Long-time weather presenter Carol Kirkwood has spoken about the emergence of other news channels, saying that the competition from them “keeps you sharp”.
The BBC Breakfast presenter spoke to RadioTimes.com for an exclusive interview ahead of BBC Breakfast’s 40th anniversary, and revealed that she feels “it’s good to have competition”.
Talking about the emergence of GB News and Talk TV, she said: “I think that’s just what’s going to happen in future isn’t it? And it’s good to have competition, if you want to call it that, because it keeps you sharp.”
She explained: “You want to be on top of your game if there’s other people out there who are doing the same thing. But because they are on at the same time as me in the morning I don’t get to see them. So I would be pretending if I said I knew what they were doing, and that’s terrible, but really, it’s really busy.
“Because when I’m not on air I’m looking at the weather and the observations, I’m looking at the weather watchers’ pictures, I’m looking at where the radar is, I’m looking at the gusts of wind or whatever, so I’ve got my head down from the moment I get in.”
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Speaking about the ratings rivalry between BBC Breakfast and ITV’s Good Morning Britain, she also added: “I don’t have the time!
“I work by myself so I’m producing all the graphics and running in and out of the studio and answering the phone and all the rest of it so I don’t even know what the other channel is doing to be honest because I’m too busy. So I certainly don’t feel it. I don’t know if the others do; you’d have to ask.”
Kirkwood is the longest-serving member of the BBC Breakfast team, joining the show as a weather presenter in 1997. Although the breakfast show has seen many presenter changes over the years, Kirkwood explained that people remain loyal to BBC Breakfast because of its “blend of news and stories”.
“Everything is still topical,” she told RadioTimes.com. “The first thing if you tune in you’ll get the news headlines, you’ll get the weather, you’ll get the sport headline, you’ll get business headlines, so you can grab everything that you want from it if you’ve only got a couple of minutes at the top of the hour.”
Additional reporting by James Hibbs.
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