Tomorrow morning BBC Radio 4 will, for the last time, broadcast the early morning News Briefing. A fixture of Radio 4’s schedule for nearly half a century it’s yet another victim of financial cuts.
News Briefing is a 13 minute round-up of
international and national news, a full weather forecast, sports news, review
of the newspapers, business news, sports news and ending with a on this day in
history feature.
The cuts in
the news division means not only the end of News
Briefing but also, from next month, that World Service bulletins will be
carried overnight on Radio 2, Radio 5 Live and BBC local stations.
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| Radio Times billing 3 July 1978 |
News Briefing, read by Eugene Fraser, was first broadcast as a 10-minute bulletin at 6 am on Monday 3 July 1978 as part of a refresh which saw Today start at 6.30 am and the dropping of the two editions of the notorious Up to the Hour sequences.
The weekday
edition was dropped from 3 April 1998 leaving just the Saturday and Sunday
briefings. From that date on weekdays Radio 4 opened at 5.30 am with a World News bulletin followed by the Shipping Forecast. The World News is dropped at the end of
April 2000 and Radio 4 starts the day at 5.35 with the Shipping and Inshore Forecast. Meanwhile, from March 2003, the
Sunday edition, now reduced to 5 minutes, is just described as a news summary.
 |
| Radio Times billing 2 May 2006 |
On 2 May 2006 News Briefing returned as a seven days a week programme of 13 minutes with a 5.30 start, after the Shipping Forecast, where it has, until this week, remained. There was a brief hiatus during the Covid-19 pandemic when it was dropped from 30 March 2020 and Radio 4 started to leave the World Service at the slightly later time of 5.32 for the Shipping Forecast. News Briefing returned on Monday 13 July 2020.
The last News Briefing airs tomorrow at 5.30 am.
From Monday (24th) Radio 4 will leave the World Service at 5.00 am
for a news bulletin followed by Yesterday
in Parliament which moves back over from Radio 4 Extra where it has been
for the last year. There’ll be repeats at times when Parliament isn’t in
session. The Shipping Forecast moves
to 5.34 am followed by, as usual on weekdays, Prayer for the Day and Farming
Today.
Some audio
now, and the earliest News Briefing I
can lay my hands on comes from Tuesday 3 February 1998 where the lead story
centres on the libel suit by Richard Branson against GTech in the bid to run
the National Lottery. The reader is Andrew Crawford and there are correspondent
reports from Torin Douglas, Jon Silverman and Paul Reynolds. The weather
forecast is delivered by Sarah Wilmshurst and with the sports news it’s Garry
Richardson.
The second
edition dates from Saturday 29 September 2012 and is read by Corrie Corfield.
The weather forecaster is Chris Fawkes and the sports news read by Seth Bennett
with a report from golf correspondent Ian Carter.
After News Briefing was dropped during the
2020 lockdown it was, in the world of announcer Jane Steel an “auspicious date”
when it returned on 13 July. Here’s how the full morning sequence panned out
with the World Service handover, the Shipping Forecast read by Ben Rich and
then Jane with News Briefing. The business
report is by Andrew Wood and the sports report by Paul Sarahs.
The final News Briefing on 23 March 2025 was read by Jane Steel.
