Senior Lead Presenter

Salary: £86,400 - £122,800 per annum depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.

Location: Pacific Quay, Glasgow

Contract: Permanent

Job Purpose

BBC Scotland is looking for new presenters to join its news team. These are some of the highest profile and most demanding roles in Scottish journalism and the successful candidates will become the face and voice of Scotland’s most successful news programmes. We intend to invest time and effort to support all successful candidates to develop their career within the BBC.

We are looking for 3x Senior Lead Presenters to be associated primarily with:

1. Reporting Scotland – the nation’s most popular TV news brand. We are looking for a main presenter at 1830 on BBC One Scotland. This role may also involve working to present late news bulletins to 2300.
2. News at Seven – our new news and current affairs programme on BBC Scotland combining more on the big stories of the day with a strong local and human feel. This role may also involve working to present late news bulletins to 2300.
3. Good Morning Scotland and the Sunday Show radio – our flagship breakfast news radio programmes, setting the Scottish news agenda, covering national and global news, and regularly holding policy makers to account. This is an early morning role from 0430 at least two weekdays and from 0600 on Sundays.

Key Responsibilities and Accountabilities

Although our Senior Lead Presenters may specialise in TV or Radio, and present a single programme or strand regularly, we are moving to a more flexible and multi-skilled style of presenting. This means that we would expect these journalists to be able to front the full range of our programmes on TV, Radio and on demand platforms. We would expect presenters to combine their main presenting role with presenting other output on TV, radio or on demand.

In addition, we are constantly evolving our news and current affairs offer. We launched two new strands earlier this year: a new news programme News at Seven; and a multiplatform podcast Scotcast. We see this a model for the future and all the three advertised roles will require top level TV and radio presenting skills. Successful candidates may be expected to present a wide range of different programmes over time as well as develop new digital and video/audio skills.

Knowledge, Skills, Training & Experience

The successful candidate should be a very experienced presenter who has proved their ability on high impact programmes. In particular we are looking for journalists who can:

• Display an accomplished presentation style that is fluent, engaging the viewer/listener while adapting their style for a wide range of different subjects and audiences.
• Interview the key political and policy makers of the day, holding them to account on behalf of the public.
• Adapt to changing broadcast demands of journalism on TV, radio and new platforms including: broadcasting live from the field for extended periods; working with a range of audience groups; being the primary presenter for major events.
• Generate ideas and stories; contribute to the creative treatment of an item or programme; provide clear treatments and proposals, ensuring consistency of content, quality and style of our journalism.
• Demonstrate a deep understanding of Scotland’s news, current affairs and culture, having a breadth of knowledge across the news agenda.

Further Information

If shortlisted, candidates will take part in a practical assessment that tests their presenting ability across a range of scenarios and output. There will also be a value-based interview.

Working patterns/location

All our programmes currently have a single presenter – apart from Good Morning Scotland which has two main presenters on any given weekday. All our news programmes are broadcast from Pacific Quay in Glasgow and staff would be based there. However, we regularly present programmes from other BBC bases around Scotland and, from occasion, from the field with outside broadcasts. The core hours that you’ll be working can also include the recording of material for later transmission. This could be done either in Pacific Quay or on location.

Most of our presenters work a 10-hour day, four days a week. However, these roles could work part-time, on reduced hours, or be combined with another role such as a reporter or correspondent. The current core shift patterns are as follows:

• Good Morning Scotland 0430 to 1430 (broadcast 0600 to 0900)
• Lunchtime Live 0700 to 1700 (broadcast 1200 to 1330)
• Drivetime 0800 to 1800 (broadcasting 1600 to 1800)
• Reporting Scotland 1300 to 2300 (broadcasting 1830 to 1900 and 2230 to 2240) or 1000 to 2000 (broadcasting 1830 to 1900)
• News at Seven 1300 to 2300 (broadcasting 1900 to 1930 and 2230 to 2240) or 1000 to 2000 (broadcasting 1900 to 1930).