"The real winner is the pie."

TV Sometimes watching a main news programme on any of the channels, for all the dayglo sets and sunny dispositions of the presenters can be a depressing shame. The BBC utilises The One Show as a kind of silo for the stories which they don't deem cutting edge enough for the 6 or 10 o'clock, but there's a general lack of balance and a sense that unless someone's died, seriously injured or a politician it's not news.

Ironically BFBS News, currently on the Information TV channel on satellite offers a counter approach. While it's true it offers its fair share of what you'd expect, there's also a useful genre of sunnier stories, in which service personnel are seen doing good turns or with good things happening to them.

Presented generally by Kate Gerbeau (formerly of Five News and Watchdog and formerly Kate Sanderson until she married the man synonymous with the Millenium Dome), there's just a greater sense of offer the whole human experience.  It's very rare that the kinds of things which do balance the main news like arts and culture updates are pushed out of the edges as they often seem to in the mainstream.

Here's a link to a classic piece of BFBS whimsey from last night. It's about the Great British Pie Awards, an event with the 6 or 10 or national BBC News in general would never cover and worth watching at least for the resident expert whose intense interest in both the competition and pies makes it impossible for you not go want to go out and buy once straight away. As he says, "The real winner is the pie."

The whole programme is available to stream here as are all of BFBS's programmes.