Great live page 1 this afternoon

It was 'hold the front page' time this afternoon.

The biggest story of the day - the action by BBC chiefs to take Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand off air - came in the nick of time to make the Birmingham Mail's main edition.

This was a great live change decision by deputy editor Carole Cole (I'm off for the rest of this week), with new bills, liaison with newspaper sales, immediate web upload and the rest.

But the main thing for me as editor was walking through town this afternoon watching papers fly off the stands.

A single-deck headline 'OFF AIR' positioned between cut-outs of Ross and Brand dominated page 1, leaving no-one in any doubt about what the story was.

It's going to dominate the news all tonight and throughout tomorrow - probably forming the splash in all the national tabloids.

But our readers will know that their Mail had the story immediately, as any decent metropolitan city evening should.

Very satisfying... and a predicted rise in the day's sales to boot.