send off, and the programme really dictates the style. Main bulletin should be brief (like Anna Ford’s!). Perhaps a little longer on the channel, and a little longer on Breakfast, where personality shines through a little more every day. But if it really took up 35 minutes this morning, well… it’s almost This Morning!

[Rolling News]

It was nice but should really have been kept to the last 15 minutes at most.

[BBCMeridian]

It was nice but should really have been kept to the last 15 minutes at most.

And not have it mentioned at the start of the programme, no way.

[Brekkie]

It's always tricky with a news programme but Breakfast, especially in its last 45 minutes, crosses that line to magazine programme and luckily for them the news agenda of the day was quiet enough to allow it. A few surprises and a farewell package is fairly standard and I'm sure had they left it to the last few minutes they'd be complaints about that as well.

[JamesWorldNews]

Having the event outdoors allowed Louise’s close colleagues and family to all be assembled and take part in the farewell.

With the indoor setting, not all of those people could have taken part.

So, as well as saying farewell to a long serving team member, I guess the format was also a nod to safe distancing practices, being more acceptable in an outdoor setting.

As they decided to move outdoors in the context of the above, it would have been senseless to only have 10mins at the end.

30mins was probably as much driven by a combination of logistics, health regulations and a wish by many to take part.

As Brekkie mentions, we’d probably have complained just as much if the slot was only limited to 5mins at the end.

[Newsroom]

Hear hear James! I'm astonished there is so much debate over saying farewell to someone who's spent 20 years on a Breakfast show.

[eanok]

The 20 years on the sofa claim is the most tenuous and over-inflated thing I have ever heard.

If she appeared on Breakfast in 2001 - and it's a big if - it was at most as either a relief bulletin reader (Moira's role) or the presenter of the weekend/bank holiday version of the programme. And certainly not in any regular pattern - ad hoc at best. She most definitely was not on the weekday sofa. In 2001 she was a low-ranking News 24 relief presenter and there's no way she would have been let loose on weekday Breakfast.

The fact that every single clip in the montage except for one clip with Bill and that newsreading clip were all alongside Dan in Salford backs all that up. In the early days she was only relief and hence there are no funny clips of her doing anything, as she basically just read the news from the News24 studio

I always think she worked best alongside Charlie Stayt in my opinion anyway

The lookback video lacked a bit of variety IMO. Made her look like she's mostly worked with Dan in the past 20 years. It's a shame it didn't include more of her days in News 24. I always think she worked best alongside Jon Sopel. They were like the afternoon Simon McCoy.

[House]

Louise was definitely a frequent presenter of Breakfast in its N6 and TV7 eras, particularly once Kate Silverton started appearing less frequently. I think a send-off was probably deserved, too, given that she was also leaving the BBC and had been a familiar BBC One face, too, presenting the News at One and weekend bulletins for several years.

Possibly a dumb question, but might her send-off video being Salford-dominated also have had something to do with (ease of) access to pre-Salford clips? I imagine everything from the period in question (since 2001) would be stored digitally, but would video of a presenter (that wasn’t otherwise newsworthy content) from the TVC era be stored on a server or archive that producers and video editors in Salford could have easily accessed without too much trouble?

It would be interesting to know how such videos are compiled, actually, from the perspective of how clips are actually identified in the first place. Does someone ‘tag’ funny moments shortly after they happen anticipation for future use, or does it rely on someone going back and finding interesting or funny moments either from memory or at random?