this is bbc news. we will have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour straight after this programme. hello. this week, we're talking to dan walker as he moves from bbc breakfast tv to channel 5's drivetime news. what made him go? and as the big broadcasters gear up for thejubilee celebrations, we'll be finding out what it's like to cover the royal family with the bbc�*sjonny dymond and itv�*s chris ship. and asking, is there any room in royal coverage for criticism?

should there be? laura clancy, author of running the family firm, is also here. but we'll start with dan walker, one of the big beasts of breakfast tv. he spent six years fronting the nation's most popular early morning television show. those 3am alarms must feel likejust a bad dream now, because on monday, he starts his new role at channel 5. dan walker, welcome to the media show. why did you make the move? well, it had nothing to do with the 3am start, although i am even though i've stopped doing breakfast now for a couple of weeks, i am still waking up occasionally at that time in the morning. poor you. i think it takes a while to sort the body clock out. i think it isjust, if i'm honest, just opportunity. i think channel 5 came and had a chat and sort of said in the nicest possible way, we want you. and they said, we don't want you to just do the news. we'd like you to come and have a set number of hours every year of your contract to come and make tv for us. and i've got a creative role in

coming up with what that tv is. and, you know, you speak to a lot of people who work in television on this programme and everybody who works in tv and probably who listens to this will know that those opportunities don't come around very often. so you couldn't have done that at the bbc? the bbc weren't offering you something like that? it wasn't a case of me going to bbc and saying this and channel 5 have said this. "what have you got?" i never did that. i've been really open and honest with the bbc in the whole time i've been there, really. and i just felt that there are opportunities at channel 5 that maybe i wouldn't have got at the bbc. and i think it's also a really interesting time in the industry generally, and channel 5 is a fascinating place to be at the minute. i think they make some great programmes. i think there's not many commissioning... most of their commissions recently have been brilliant shows and who doesn't want to get the chance to work where anneka rice works? that's a good point. i mean, i think they're moving massively in the right direction all the time

and i think it's a really exciting place to be with a really creative team. yeah. and i'll come back on channel 5. ijust, you were reported to be on just under £300,000 a year for your bbc work. i'm assuming channel 5 offered you quite a good deal. to what extent did money play a part? i can be brutally honest about that. money has never, ever been a motivating factor for me at any point in my career. they are paying you more money, presumably? well, when i first started out, i had two degrees at a 2—1 in history, and i had a first in broadcastjournalism. and i was working at a commercial radio station in manchester earning under £8,000 and working 18—20—hour shifts a day on occasions. and after six months, i got promoted to be sports editor there, working exactly the same number of hours with two people working under me. i think my pay went up tojust over £8,000. so now if i was motivated by money, i would have left a long time ago. the job's like that. but i love the job, i love the opportunity. it's always been a real privilege to me to work in this industry, and i don't take it for granted.

and i'm really thankful to get the chances that i do get. and i hate talking about money and there's nothing more embarrassing than your salary, whether it's right or wrong, being on the front page of a national newspaper. which i guess is another reason to leave for channel 5, because they don't have to publish the salaries, unlike the bbc. again, that wasn't there... i'm not going to talk to you about pay all day. of course i'm not. do you think you'll miss breakfast? yes, massively. but i also i've done it for 6.5 years. and i think that not because of me, because it's just the sort of nature of the industry. i think thatjob now is so much bigger than when i started it. i mean, now there's a huge sort of independent outside process to find whoever replaces me on breakfast. when i started the job, i think i turned it down a couple of times for reasons i can't quite explain to you. i don't know why. and then i was asked to go and sort of sit in the studio for a couple of days, which i did, and i started thejob, i think two weeks after that. under the microscope than it ever has been before. and thatjob is a really big job. you speak to

politicians every day. you speak to the prime minister regularly. you're sort of talking to opinion formers and opinion makers every day on that show. and it's a really significant role and i think that's great for breakfast tv. but i'd done it for a long time. and i love a new challenge — learned to dance last year. so now i'll go and have a go at it. and i was interested in that because obviously talking about being on strictly, which, you know, was a big deal, did you ask to do it and when you thought about doing it? did they ask you? did they ask you — how does it work? and in terms of your profile, what are you thinking about? you know, what is it going to do for me? did you have any did you have any kind of strategy? i don't mean in terms of winning it. ijust mean in terms of what it might do for you. i can answer all of those questions. i said no to strictly four times. you're a guy who says no and they keep asking.

i'm getting a lesson in no matter what you say yes. i said no four times and i said yes last year for probably two main reasons. 0ne, i've been talking about covid for 18 months and ijust genuinely itjust felt like having a bit of fun and not talking about death tolls and horrible stuff. and also my kids who are 14, i2 and 11, they all sat me down and said, we'd like you to do "saturday mash—up "and strictly, please. " so i'd done saturday mash—up. so that's one of the reasons why i signed up and i didn't have a strategy. and i think some people do go into programmes like that. i know on last week's programme, a couple of weeks ago, you were talking about reality tv. and i think some people do go into programmes like that and they think, "what's the job i can get out of this? and i think some people do go into programmes like that and they think, "what's the job i can get out of this? "can i find a partner? "i want to become more famous." fame and fortune and froth and all those other things have never, ever motivated me. ijust went in to have a bit of fun. i got on really well with my partner and i learned an awful lot about her,

about myself and i learnt how to do a foxtrot. so it was all good stuff. definitely useful stuff. well, ok, let's come on to your new show then. you know you're co—presenting the news at 5pm on channel 5. i mean, back in the day, channel 5 news for people old enough to remember was the innovative kirsty young presenting sitting on the desk. can you give us a sense of, you know, whether you've got what your innovations are? is there a dan walker way of doing news now? that's what the dan walker way of doing news is to make it not about you. i fundamentally believe that is essential. and, you know, when i talk to students or school kids about getting into the industry, i try and make a point of saying that i've spent a lot of my life trying to get out of the way of the story. and i think there's you know, there's an obsession and a real interest and a good interest in the way that we do news at the moment in this country. and i think at one end of the scale, there is the here the cold, hard facts. and i'm going to present that a bit like a robot. and at the other end

is watch my programme because i've got loads of massive opinions and you'll care about them. and i think in the middle is i suppose the best way of saying is news with feeling where by you're not presenting it in a vacuum, you're not doubting it in your own opinion because who cares about what i think? but you're doing it in a way which is in connection with your audience, and you understand who they are and what they're going through and what the impact of the stories you're talking about will have on their lives. and i think you can connect with your audience in a really special way if you do that properly. and that's what i've always tried to do, both at breakfast and before that, and that's what i will try and bring to an already well—oiled programme at channel 5, because i think they do connect with their audience really well, and that's what i want to do. that's if there is a style of news, that's it. do you worry, in the nicest possible way, i'm going to say this, it makes you the kind of bland, slightly inoffensive choice, sort of in the middle — that kind of third way of news — the appeal of the straight white male.

no, i mean, i've never even considered that — all i try and do is be as genuine as i can and do the bestjob that i can and work hard to try and make great tv. and thankfully, those doors have kept opening to me, even though i've said no to them sometimes. yeah, exactly. now you... yeah, yeah, yeah. i enjoy doing what i'm doing. and the other thing, katie, is i always try and make sure that the programmes that i work on are the best fun to be a part of. and if you go and ask anybody that i've ever worked with, and if you ask them whether they think that i'm bland and boring, i'm not sure they'd agree with that. the answer is no. your style on breakfast, you just talking about opinionated journalism at one end of the scale. that's not you. your style on breakfast was clearly very different to piers morgan's, who was, you know, regularly going up head to head with you on itv�*s good morning britain.

and there was rivalry there, you know, and piers morgan said recently, "dan, who?" when he was asked about your decision to leave the bbc. you've both now left for new ventures. we actually spoke to piers morgan on the eve of his talk tv launch. now, the headlines around that show, obviously since then have been about the low audience numbers. and i wondered if you have any advice for piers morgan. piers is very good at what he does. and i've always said that about him. and while he has gently tossed the insults around over the last few years, i've always said that good morning britain have done a greatjob when he was there. it's been brilliant to see susanna reid'sjournalism in recent weeks. ithink, you know, the interview she had with the prime minister was brilliant. it's been good to see a bit more of her. but he's struggling on a new channel that people aren't... i wish so much... i wish him all the very best with that. i think it's a big challenge for him. but he's, you know, he's very good at what he does and... the one thing i'm quite proud of is that i never walked off when carol kirkwood said anything to me. so i guess i take that as a claim to fame. and talking of bbc breakfast, i mean, obviously, bbc breakfast is on a high.

we all know that it's hitting highs of more than two million viewers last year when you were there. you're moving to channel 5 in a slot, which is, you know, much, much less popular at the moment than that, you know, probably a quarter of that audience. so you're facing similar things, i guess, to piers morgan in terms of that shift. why would you move? because i like a challenge. and i think what channel 5 have got in the minute is a really good programme. and, you know, they, they came and... i suppose you could say head—hunted me, for want of a better phrase. and i know that i can go there and i can pour my full enthusiasm and years of experience into that programme. and hopefully we'll get some more viewers. we want to make it an appointment to watch tv. you know, it's on before the six o'clock news is on before itn's offerings. it's sort of on at a time when probably similar to breakfast in terms of audience. so the plan is to up those numbers? yeah, of course. yeah. and that's how you judge

success in television, is it? but i also want to make it the best programme that we can make it. and i think having met the team, having met the editor, having met claudia—liza as well, who i'll be presenting it with, i think we've got all the elements to make it a really successful programme. i'm looking forward to starting. great, and i've got to ask you because you are just the latest of the bbc�*s presenter talent to be leaving the bbc. you know, there's you, there's my old colleague emily maitlis, jon sopel, andrew marr, who said he wanted to get his voice back by leaving the bbc. now that you're off the leash, what is it that you really want to say? looking forward to more than four hours�* sleep, katie. i've got nothing but nice things to say about the bbc. but what about getting your voice back? do you feel... did you feel when you... when you ask someone who's bland and boring to come on your programme, that's what you get. i'm not saying you're bland. you — i don't know. i don't feel like i've got anything to shout about. i'm not going to sort of be released. i think the shackles that people think that you are under at the bbc don't exist. i've never been told what not

to say or what to say or what to ask or don't ask the prime minister. that's never happened in my many years at the bbc and bbc have kept me out ofjail on occasions. i've been chased down a train in china by some police officers when i was filming a documentary many years ago. and the only thing that stopped us — me and the camera operator going to jailfor the night was our bbc card. because you see those letters and they mean something all around the world. and i think, you know, the bbc does need to change. it's a big old beast and it's sometimes slow to do things. i know we're going to talk about royal coverage. yeah — coming up to it right now. i think there are there are certain things that bbc can do differently and improve in a sort of constantly changing market but it still does a lot of things brilliantly and there are some wonderful people that work there. and whether it was sport or breakfast or quizzes or strictly, i've had

the privilege of working with some of the best in the industry there, and it's not over. my bridges have not been burnt at the bbc. i hope to work for them again. fantastic. well, dan walker, thank you. dan will be on channel 5 at 5pm weekdays from mondayjune 6th. but don't go away though, dan. i won't! because i want to stay on the subject of news and with thejubilee taking centre stage from many of our broadcasters, specifically royal news and how it's covered. chris ship is the royal editorfor itv news, jonny dymond, one of the bbc�*s royal correspondents and laura clancy, author of running the family firm, is also here. laura is also a lecturer in media and sociology at lancaster university. and, jonny, as we've been hearing so much about the brilliant people at the bbc, let's come to you first. you know, you've been a washington correspondent, you've been a europe correspondent, you're now a royal correspondent. is it the same job in terms of how you do it? i mean, i think the core of it isjust about the same. you know, it's about finding stuff out and setting it in context and explaining it and doing that in an interesting way. and it has the great advantage

of being sort of full of colour and history. and so doing it in an interesting way is perhaps easier, frankly, than making an industrial dispute on the west bank interesting. but so much of it is very different, actually, from anything i've done at the bbc. it is — it is, i think, of its kind, largely because it is so mediated. it is so — i mean, for want of a better word — 'controlled' by the palace because of their effective monopoly on information. and no otherjob that i've worked at, no other brief has that monopoly or near—monopoly in operation, so that makes it very different, actually. so, the core isjust about the same but the reality is — is — is very different

and, frankly, very strange. and how do they control — sorry to interrupt, but how do they control it? what do you mean by that? how does it work? i mean, it's partly because of the sort of public—private nature of the story and the tension between those two, which is essentially that most of the institutional staff, the state staff, even the ceremonial stuff is — it's colourful but it's not in itself interesting — it's actually quite dull. what is interesting to audiences is the personal stuff and there is an implicit deal at different degrees in royal coverage, which is you show a bit of ankle and you get if not favourable coverage, you get more coverage than you would do for any other sort of cause out there

or any other body, and that's just part of it being the royal story. so, that is one degree of control. the other is, you know, nearly everything they do, they inform you through their own source, and that source will quite happily say — whether it's an effectively a press officer or an actual source — will quite happily say, "no, look, that's private". and that's the big difference is the stuff we are interested in, they are very easy and able to say "that's private". chris ship, let me bring you in. you covered politics in your previous roles, you know, where presumably sort of 20—plus people all vying to be your source. how close to royal stories can you ever get? you know, you make a good point. - i was a decade in westminster and i think actually, _ i'd say there's more than 20 people — it's like 650 mps . who are willing to talk to you, plus an army of special- advisers who all want your ear to bend, you know, to tell- you their story. the difference i've found - moving from politics into royal is those sources are much more limited and the information - they give you is much more limited, so yourjob, - really, i suppose, as a royal. correspondent, is to put those

tiny bits of information i together within the wider context and within your- experience of doing the job for the past howeverl many years and then, make a decision, make . a call, say what you think is happening, say what you think will happen. i and i think that's the main difference of the job. - the challenge is getting i as many different sources as you possibly can in all - the different palaces to speak to you as frequently - as possible, and that's kind of easier said than done. and, laura, let me just bring you in. do you think there's space for criticism in royal reporting or, to your mind, is it all a bit deferential and unquestioning? i mean, in my opinion, i think there's not enough critical coverage of the royal family, but i don't think that's necessarily the fault of individual journalists. i agree with what's been said around how it's the structures that are built in, so things like the royal rota system, for example, that gives access to particular types ofjournalists that you need to apply to, which then might limit maybe more independent journalists, for example, getting access to those stories —

and i did — i did interviews with some royal correspondents, actually, for some research and they were telling me, you know, if you're in these big institutions like the bbc or big newspapers, you're going to get better access to stories than people who might not be and people who might not be on the royal rota system. chris, what do you think about that? is that the case? do you feel the bbc and other you know, the big players — i'm not saying you're not a big player, but you know what i mean — did they get better access? and also, you know, where do you stand on putting a critical voice in? would you put a republican voice in your packages? i mean, i wrote a story today about a yougov opinion polll which shows that support - for the monarchy has declined dramatically in the past ten - years since the queen's diamond jubilee, particularly — - and i think probably worryingly for the institution of monarchy or 'the firm,�* as meghan- famously called it - in her 0prah interview — is that young people - are as much likely to support a republic and elected head i of state as they are to support the monarchy — it's - something like 33% for one, 31% for another. are we critical? well, look at some of- the stories in recent years.

prince andrew. were we critical of- what happened there? yes, we were. were we critical of the royal family when meghan said i that she was driven to suicide? were we critical of the late | duke of edinburgh when he crashed his car, you know, - in his late 90s in sandringham? i think there is a . place for criticism. we do criticise where - it is needed, but i think a lot of the time, royal stories are generally a little - bit more upbeat. sometimes, our editors want them in the bulletin- because they, you know, they lift the bulletin - sometimes. i think that's quite important to get the right mix- in a bulletin. so, yes, there's a place - for criticism and i think that that has to go in there and i think we have i to acknowledge that a good 20% or 30% of the country want us i to have an elected head of- state and not have a monarch. and laura, would you say there's a difference between individual criticism — criticism of individuals within the royal family — and then criticism of the institutions? yeah, absolutely. i think — i agree — i mean, i think the coverage

of prince andrew wouldn't have come out without journalists. i think that's a perfectly valid point. i'm kind of — i wonder to what extent that then spans into, yeah, criticising the system, talking openly about — even talking openly about what republicanism might look like, for example — we never really see that being spoken about. and i'm also interested in kind of the value — i'm really interested in the name like a royal correspondent. you've got the foreign correspondent, you've got the political correspondent, you've got a royal correspondent and how that might kind of give the role a type of value and kind of put royal news on the same standing as all of those and what that might do, then, in the public imagination. and jonny dymond, can i bring you in you as the bbc voice here? do you think the bbc has a very distinct relationship with the royals? i think parts of the bbc do. to be honest, bbc news's is sort of relationship with the royals is based, i think, largely on audience, which is we have a very big audience and that makes the bbc a good place to pop stories.

for the other parts of the bbc — which i shouldn't speak about too much because i work for bbc news and i don't know them as well as i know news — for places like bbc events and the people who make the documentaries, they have a very long—standing relationship with the royals. it, you know, it gives them privileged access, i suppose but, you know, anyone who does any kind of deal with the royals in terms of broadcasting gets some kind of privilege and generally gives something back in return — it'sjust how it is. sorry to interrupt — does that mean it's difficult to put a critical voice in, then? no, because — because, no, because, look, when the royals are doing a documentary like unseen queen — which, if you haven't seen it, isjust gorgeous — and i'm not a big one for long royal programs. that's beautiful footage of home movies, right? yeah, it's amazing. it's lovely. but, you know, if you're doing that and if you are doing

it with really anybody else, there will be conditions attached. and yes, they're particularly stringent with the royal family and that's the deal they're able to strike. with news, it is different. we broadly share, i mean, most of our material with people like chris and organisations like itv news and we don't get sort of favours in that front — that means we can be as critical — i mean, look, laura, i mean, i think you've got — you make a very good point. i think part of the problem is the age and affection of the sovereign. i think part of the problem is that, as chris says, it's an upbeat story and it's seen as a sort of happy end point for a lot of bulletins, particularly tv. and i think part of the problem is a classification problem, which is if you are republican — and i totally get this — if you are a republican, you see nearly every royal story as a political story, and you think, "where is the counter voice?" actually, i think most royal stories are more like sports stories, and we don't go out and do stories about how most people don't care about

the world cup or lots of people don't care about the world cup. we just cover it. and so that, for me, is a sort of structural problem in the argument about criticism. 0k. but i take on board what laura says. that's interesting. and it's a good point to bring in dan walker, who's sport and news all in one. you know, you've obviously met various royals on breakfast. yeah. how do you view the line the bbc and perhaps other broadcasters walk when it comes to covering the royal family? it's really interesting why — it's been fascinating to listen to chris tojonny and to laura on that as well. i mean, i've made one of those documentaries thatjonny was talking about there. i spent quite a bit of time with prince william on a documentary about mental health and i've also covered a lot of royal stories, likejubilees and various members of the royal family as well. the one thing that i often think about is — is that issue of — of balance, and i listened to whatjonny said there about the way we cover sport,

and that's a really good point. but i think sometimes — for example, in my old job at bbc breakfast, we would regularly practice for a categoryi death. you know, you do the obit procedure to make sure that once that happens — and that would be like prince charles or the queen or the queen mother, before she passed away, or, you know, the duke of edinburgh — you sometimes practice those sorts of procedures. and i would always say once we did those practices that i felt we go too far on the tone. and when the duke of edinburgh did die, i do think that the bbc did make a mistake in putting the same output on bbc one, on bbc two, and... and got a lot of criticism forthat, indeed. and rightly so. and i think that's where the balance should have come in, because you can't force grief upon a nation. 0k. you can report on it, likejonny�*s saying, but you can't make everybody feel the same way because some people don't feel that way about the royal family. i think that's important. 0k. and just chris ship, bringing you in for the end. you know, there was this documentary by your colleague tom bradby — harry and meghan: an africanjourney — that showed that all wasn't

well with the sussexes, you know, they spoke about their mental health struggles, the duchess admitted she was not ok, really, and that made news around the world. and i wonder whether there were consequences for itv, based on what perhaszonny was saying earlier, just about, you know, reflecting that particular side of the story. i don't think there can be - consequences when actually, what you've reported is the truth. - what tom uncovered l in that documentary — and i was doing the news every day, working kind i of alongside him — - what he uncovered was that all was not well with - the sussexes inside the royal family and, well, what happened? i well, that turned out to be| very true, because a couple of months later, - they went to canada. so, i don't think there can be consequences if what you're i telling is the truth - and if we are reflecting as best we can the truth — i which is ourjob as journalists — then i think we shouldn't| worry about consequences. and if there are — _ if they do come, for whatever reason, then so be it, i because ourjob is to tell the truth as best we can. and, indeed, you are all doing that and will continue to do that, i'm sure. thank you so much to you all. i'm afraid that is all we actually have time for. dan walker, good luck on channel 5.

chris ship, royal editorfor itv news. thanks for coming on the programme. jonny dymond, bbc royal correspondent. and thanks to laura clancy, author of running the family firm and a lecturer in media and sociology at lancaster university. thank you so much for watching the media show. we'll be back at the same time next week but for now, goodbye. hello there. it was a very wet end to sunday across parts of england and wales. however, conditions will slowly improve as we move into the start of this week — monday and tuesday, increasing amounts of sunshine. then it starts to turn wetter on wednesday by the end of the week. looks like we could start to see some strong winds —— then it starts to turn wetter on wednesday. by the end of the week, looks like we could start to see some strong winds as a deep low moves

in off the atlantic. now, for england and wales, we start off on a rather cloudy note for monday morning. any rain, strong winds clear away from eastern england and increasing amounts of sunshine, i think across england, wales, which could set off the odd shower into the afternoon. but with more sunshine around — we could see 20 celsius in the south. but again, the best of the sunshine, the highest temperatures across scotland — 21 celsius there. we're in between weather systems again on tuesday, so another largely settled day. quite a bit of cloud around in the morning and then increasing amounts of sunshine for england and wales, one or two showers around. stays quite wet, cool and grey for south—east scotland and north east england. we start to see some rain arriving in south west england later in the day as a weather system moves in but we could see highs of 22 celsius across the south.

welcome to bbc news. i'm david eades. our top stories: cheering queen elizabeth says she's been "humbled and deeply touched" after appearing on the buckingham palace balcony to mark the end of platinum jubilee celebrations. 10,000 people took part in a huge platinum pageant, featuring the performers and celebrities from each decade of the queen's reign. britain says it will send long—range rocket launchers to ukraine. russia's president putin threatens to attack new targets if such weapons are handed over to kyiv. in bangladesh, exploding chemical containers hamper efforts to extinguish a huge fire at a storage depot.

and improving patient safety by making doctors and nurses