The BBC has named five chief presenters for its upcoming TV news channel merging the UK and international offerings.
Matthew Amroliwala, Christian Fraser, Yalda Hakim, Lucy Hockings, and Maryam Moshiri will lead programming on the channel, to be named BBC News when it launches this spring.
BBC News chief executive Deborah Turness described them as “the faces of our channel”, adding: “This team’s editorial leadership, talent, knowledge and flair make them the ideal presenters to bring the BBC’s trusted journalism to people at home in the UK and around the globe, and to guide audiences through the big stories as they break.”
The channel will be anchored from London during the UK daytime and evening, and from Washington DC and Singapore overnight. It will air advertising outside the UK.
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The broadcaster currently runs the UK-focused BBC News channel and BBC World News, but these will be merged together for one main output as part of reform plans aimed at saving £500m over the next few years.
The channel will be run as a single operation with global audiences often seeing the same programming but it will be able to split into two feeds when there is a major UK story, for example.
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The loss of about 70 jobs in London is expected as a result of the merger. Seasoned BBC News presenters such as Jane Hill, Martine Croxall, Ben Brown, Annita McVeigh, Geeta Guru-Murthy and Shaun Ley are among those to have lost their roles, Deadline reported, although they could still apply for other on-screen roles. (Update: Hill later confirmed she is moving permanently to the news bulletins on BBC One, working across the 1pm, 6pm and 10pm editions.)
Croxall made headlines last year and was briefly taken off air after she reacted to news that Boris Johnson had pulled out of the Conservative leadership race by saying: “Am I allowed to be this gleeful? Well, I am.” The BBC later said she had breached impartiality rules, saying her comments created a “significant risk” that the audiences could believe “opinions were being expressed”. Meanwhile, Ley has recently gone viral on multiple occasions for sneezing during news bulletins.
Other well-known presenters, Joanna Gosling, David Eades and Tim Willcox, have taken voluntary redundancy.
The BBC said there had been a “competitive interview process” for the presenting jobs and that it will now begin advertising for eight correspondent roles to present and report on the channel. Recruitment is underway for two on-air presenting roles to be based in Washington, DC.
Amroliwala has worked at the BBC since 1989 in roles including news reporter, political correspondent and foreign correspondent. Since 2015 he has anchored the Global programme on the BBC World News channel, leading on major events in India and elsewhere.
Fraser currently presents The Context with Christian Fraser on Monday to Thursday evenings on both the BBC’s news channels. He also frequently anchors Newsnight on BBC Two and has previously presented BBC Breakfast from Salford, evening news bulletins on BBC One and Beyond 100 Days on BBC World News with Katty Kay.
Hakim is a foreign correspondent and anchor of Impact with Yalda Hakim on BBC World News.
Hockings has worked for the BBC since 1999, anchored on World News since 2003 and presented her own current affairs programme Live with Lucy Hockings since 2019.
Moshiri has been a presenter on World News for almost four years, presenting programmes including Outside Source, The Context, Impact, Global and Newsday as well as becoming a regular face on the BBC News channel. Before that, she was a business presenter for BBC News for 17 years.
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