OohErr

Think Alice knows how to drive the desk, she's just not that good at it. Doubt it, because if Jameela is allowed to drive the desk herself, Alice will!

I think Alice Levine's overrated on here. She is very entertaining to listen to, similar to Sara Cox with her bizzare food related stories, but Sara Cox was also very technically able, and listening to Alice's daytime cover, she is not. It doesn't sound very slick, with her often not properly talking up to the vocals on songs and backtiming too early so she has nothing left to say into the news. She's good to listen to, but needs to improve her technical ability as a DJ. Hopefully Aled will help with that!

I think Cara and/or Chris Sawyer would be good on air, although it could be a bit confusing having two Chris' plus Chris Smith With the News. I agree that Get Your Rat Out was a bit rubbish, could've been done better or left at the pub where the idea came from I'd imagine. Bar that I think the shows been very good recently, I'm enjoying temporary producer Will, especially the chocolate mystery the other week! The Sack of Shame is also good, I'm hoping it has mileage beyond the NBH lifts. Fat Tuesday with Charlie Sloth is hilarious, as is Greg's Real or No Real. Alice Levine is pretty good, but I've never thought much of Danny Howard, very dull and clearly doesn't listen to the show because he hasn't got a clue what's going on when he comes in. Bamboleo Wednesday is absolutely brilliant. I don't know what it is about it, it's very simple in premise, but genuinely makes my Wednesday without fail. I think they could do more with it actually, with callers and more videos, etc. Other general bits of chat are very funny as always. One thing I've never picked up on from the Podcasts but notice when I've listened live recently was how much music Scott plays! Four songs at the top of every hour is a lot, and all of his links are quite short (2mins or less usually). It's pushing 40 songs a show now, I'm sure it never used to be like this on R1. They come under fire for being too similar to commercial rivals, so what do they do? Become more like them! There are times when its five songs pretty much in a row (one song at the end of the hour, two at the beginning followed by a 20sec ramp and two more songs), it seems like a lot. Also wish there was more newsreader interaction, on Scott's show but also on R1 in general. Dev used to have some banter with whoever was reading his news when they still had bulletins on Early Breakfast, but doesn't anymore on weekends. I think Matt Edmondson would be good at making jokes about the news as well, it's a shame he never speaks to the newsreader afterwards. I think I got a little distracted from Scott's show there, but those are my thoughts on it, and R1 in general.

You can definitely tell BBC News are making cutbacks already- in the last few days I've heard old names like Nomia Iqbal, Tulip Mazumdar and Tom Bateman doing reports, even though they left Newsbeat a while ago.

Same here, I've preferred most of the ones previous to it and this one just never lived up to them. Plus, after three years I was sick of it! Who remembers the days when there'd be a new news package in January each year? Good times for Radio 1. (Oh and by the way, as in one of my threads I'm still looking for the news packages from around that period (2003-2006 ish) if anyone can help, it would be greatly appreciated)

I'm hoping it will be a similar format to either the current ones or the pre-2007 ones, I'm not a huge fan of the 6Music style in etc. With any luck though, they'll be a lot better than the current ones!

I don't like the news jingles without an in, I prefer them having an introduction like they do at the moment.

That is great news. By the sounds of it, they're getting new jingles they can use on the TV version of Newsbeat they're going to do on the BBC World Service. Strangely, they don't want any sports or weather beds it seems. I know they're dropping the weather, but it doesn't make sense to drop sport because it's still relevant, and therefore deserves its own bed. Where it says do you think that means there will be new format to the jingles, e.g. instead of a ramp in with the "Listen watch share" cutting in, could it be like how it was before the 2007 package where there was as much or as little time as needed to introduce the news, or even a straight in without any intro, like on 6 Music? Either way, looking forward to replacing these ageing dull ones at last!

Chris Smith is on a video journalism course at the moment, could that be one of the new ways? Also, yes, a few new names have popped up on Newsbeat over the last few months. Think the newbies include Stephan Powell (legend), Cat Collins, Anna Collinson and James Waterhouse (all of the names I can think of that I hadn't heard until recently).

I agree with you, I thought it was very entertaining and great radio overall. Shows the very hard work of Pippa and Travis and whoever else behind the scenes to put such good shows together and come up with all that content. I think it's a shame Chris didn't go- I feel his presence always adds something. Is it to do with the fact that he's BBC Staff, or just on this occasion Newsbeat didn't let him go?

Hello all. I've been trying for a while to track down all the old news jingles from about 2003-ish onwards, without any luck. Does anybody on here have any of the news packages from 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2009 (I have the 2007 ones already, they're freely available but I can share if people want) that they want to share with me? I also have my own mixes of the 2011 ones, but if anybody has the actual package, I'd love that too. As a relatively new collector, I'm afraid I don't have much to trade that people won't already have, but if people want to share this with me, it would be much appreciated :-).

Well, I don't know if anybody's heard or indeed cares, but Greg and Chris were talking about this on the podcast this week- Chris said they haven't dropped it but are giving it less prominence now because people can look it up on their phones and it would be much more accurate than giving a vague forecast on the radio. Oh well.

Dom's now left Capital FM: Find it strange that after eight years of getting up early for The Chris Moyles Show, he's decided he can't do it anymore after just over a year at Capital! Whilst it's a shame he's not reading the news anymore, I have to admit I'm slightly happy- it always felt like he'd joined the dark side after he went to Capital. As ridiculous and unreasonable as it sounds, I did feel a bit betrayed! Hope he's got other good stuff coming up.

Ah, good news for me! As of yesterday, the weather seems to have been reinstated!

I just like it because it's tradition I guess- it's always been done on radio, so it's a radio convention, and it should always be done. You could also argue that giving timechecks shouldn't be done anymore, because everyone has a watch or phone to check the time- but it's a radio convention! Why back announce songs when people can just check the BBC Playlister or Shazam it? Radio convention. The weather is a radio convention IMO, so I think it should stay. Plus they still do it in the breakfast bulletins anyway, it's just been dropped from Greg's show. However, it seems they've started doing news and sport with a newsreader + sports reporter in the afternoon again (on special occasions when Simon/Mike is live on location). Oh well, one thing goes, another returns (sort of)

Probably not really worthy of it's own thread, but I thought this observation shouldn't go undocumented- it seems that as of Monday, Newsbeat has dropped doing the weather in the afternoons (the 1630 bulletin and 1745 main programme). It seems like a strange move, and not one I particularly like, because it's always useful to hear the weather of an evening. I hope it's not permanent, and that the weather is re-instated soon! No, please don't roll your eyes and sigh at my sadness. Guys...?

I've never understood why the libraries beds come from are so top secret, it's all there if you look hard enough. Perhaps it's so the ones lucky enough to find them have something to trade with in the hope the other person hasn't found it themselves!

Um... chances are it will be [email protected], just like all of the BBC email addresses?

I think there will be a Grimmy Greg swap, Fearne will leave and Scott will leave. Having heard a bit of Pete Allison covering for Dev recently, I think that he's been massively overrated on here. Just because he's fresh blood from commercial radio, it doesn't make him any good. He was bland and couldn't do links longer than about a minute- not much cop. I think Dev will get Scott's slot when he leaves, because Dev's been ready for a daytime slot for years now, I thought he would be next in line for that show years ago. Matt Edmondson to stay on weekends, he's got the flagship show on there, and he said on his podcast recently (perhaps jokingly) in response to an email that he wouldn't want to do radio five days a week. 04:00 Gemma Cairney 06:30 The Greg James Show (obviously with Chris Smith with the News) 10:00 Alice Levine 13:00 Dev 16:00 Nick Grimshaw WEEKENDS 06:00 Newbie 10:00 The Matt Edmondson Show 13:00 Phil Taggart 16:00 Dance Anthems/ Chart Zane and Huw will be around for a while methinks.

I liked the beds they used for Even More Music Month, and then Scott continued to use for a few months, they were good. It just sounds wrong hearing Scott talking over the generic beds, because his show is anything but generic- I've always thought of beds as the best way to make your show special , which Scott's show definitely is. Could it genuinely be the case that the beds are made in house these days? It seems unlikely, but that could also explain the lack of quality of late. And may I ask what "the usual locations" are? ;p

I'd forgotten about the bank holiday, and then the day that they randomly didn't do a podcast. Thank you very much!

During the Dev-Matt Edmondson handover yesterday, they were talking about the different beds they use from the R1 beds library. They named a few, which I typed into Google in hope of finding something, but to no avail. The names I heard were: Driving Instructor Kick Flicks Filth Bags Matt seemed to think that they were made in-house at R1, which I suppose is possible because they've done a few things themselves, but it seems more likely that they came from a library like most of their beds- the question is: which one(s)? I've attached a clip of the chat because they played a few as well. I'd quite like to know where the current ones come from, even though I don't like them much. The quirky beds they had around 2008-2009 were my favourite of recent years, these ones are okay but they're overused- no presenters seem to have their own distinctive beds anymore, which is shame. Good luck people! Dev and Matt talk about the Radio 1 Beds 07062014.mp3

Seem to have missed a few, didn't download them when they were available, so if anybody could help me get the 23rd, 26th and 27th of May podcasts it would be much appreciated! Thanks.

To be honest, I'm surprised they left Fearne where she is. Her show's been stagnant for a while, and whilst I don't dislike it or Fearne's personality, I think it's come to it's natural end and someone new and promising *cough* Alice Levine *cough* should be given that slot instead. Perhaps they don't want to get rid of her quite so soon after coming back from maternity leave. Either next year, or if she has another baby, I think that might be the end of Cotton on R1. Just my speculation, of course.

Well, nobody's confirmed whether Aled is staying or not, although there's nothing to say he's going either. I like hearing Aled on the Surgery though, as a surviving Moyles team member. I like hearing Tina on the news as well for the same reason. I think he's a great host, and at the moment I don't think there's anybody else who could do it.