Question Time

Have heard that this week's programme will now be coming from Finchley instead of Rochdale.

Hardly surprising in the circumstances.

Why not Grantham?

I did apply to go on and never had a reply. Did anyone else ask to go on the show?

teamplayer2 wrote:I did apply to go on and never had a reply. Did anyone else ask to go on the show?

Some of our central town " community leaders " previously and confidently said they were expecting to go. They must be disappointed.

One of the Question Time audience criteria is diversity Teamplayer ..

I was going and am disappointed the program has been pulled.

Mojo Hill wrote:

teamplayer2 wrote:I did apply to go on and never had a reply. Did anyone else ask to go on the show?

Some of our central town " community leaders " previously and confidently said they were expecting to go. They must be disappointed.

One of the Question Time audience criteria is diversity Teamplayer ..

Just what do you mean Mojo Hill?

I was down for this too but nobody has called me to say it's cancelled? Is there a new date?

teamplayer2 wrote:

Mojo Hill wrote:

teamplayer2 wrote:I did apply to go on and never had a reply. Did anyone else ask to go on the show?

Some of our central town " community leaders " previously and confidently said they were expecting to go. They must be disappointed.

One of the Question Time audience criteria is diversity Teamplayer ..

Just what do you mean Mojo Hill?

TP: I mean 'precisely' that, no more and no less ... You may recall that in the BBC's written introduction to an attendance application Form, with its many questions for completion, it stipulates: Your response will be completely confidential, but it will enable us to invite a balanced cross-section of people.


It may well be that they receive a high number of applicants who could disproportionately (by age, gender, perceived or actual party political affiliation, waged/unwaged status, .... etcetera) embody local community interests and debate. I would expect them to compile an accepted audience in a way that would avoid disproportionate representation ... hence an audience criteria of diversity.

Hinch wrote:Sarcasm at its very worst!

No. It's actually true Hinch ... that's how the Beeb look at audience applications for this type of programme.

I'm led to understand they have an HR Dept that undertakes some form of likely Impact Assessments from information provided from all the 'confidential' forms received.


YOU do the irony on here too, remember.

The chances of getting an audience representing local issue, and getting local issues raised in open debate is about zero.

It's also pre-recorded...

johnb wrote:The chances of getting an audience representing local issue, and getting local issues raised in open debate is about zero.

It's also pre-recorded...

and edited

Flagship BBC panel show Question Time’s last minute move from Rochdale to London



Disappointed news buffs - who were due to be in the audience at Gracie Fields Theatre tonight - were emailed with the news late on Tuesday by producers of the programme.


The email said: "BBC Question Time will now be in Lady Thatcher's former constituency of Finchley [in North London] this Thursday, the programme scheduled to be in Rochdale will be postponed until the autumn.

"I am sure you understand why this move has been made and we will contact you when the new date is confirmed.

Our apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused and we would like to take this opportunity of thanking you for your interest."

quote "I am sure you understand why this move has been made and we will contact you when the new date is confirmed. end of quote -.

No?

It obviously goes to show the contempt the BBC have for the people of Rochdale as far as I'm concerned.
If the present day, drastic problems of this Northern town do not supersede that of the death of a once controversial Prime Minister who did little enough for the people of the North of England in her time then someone somewhere has their priorities very, very wrong and should be given the 'boot'.

Seems that Rochdale is not important enough. After all some the money taken away from Rochdale will pay for a funeral anyway.

Mojo Hill wrote:

Hinch wrote:Sarcasm at its very worst!

No. It's actually true Hinch ... that's how the Beeb look at audience applications for this type of programme.

I'm led to understand they have an HR Dept that undertakes some form of likely Impact Assessments from information provided from all the 'confidential' forms received.

I'm not sure that's true, MH. Unless it has changed very recently the audience recruitment for this type of programme is not done by the BBC itself but by an independent organisation.

Prudence Tempered wrote:

Mojo Hill wrote:

Hinch wrote:Sarcasm at its very worst!

No. It's actually true Hinch ... that's how the Beeb look at audience applications for this type of programme.

I'm led to understand they have an HR Dept that undertakes some form of likely Impact Assessments from information provided from all the 'confidential' forms received.

I'm not sure that's true, MH. Unless it has changed very recently the audience recruitment for this type of programme is not done by the BBC itself but by an independent organisation.

Prudence Tempered: A couple of years ago, the programme's Audience producer Alison Fuller and team selected the audience for Question Time every week and, depending on the city or town they were in, this meant considering many thousands of applications.


The process involved checking the background of every applicant against their party political affiliations, campaign involvements, advertising intentions, and many 'other' factors …..


This same BBC audience producer, Alison, was still contacting potential attendees by telephone late last year.


If it has changed to an independent body, maybe that's a very recent development, unless they've re-branded their team, for communications, as an arms-length social enterprise.

I'm fairly sure that Alison Fuller isn't a BBC employee but actually runs the organisation that the Beeb uses to recruit audiences.

Prudence Tempered wrote:I'm fairly sure that Alison Fuller isn't a BBC employee but actually runs the organisation that the Beeb uses to recruit audiences.

Alison Fuller is on all the BBC Credits as their Audience Producer for Question Time.

Alison's own private company is Full House Audience Management Ltd, which was incorporated in June 2011.

Mojo Hill wrote:

Prudence Tempered wrote:I'm fairly sure that Alison Fuller isn't a BBC employee but actually runs the organisation that the Beeb uses to recruit audiences.

Alison Fuller is on all the BBC Credits as their Audience Producer for Question Time.

Alison's own private company is Full House Audience Management Ltd, which was incorporated in June 2011.

The company may well have been incorporated at that point but it, (or its predecessor) was responsible for the composition of the Question Time audience long before then - and not the HR Department of the BBC. I know this partly because I went to a recording of QT in Salford long before this date and ended up having a conversation with the couple that run the company and they mentioned how long they been undertaking this task.

I don't really know why it is organised in this way unless it is to give the BBC some sort or arms length involvement in who gets to attend.