TOPLINE

Each unique feed of Topline provides a snapshot of the world’s most important unfolding stories

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A BBC Partner Hub product, each unique feed of Topline provides a snapshot of the world’s most important unfolding stories, curated for U.S. audiences and made to complement your schedule and the Morning Edition® or Here & Now clock.

  • Seven 1:29 weekday morning feeds: 5:18, 6:18, 7:18, 8:18, 9:18, 10:18, 11:18 AM ET
  • Fill breaks in the morning hour or midday for a consistent global news update
  • Included in your BBC World Service affiliation

Integrating Topline

Use Topline to help you "mind your gaps" and differentiate from other news, promos, and underwriting segments. Hear how stations are integrating Topline:

With the relatively new Morning Edition clock, we have an opportunity to provide listeners with a strong mix of local, national and international content. BBC Topline has a fresh sound and presentation and encapsulates the latest world news to help KJZZ provide a broad mix of news for listeners. - Jon Hoban, KJZZ

Hosts

Rob Hugh-Jones, Rich Preston and Jonathan Frewin

Length

00:01:29 (Mono)

Resources

Program Feed Schedule

Topline is delivered via ContentDepot file transfer at 5:18, 6:18, 7:18, 8:18, 9:18, 10:18 and 11:18 AM ET each morning, Monday through Friday. The air window runs from ::18:00 - ::52:00. The length of each program is 1:30. Stations airing Topline should subscribe to the BBC Topline page in ContentDepot.

If you have questions regarding managing your subscription or how to automate Topline, please contact APM's ICC at 651-290-1563 or via email at icc@americanpublicmedia.org.

Marketing Tools

Show Logos

Don't see what you need, or need a different format? Our creative team is happy to help. Please submit a request.
Program logos and digital assets cannot be altered or co-branded (with your station logo, etc.) without APM approval. Please contact your Station Representative.

Rob Hugh-Jones

Rob Hugh-Jones is currently Editor of the BBC Partner Hub. Before that, he was Managing Editor of WNYC's The Takeaway, and Managing Editor of PRI's The World, produced with WGBH in Boston. Rob also served as The World's BBC bureau chief for several years. Rob completed his graduate studies at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, so his knowledge of the United States – and American radio audiences – runs deep.

Rob has also worked across many other parts of the BBC. He started as a local reporter in London, then various regions of the UK. He served as news bulletin writer in the BBC World Service newsroom for two years, then as Producer on Newshour, and Senior Producer on Outlook. Rob moved to BBC TV for four years, working on award-winning documentaries for BBC 1 and 2 (the primary BBC TV networks) including Panorama (the BBC's investigative current affairs flagship, which compares to PBS Frontline).

Rob has been steeped in international news for the best part of 20 years. He lived in Africa and North America as a child, and is very well travelled. He has covered numerous, momentous global news stories, including the British handover of Hong Kong in 1997, and the seminal Bonn conference in Germany right after 9/11, which plotted a way forward for the U.S., and allies in Afghanistan and beyond.

Rob and his wife Alice live south of London and have a very sporty nine-year-old son, Leo, who is crazy about football (soccer) and cricket (you know, that baseball-kind-of-game the Brits and others continue to play!).  

Rich Preston

Rich is a senior foreign news journalist and presenter, seen on BBC World TV and heard on the BBC World Service reporting international stories for audiences around the world.

Rich covers major international events and significant stories, most recently including the Trump impeachment inquiry, waves of anti-government protests across the Middle East and Europe, and was the first BBC news reporter to cover the first death from coronavirus – and continued to follow the story as it unfolded around the world.

He's worked from Europe to West Africa, and above the Arctic Circle. He previously covered western Europe, reporting some of the most significant events to shape the continent in generations, including the migrant crisis, the Scottish Independence Referendum, terror attacks in France and Belgium, and the UK’s Brexit vote.

As host of BBC Topline, Rich shares the most important global stories with listeners across the US.

 

Jonathan Frewin

After graduating from the London School of Economics, Jonathan Frewin started his career at the BBC in 2002 as a radio studio manager, working initially with language services, then moving on to the full complement of BBC World Service news programmes.

He moved into the business and economics unit a short time later, working first as a radio producer on World Business Report, then becoming features and planning editor for that programme as well as Business Daily. He was the first social media manager for BBC Business, launching the pan-departmental Facebook page in 2010, and introducing many correspondents to some of the benefits of Twitter, just as it was becoming an indispensable tool for journalists. In 2012 he moved to Dubai for two years as a self-shooting and editing TV reporter, working on the weekly BBC World News show Middle East Business Report.

After playing a role in the original founding of the BBC-Marketplace partnership, from 2014, Jonathan worked as senior producer and reporter for the arrangement, largely helping to ensure BBC content reaches American audiences through Marketplace Morning Report, including on the edition made by the BBC in London, as well as providing material for the PM edition of the show. Starting in 2022, he now works with the BBC World Service Partner Hub in London.

 

Use Topline for consistent global news updates during Morning Edition or during Here & Now.

Program Feed Schedule

Topline is delivered via ContentDepot file transfer at 5:18, 6:18, 7:18, 8:18, 9:18, 10:18 and 11:18 AM ET each morning, Monday through Friday. The air window runs from ::18:00 - ::52:00. The length of each program is 1:30. Stations airing Topline should subscribe to the BBC Topline page in ContentDepot.

If you have questions regarding managing your subscription or how to automate Topline, please contact APM's ICC at 651-290-1563 or via email at icc@americanpublicmedia.org.

Program Clock

BBC Partner Hub

The BBC Partner Hub's mission is to better serve BBC partner stations around the world. The 10-person team is based primarily in London, making and disseminating tailored radio content for stations from the United Kingdom to the Philippines, to South Africa and the U.S. The team's Washington, D.C. producer, Dave McGuire, focuses solely on U.S. stations. Together, they offer relevant, short-form, flexible, "in the minute" news content and compelling features from the BBC.  

Led by Rob Hugh-Jones since its formation in 2012, the Partner Hub's primary focus is U.S. public radio stations, with Topline new bulletins that complement Morning Edition.

Broadcast Rights

Full broadcast rights for this program can be viewed and downloaded here. Prior to carrying this series, stations must confirm carriage with American Public Media.

Audience

Topline is carried on more than 200 stations and reaches 2.7 million listeners each week*.

* Source: ACT1 Systems based on Nielsen Audio Nationwide DMA P12+ Audience Estimates, Fall 2023


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