Archives for August 2010

For the past four days I've battled against the rain, managed to collect at least 100 unwanted flyers and laughed so much that I'm finding it hard to chew.

Last Monday I arrived at the Edinburgh Festival with Richard Bacon. The show came live from various locations and unlike last year Richard wasn't tempted to do any stand-up comedy (although Reginald D Hunter wouldn't let Richard forget about his attempt).

We began the week broadcasting from the heart of the festival walking through the Royal Mile (when I say walk, I actually mean dodge) with author Ian Rankin and comedians Adam Hills and Sarah Millican who confessed how Twitter had taken over their lives. You can see their confession in the video.

Monday saw the start of some rather strange food related 'banter'. Richard commented on-air how he was finding it difficult to find some fruit whilst he was in Scotland. With 30 minutes of the show remaining a random cyclist, dressed in lycra performed a drive-by apple-off on Ian Rankin (what I'm trying to say is that a bag of apples was planted into the paws of Ian Rankin rather quickly and unexpectedly) who was rather pleased and tucked in whilst we were on-air.

On Tuesday we originally planned to come live from the biggest beer garden in Edinburgh at the Peartree pub. However, we were defeated by the rain and had to go inside. This didn't seem to bother our guests, although Richard Herring informed us that this was the first Edinburgh Festival he had performed at without touching a drop. You can watch Richard Herring and Phil Jupitus talking about their shows here.

The surprise of the show came when we received a text message from a listener who was actually in the pub; she wanted to ask comedian Rhod Gilbert why he was performing the same show as the previous year. Richard decided to track her down so she could ask Rhod face to face. Watch the video below to see what happened.

Wednesday and Thursday saw a change of format. We invited an audience to watch the broadcast live at the McEwan Hall. We were joined by comedians Reginald D Hunter, Chris Addison and John Bishop who gave Richard some fashion advice.

Wednesday also saw the second incident involving food. On Tuesday Richard told Phil Jupitus how he'd never had a good salad in Scotland. This comment was obviously taken to heart because out of the shadows emerged a chef with a plate full of fresh salad and seafood.

But it wasn't all about the comedy. We also spoke to Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond who defended the Scottish Justice system's release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.

There was also a live performance from Five Guys Named Moe and live music from The Stormy Seas who played 'Middle Man' and The Coral who sang She's Coming Around and 1000 Years. Watch the performance of 1000 Years below.

I was also armed with a stills camera and you can see all of our Edinburgh photos here.

The Edinburgh Festival provided us with some really entertaining radio, some superb comedy, an aching jaw and two of our five a day.

Thank you Edinburgh

For the next four days (23-26 Aug) we'll be broadcasting the Richard Bacon show from the 64th Edinburgh Festival, where we'll have the pleasure of being joined by some of Britain's finest comedians, actors and musicians.

This year's festival has attracted some of the biggest names in comedy as well as some performers that you wouldn't normally associate with the Fringe - even the rapper Dizzee Rascal is making an appearance.

Before I reveal what you can expect to hear on 5 live between 2-4pm this week here's a Fringe stat that you can use to show off to your friends: the Fringe will feature 40,254 performances made up of 2,453 different shows involving (wait for it) an estimated 21,148 performers... pretty impressive.

We will be setting up our broadcasting equipment around various locations in the city throughout the week and it wasn't a hard decision to decide to present the first show from the heart of the festival - The Royal Mile.

We arrived at 8am this morning and the performers were already out in force promoting their acts. Our first challenge to overcome was carrying all of our equipment up The Royal Mile, dodging the crowds and squeezing past lamp posts - which I'm sure have grown almost as wide as the pavement due to the numerous layers of promotional posters that keep being placed on top of one another.

(Above: one of the many lamp posts that have tripled in size!)

Whilst I'm at the Festival I'll be armed with a camera shooting video of our guests and the performances we come across. I'll be taking photos as Richard tries to get through the streets in one piece - not because he's a wanted man after his 'ahem' stand up performance last year - but as he battles through the thousands of daily visitors (last year the Fringe sold 1.85 million tickets; there's another stat for you).

Tuesday will see us coming live from a pub garden and on Wednesday and Thursday Richard will be presenting the programme in front of a live audience as we set up shop at The Underbelly at the McEwan Hall.

Over the next four days you'll have the pleasure of hearing Ian Rankin, Richard E Grant, John Bishop, Rhod Gilbert, John Michie (who plays DI Robbie Ross in Taggart), Reginald D Hunter, Chris Addison and Alex Salmond to name a few. Plus we'll have live music from The Coral and numerous street and cabaret acts.

Don't forget to download the Daily Bacon podcast to listen back to our best interviews from the festival and to hear Richard's daily diary; plus some general "Bacon banter".

If that's not enough you can follow @bbc5live and @richardpbacon on twitter to get instant updates on our movements.

All the content I'll be producing will be available on the Richard Bacon programme page.

I'll leave you with this: it has been estimated that if you wanted to see every performance back to back at the Fringe it would take you 5 years, 11 months and 16 days. We've only got four days so we'd better get a move on.

Richard Bacon's at the Edinburgh Festival next week for 5 live. He'll be broadcasting live from several different venues from Monday to Thursday.

He goes every year, whether he's working or not, and last time, he was brave/foolish enough to do some live stand up comedy. He told me that won't be happening again.

On Monday, we've got Ian Rankin and Richard E Grant live on the Royal Mile, and as Richard says, on the final two days, there's room for 200 listeners to join Richard at Underbelly. The Coral, John Bishop, Reginald D Hunter, Chris Addison and Alex Salmond will also be turning up. Good music, big laughs, and a bit of political.

You can get tickets from the Underbelly Box Office on Cowgate or from the website.

Robin Bulloch is the programme editor:

"The programme covers arts and entertainment on 5 live, so it's an easy decision to make a few shows at the Festival. It's a huge event, obviously, and most of the people we'd want to hear on the show are there anyway. A lot of our listeners are also there, so it makes sense for us to join them."

I've worked on quite a few programmes on location, where there's a constant fear of not actually making it on air. At Television Centre, we have a solid, permanent set-up, and experienced studio managers who regularly rescue bungling producers (not me, obviously).

Outside, you can't control as much, so making four two-hour live programmes, in three different locations, isn't straightforward. But if you want the genuine atmosphere of a place, especially somewhere like the Festival, you have to go there, get connected, face a bit of Robin swearing, and just do it. It always sounds better.

We'll also be making videos and podcasts and stuff, thanks to my colleague Andy Hall, who'll be posting blogs about what's going on.

Leading out a team of proper athletes in front of 16,000 fans - live on BBC1 - is not something I ever thought I'd do.

Having confidently predicted all week that I "don't generally struggle with nerves", I was shivering with fear and adrenalin as we were led out into the Stadium at Crystal Palace.

The 4 x 100m Legends relay at the Aviva London Grand Prix not only gave frustrated wannabe sportsmen like myself the opportunity to sample an unexpected slice of glory, but also provided a fascinating insight into the lives of our world-class athletes.

Arriving hours before the race, calculating what and when to eat, nervously pinning on the race numbers, warming up, waiting for that final call into the arena - the whole thing was an incredible adrenalin rush.

I was lucky enough to form a 5 live team with producers Amy Hill and Imogen Crump, with a mere Olympian in Iwan Thomas running our anchor leg. Iwan even let me use his 1998 European Championship gold medal-winning spikes.

The competition was Roger Black's Independent on Sunday Team, John Regis' mob representing the Daily Telegraph, and recently retired sprinter Jason Gardener's crew running for The Mirror.

Amy managed to tweak her thigh in warm-up and faced a late fitness test, while Imo's main concern was the realisation she was actually going to be running in front of millions of people on live television.

As you will see from the video, we managed to overcome the nerves to make a reasonable fist of our first, and probably last, shot at a sprint relay.

Iwan had given us one training session and was reasonably confident, but he knew Roger Black's team were the big danger. And so it proved, although our silver medal could well have turned gold had race stewards given closer inspection to Black's clear breach of lane discipline down the final straight!

I'm now wrestling with the desire to do some competitive sprinting, while trying to remind myself I'm a 32 year old man who is more at home in the pub than on a track.

Iwan's keen on coaching our team again next year and Gabby Logan's promised to get involved too. Perhaps with the Logan competitive streak we can give that silver the Midas Touch!

Hi everyone. I'm Hasit, and I'm taking over from Ellie. I'm going to run 5 live Connect. In case you're not sure how it works, this should help:

I've been at 5 live for a while, and for the last few years, I've been on Breakfast with Nicky and Shelagh. I'll also keep you up to date with what goes on behind the scenes here in the 5 live newsroom.

Hasit Shah is a senior producer at BBC Radio 5 live

Adrian Goldberg, who'll present a weekly programme of investigative journalism

First, the new Sunday evening news investigations programme will be hosted by Adrian Goldberg.

Adrian is a former Watchdog reporter and has done a lot of live radio presenting.

The production team tried some very talented people out, and the result is that both they, and we, think Adrian is best placed to bring the stories alive and to deliver something stronger and more distinctive for us on a Sunday night.

Adrian Goldberg says: "This is a great opportunity, and I'm delighted to be working on the show. I've already been involved with the team on a couple of stories and want to help develop a programme with real cutting edge, where we'll take up listeners' campaigns and make the authorities sit up and take notice."

The Sunday night line-up will be:

7pm: Pienaar's Politics - 5 live's Chief Political Correspondent brings you big interviews, the main stories and the latest gossip from Westminster.

JP'll also be presenting the programme live from all the major party conferences in Sept/Oct.

8pm: On The Money - our new weekly business show hosted by Declan Curry.

Declan will lead lively analysis of the big business stories, and also discuss the issues affecting companies of all sizes in the UK.

On the Money will take a fresh and accessible approach to the world of business, feature interviews with leading figures from the financial world, and give the inside track on boardroom dramas.

It will also get out and about to meet the people running Britain's businesses, and share tips on how to succeed in the workplace.

9pm 5 live Investigates with Adrian Goldberg.

On Saturdays, we'll have a new programme running from 8-10pm, in between 606 and the Stephen Nolan show.

The programme will cover the day's main news stories, and will look at the biggest and quirkiest stories on the web each week with podcasters Olly Mann and Helen Zaltzman, who'll also bring you the latest technology news.

It will also feature some of the best moments from 5 live over the last week.

Chris Warburton will host this show.

He's one of our senior news producers, and was a 5 live reporter at the World Cup in South Africa.

He's also been at BBC Radio Swindon for much of the last year and a half presenting their breakfast show.

I'm delighted we have been able to give this opportunity to someone who's worked very hard over the last 18 months to develop his presenting and interviewing skills.

Chris says: "I'm really looking forward to hosting the new Saturday evening programme. I've been part of 5live for many years and I'm passionate about what we do. I hope this new show will be a lot of fun, whilst still covering the main news stories of the day."

Hopefully the overall blend of our programmes and presenters on weekend evenings will make our schedule stand out.

On Saturdays, we'll bring you, among other things, technology news, motoring, and the pick of online stories from across the world.

On Sundays, We have those specialist programmes on business and politics, with Adrian Goldberg driving some investigative and consumer journalism.

• Olly Mann and Helen Zaltzman are proprieters of the hit comedy podcast Answer Me This and have appeared on 5 live before.



• Adrian Goldberg joins 5 live from Talk Sport and is the 41st Most Powerful Man in the West Midlands.



• Declan Curry joins 5 live from BBC2's Working Lunch.

Jonathan Wall is BBC Radio 5 live's Commissioning Editor

I was expecting to be with 5 live Interactive for 3 months. But from Monday, I'm moving across the 5 live newsroom (to a desk between a large pillar and a rather unstable coatstand) to take up an attachment as an assistant editor. I'll be working on 5 live's future planning: things like how we cover the Pope's visit to the UK next month, and the party conferences this autumn. I'll try to bear in mind all your comments about what you like and what you don't like about the station, as I start my new job.

My colleague Hasit Shah, who currently works on 5 live Breakfast, will move over to the interactive desk to take over this job: please make him welcome!

Ellie Reuter is a senior producer on 5 live

A few weeks ago when England played poorly against Algeria, we received 3,000 phone-calls from listeners trying to get themselves on 606 or the Stephen Nolan show.

Not long before that, all our news programme teams were reporting a bigger-than-usual response to our General Election coverage.

So It wasn't a huge surprise earlier today when the audience figures for April, May and June arrived:

5 live has set a new high of 6.76 million listeners each week. That's up nearly 350,000 from last year.

I'm really pleased for our production teams that all the hard work they put into both the election campaign and the World Cup in particular seems to have been rewarded with a big audience response.

With Radio 4 also reaching a new high, it's also a big success for speech radio despite the competition on other platforms.

Here are some other interesting stats: the average 5 live listener is tuned in for 7 hours 23 minutes each week; Danny Baker and Colin Murray have put on the highest figures for several years in their respective slots; and Breakfast and Drive audiences are very near to their highest ever.

So, despite predictions to the contrary several years ago about speech radio's uncertain future, people across the UK are still choosing radio as one of the main ways to keep in touch with what's going on in the world.

We're now looking ahead to the next three months -- starting of course with the new Football League season this weekend. We also have a major set of outside broadcasts in the northeast of England for 5 live's Septemberfest, and our news teams are already planning their coverage of the party conference season.

We also have that new Sunday evening schedule from September 5th: Alan Green moves to Sunday 606, followed at 7pm by Pienaar's Politics and then at 8pm we will have our new business programme "On the Money" hosted by Declan Curry. Our news investigation show moves to 9pm and will be called "5 live investigates". I hope to bring you news of the new presenter of that show early next week.

I know not all of you will like everything we do, and you are not shy in telling us what you think doesn't work, but thank you for being part of our record audience numbers.

Jonathan Wall is 5 live's commissioning editor

The final day of 5live Drives Down the Deficit and we're in the VAT and Fiddle pub in Nottingham to talk tax. Another panel of local would be chancellors is here, ready to cast popularity to the wind and make pips sqweak all over the place.

Chris Holmes, the Chairman and Chief Executive of Castle Rock Brewery, and owner of the pub joins us.

So does Philippa Double, a small businesswoman and Nick Searle who works in local government.

The trio rejected extending the regular rate of VAT to things like fresh food and childrens clothes.

But they did approve a higher rate of VAT on luxuries such has perfume, fast cars and private jets.

And a bin tax was signed off too. If you want your bin emptied every week, or you have loads of rubbish, you'd have to pay for it. They were also open to the idea of a text message tax.

All their proposals would generate, we estimate, £31bn in extra revenue. So, overall, on a very rough and ready calculation at the end of our week of travelling, our chancellors have reduced the government's overdraft by £66bn.

It would still stand at £90bn. The real Chancellor, George Osborne, will reveal his plans when the Comprehensive Spending Review is published in October.