Accents on TV

I'm watching the BBC documentary Coast hosted by a Scotsman Neil Oliver. He speaks English with a very obvious Scottish accent. Although I love the accent, I find it rather unusual for a national TV presenter to speak with such a strong accent.

Do other news/radio presenters in the UK also speak with their own accents? Say, can someone reading the news on BBC speak with a Liverpool accent? Or has Scottish accent a special status? How about the (northern) Irish? Any others?

This may be a stupid question but at least on our national television all the presenters speak some kind of accent-neutral language. Exceptions are allowed on regional programmes or when they emphasise the accent. They would never ever present news or host a (serious) TV show speaking with a strong accent.

Do other news/radio presenters in the UK also speak with their own accents? Say, can someone reading the news on BBC speak with a Liverpool accent? Or has Scottish accent a special status? How about the (northern) Irish? Any others?

Scottish and Welsh accents definitely have a special status that accents from other regions don't enjoy (especially at the national level). There are a number of newsreaders/broadcasters with Scottish accents - fewer with obvious Welsh accents - but few if none with Scouse/Brummie/Geordie/Mancunian etc. accents broadcasting at the national level (for light entertainment, yes - but not for 'serious' news programmes).

There's a drive at the BBC to increase (further) the use of regional accents. See here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1575790/BBC-chief-calls-for-more-regional-accents.html

This may be a stupid question but at least on our national television all the presenters speak some kind of accent-neutral language.

If this isn't a troll it ought to be.

There are a large percentage of Northern Irish news presenters on the BBC, ITV and Sky.

Although most tone down the accent to be more "generic"

e.g Eamon Holmes and Maxine Mawhinney on Sky, Mark Simpson and Lance Armstorng on BBC, Nicolas Witchell etc

I think there should be more regional accents, especially on 'serious' programmes.

I remember living in Newcastle upon Tyne and when the local weather was on, the map was marked with "us" at Geordieland..................brilliant :-)

BBC Radio 4 has a wonderful West Indian continuity announcer whose voice is so rich he sounds like he must be an opera singer in his spare time. There were quite a lot of complaints when he started, but fortunately the BBC quite correctly ignored them.

John Cole was the BBC's political editor from 1981-92, and he has a very strong Belfast accent. Private Eye, a satirical magazine, used to have a regular column of unintelligible "reports" satirising him: they all started "Hondootedly Mossus Thatcher...."

Terry Christian is a Mancunian TV presenter, who came to prominence with Channel 4's "The Word" in 1990. He was jokingly referred to as "a professional northener" at the time. But this career progression resulted in him consorting with lots of southerners, and his accent weakened.

I really can't think of a TV/radio presenter with a Brummie accent. Even when I lived in Birmingham, the local newsreaders on the TV didn't seem to have one.

I really can't think of a TV/radio presenter with a Brummie accent.

Adrian Chiles and Cat Deeley? Not particularly strong but still detectable. And of course, there are always the comedians (e.g. Jasper Carrott).

What accent does BBC's Alan Johnston have?

Adrian Chiles sounds very Midlands to me.

Neil Oliver is an archaeologist and historian who researches, writes and devises (with a team of course) the programmes as well as presenting them. He's not just a front man.

Most people here have more of a problem with his hair than his accent.

Most people here have more of a problem with his hair than his accent.

Funny - I personally found the orange hair of one of the women (Alice?) far more disturbing.

The following may not belong here but it's not worth a thread of its own (assuming it's worth posting at all, which is doubtful.)

The other night on the BBC World Service I heard an announcer refer to a Kay Production or a K-production and I had time to wonder what that was before the context made it clear that he was trying to say co-production.

He wasn't a newsreader, but the host of some program of specific interest, I forget what. He had the sort of London-area hip young pseudo working class accent in which little comes out as li'iw. It struck me because British pronunciation hardly ever throws me at all (not counting rural Cumberland and the like).

It struck me because British pronunciation hardly ever throws me at all (not counting rural Cumberland and the like).

It does me! In the past I've heard people speaking 'thick' Scouse and Geordie and wondered which part of Europe (ie outside the UK) they were from.

I haven't heard that many thick British accents I guess, stormboy.

I probably overstated things. What I meant is that accents of Brits who are being paid to speak understandably hardly ever throw me even for a second or two, as this guy's long o's did.

The widest range of accents you'll hear frequently in UK broadcasting come from footballers , football managers and commentators.

Once your ears are tuned into the regular pronouncements of Sir Alex Ferguson, Fabio Capello, Arsène Wenger, Rafa Benítez, Davie Moyles, Harry Redknapp, Gordon Strachan, Alex McLeish, Gianfranco Zola, Csaba László et al you'll never struggle with an accent again!

A Glaswegian secretary of mine once asked me "Andrew - how do you spell oatweed?"

I said I'd never heard the word. Assuming a botanical term, I guessed O-A-T W-E-E-D.

"No" she said, "I meant as in the advantages oatweed the disadvantages".

BBC Radio 4 has a wonderful West Indian continuity announcer whose voice is so rich he sounds like he must be an opera singer in his spare time. There were quite a lot of complaints when he started, but fortunately the BBC quite correctly ignored them.

Even now when I hear him, and notwithstanding the various accents on the BBC these days, I hear him as a breath of fresh air.