BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger - Printable Version

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RE: BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger - DTV - 10-03-2023

(10-03-2023, 11:17 PM)Worzel Wrote:  The BBC do it with the One now where the network presenter stays on but why not for the Six and Ten? There's no real reason why the BBC One presenter can't stay on to finish off the back half hours at those times? You'd then end up squeezing out 3 full hours on UK-focussed news at relatively peak times.

The problem, though, is that they've merged the network and London studio teams for the Six and Ten, so it's no longer possible to have them stay on for a full hour without separating London off again. Though, of course, there's no reason that the presenter and gallery teams could not also produce other hours. And, as you suggest, there are clearly teams that could be utilised better. I guess the current exceptions around the One are due to it being perceived as the junior, straighter bulletin.

The old Ten O'Clock Newshour was always a bit of a weird mess, especially considering they did explictly market it as a whole hour programme. I guess they didn't want to keep the Ten presenter too long, but the back-half was not particularly strenuous - they did the BOTH headlines, introduced Sportsday, then did the quarter to headlines, introduced Business news, then finished with a short paper review before handing to the weather.

(10-03-2023, 11:28 PM)Kojak Wrote:  Though saying that, it might be good if perhaps whoever was down for each network bulletin did an hour of UK news before (say, 11-12, 3-4, 8-9?). Just an idea - I haven't really thought it through.

EDIT: I see Kojak has made similar points, though I think you could replace Politics Live with a two-hour politics-focussed BBC News from Westminster, have the One presenter do three-hours from B (with Sportsday covering BBC London), then have the Six and Ten presenters do an hour each. That way you have six-and-a-half extra hours all using existing teams.

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RE: BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger - Kojak - 10-03-2023

(10-03-2023, 11:30 PM)Worzel Wrote:  

(10-03-2023, 11:28 PM)Kojak Wrote:  Well, no, you're absolutely right. After the move to N6, Peter Sissons insisted on presenting any network bulletins that fell during his NC shift, which made perfect sense, and as you say, should have been done across the board. He thought the same as you do - that the 'musical chairs' thing was pointless. 

I think the reason what you suggest can't be done with the Six or Ten is that BBC London comes from the same studio? It would probably be a tall order to power up studio C for 25 minutes and have the presenter rush there with such a short lead time. Though saying that, it might be good if perhaps whoever was down for each network bulletin did an hour of UK news before (say, 11-12, 3-4, 8-9?). Just an idea - I haven't really thought it through.

Sorry, edited my post. I added a piece about moving BBC London to studio D.

I never knew Peter Sissons insisted on doing that - kudos to him!

He wrote about it in his memoirs (HIGHLY recommended BTW - a great read).

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RE: BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger - Worzel - 10-03-2023

(10-03-2023, 11:36 PM)interestednovice Wrote:  

(10-03-2023, 11:17 PM)Worzel Wrote:  But that sort of thing is not unique to now.

Take when the News channel moved to N6 and shared with the national news from 2008. You'd end up with the 'BBC Ten O'clock News Hour' being half presented by the network presenter on BBC One and then the other half by the evening News channel presenter with the rather awkward half past pause, and... 'now with the rest of the Ten O'clock news hour here's Chris Eakin etc'. Why the network presenter couldn't stay on to finish the back half hour never made sense.

Then (up until recently) you'd have the silliness of a weekend network bulletin going out at 17:20, with a separate presenter coming in to read almost the same set of stories that the news channel presenter had just read out for all of 10 minutes. When the network bulletin started at 17:05 you were often treated to the same headline sequence done twice within 5 minutes, read by 2 different presenters! There was always opportunities to make cutbacks if needed right there, but it was never done.

The BBC do it with the One now where the network presenter stays on but why not for the Six and Ten? There's no real reason why the BBC One presenter can't stay on to finish off the back half hours at those times? You'd then end up squeezing out 3 full hours on UK-focussed news at relatively peak times.

The BBC never really learnt anything from how the ITV News Channel did things where the ITV network presenter would often stay on to back-fill the channel saying something like 'join me/us over the ITV News channel in a few minutes when we'll be talking about X, Y, and Z'.

I suspect it's all down to internal politics!

These are seriously valid points and I really expected the BBC to look more closely than they appeared to before going for the “nuclear option” of what is effectively a NC closure in favour of WN. There were, and continue to be, seemingly easy ways of producing additional output for little additional cost.

It must have also cut costs to have used the same presenter for the 6 and 10 bulletins, as they did for the pandemic, and it makes sense given that the two are largely similar broadcasts these days. Again, the 1 being a NC production clearly opens up opportunity for an extended coverage of some sort to be done on the cheap. Why not? The BBC just don’t appear to have addressed these ideas at all. At the very least, the Six and Ten presenter should stay on for the rest of the hour (as you rightly say). The One presenter already does this, so why not the 6 and 10? At least we would be spared the “guide dogs time” of 22:40 every night! It’s like the new CBeebies Bedtime hour, but for adults!

Also, I think other than Sir Trev, all of the main ITV News presenters appeared on the ITV News channel covering shifts, or back filling hours. 

Now, other than Huw Edwards presenting the 5, name which other 'network' faces would appear regularly on the News channel? Huw would present the 5 when he was rota'd to do the 10 - but yet when George, Sophie, Mishal and Fiona Bruce were down to do the 10, they never did the 5. Nothing against them, but it never seemed right and no explanation was ever given.

We hear the BBC need to make cutbacks and Tim Davie says about people getting 'value for money', there were really obvious areas of News channel/network (presenter) duplication which could've been addressed - especially when the output was coming from the same studio - long ago but weren't and now we're in an even worse situation.

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RE: BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger - DTV - 10-03-2023

(10-03-2023, 11:49 PM)Worzel Wrote:  Now, other than Huw Edwards presenting the 5, name which other 'network' faces would appear regularly on the News channel? Huw would present the 5 when he was rota'd to do the 10 - but yet George, Sophie, Mishal and Fiona Bruce never did. Nothing against them, but it never seemed right and no explanation was ever given.

Alagiah and Husain both did World programmes for several years and, to be honest, Huw (particularly in later years) only did the Five sometimes, even when presenting the Ten.

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RE: BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger - Kojak - 10-03-2023

(10-03-2023, 11:49 PM)Worzel Wrote:  

(10-03-2023, 11:36 PM)interestednovice Wrote:  These are seriously valid points and I really expected the BBC to look more closely than they appeared to before going for the “nuclear option” of what is effectively a NC closure in favour of WN. There were, and continue to be, seemingly easy ways of producing additional output for little additional cost.

It must have also cut costs to have used the same presenter for the 6 and 10 bulletins, as they did for the pandemic, and it makes sense given that the two are largely similar broadcasts these days. Again, the 1 being a NC production clearly opens up opportunity for an extended coverage of some sort to be done on the cheap. Why not? The BBC just don’t appear to have addressed these ideas at all. At the very least, the Six and Ten presenter should stay on for the rest of the hour (as you rightly say). The One presenter already does this, so why not the 6 and 10? At least we would be spared the “guide dogs time” of 22:40 every night! It’s like the new CBeebies Bedtime hour, but for adults!

Also, I think other than Sir Trev, all of the main ITV News presenters appeared on the ITV News channel covering shifts, or back filling hours. 

Now, other than Huw Edwards presenting the 5, name which other 'network' faces would appear regularly on the News channel? Huw would present the 5 when he was rota'd to do the 10 - but yet George, Sophie, Mishal and Fiona Bruce never did. Nothing against them, but it never seemed right and no explanation was ever given.

We hear the BBC need to make cutbacks and Tim Davie says about people getting 'value for money', there were really obvious areas of News channel/network (presenter) duplication which could've been addressed - especially when the output was coming from the same studio - long ago but weren't and now we're in this even worse situation.

Yeah, you're right - I think everyone (except Sir Trev, of course!) at ITV News did stints on the NC. Nicholas Owen (or Katie Derham, if she was on that day) would usually host the 1-2 hour straight after the Lunchtime News, and post-February 2004, Mark and Mary regularly did 3-4pm. And Alastair Stewart would do his show from 10am, then stay on for London Tonight at 6. 

Back to the Beeb - wasn't Sophie a fairly regular fill-in around 2007-8? ISTR now and again she would do the One and then stay on to do the afternoon shift on 24 (as it was known back then!). @Newsroom pointed out many times on the old forums that Fiona must have it in her contract to not appear on the News Channel, which would make sense as she has never, EVER done so. George and Mishal both had shows on World for several years as well.

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RE: BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger - Worzel - 11-03-2023

(10-03-2023, 11:56 PM)Kojak Wrote:  

(10-03-2023, 11:49 PM)Worzel Wrote:  Also, I think other than Sir Trev, all of the main ITV News presenters appeared on the ITV News channel covering shifts, or back filling hours. 

Now, other than Huw Edwards presenting the 5, name which other 'network' faces would appear regularly on the News channel? Huw would present the 5 when he was rota'd to do the 10 - but yet George, Sophie, Mishal and Fiona Bruce never did. Nothing against them, but it never seemed right and no explanation was ever given.

We hear the BBC need to make cutbacks and Tim Davie says about people getting 'value for money', there were really obvious areas of News channel/network (presenter) duplication which could've been addressed - especially when the output was coming from the same studio - long ago but weren't and now we're in this even worse situation.

Yeah, you're right - I think everyone (except Sir Trev, of course!) at ITV News did stints on the NC. Nicholas Owen (or Katie Derham, if she was on that day) would usually host the 1-2 hour straight after the Lunchtime News, and post-February 2004, Mark and Mary regularly did 3-4pm. And Alastair Stewart would do his show from 10am, then stay on for London Tonight at 6. 

Back to the Beeb - wasn't Sophie a fairly regular fill-in around 2007-8? ISTR now and again she would do the One and then stay on to do the afternoon shift on 24 (as it was known back then!). @Newsroom pointed out many times on the old forums that Fiona must have it in her contract to not appear on the News Channel, which would make sense as she has never, EVER done so. George and Mishal both had shows on World for several years as well.

Re. Sophie Raworth she did cover some afternoon shifts (notably with Jon Sopel) around 2007 when I seem to recall reading somewhere that there was a push to get more network faces on the channel. 

This was around the time when Huw started to present what became 'The BBC News at 5 o'clock' (as was) on BBC News 24.

George Alagiah did appear on News 24 during the Iraq war as he double-headed a couple of weekend mornings alongside Maxine Mawhinney.

Wasn't Deborah Turness at ITV News when the 2005 revamp took place and the ITV News channel started sharing much more in the way of network staff/presenters? With her now at the helm of BBC News I'm quite surprised a similar strategy hasn't been adopted?

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RE: BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger - Frances - 11-03-2023

(10-03-2023, 11:49 PM)Worzel Wrote:  

(10-03-2023, 11:36 PM)interestednovice Wrote:  These are seriously valid points and I really expected the BBC to look more closely than they appeared to before going for the “nuclear option” of what is effectively a NC closure in favour of WN. There were, and continue to be, seemingly easy ways of producing additional output for little additional cost.

It must have also cut costs to have used the same presenter for the 6 and 10 bulletins, as they did for the pandemic, and it makes sense given that the two are largely similar broadcasts these days. Again, the 1 being a NC production clearly opens up opportunity for an extended coverage of some sort to be done on the cheap. Why not? The BBC just don’t appear to have addressed these ideas at all. At the very least, the Six and Ten presenter should stay on for the rest of the hour (as you rightly say). The One presenter already does this, so why not the 6 and 10? At least we would be spared the “guide dogs time” of 22:40 every night! It’s like the new CBeebies Bedtime hour, but for adults!

Also, I think other than Sir Trev, all of the main ITV News presenters appeared on the ITV News channel covering shifts, or back filling hours. 

Now, other than Huw Edwards presenting the 5, name which other 'network' faces would appear regularly on the News channel? Huw would present the 5 when he was rota'd to do the 10 - but yet when George, Sophie, Mishal and Fiona Bruce were down to do the 10, they never did the 5. Nothing against them, but it never seemed right and no explanation was ever given.

We hear the BBC need to make cutbacks and Tim Davie says about people getting 'value for money', there were really obvious areas of News channel/network (presenter) duplication which could've been addressed - especially when the output was coming from the same studio - long ago but weren't and now we're in an even worse situation.

The 5 was once branded BBC Five O’Clock News with Huw Edwards on EPG and website. I guess it’s because normally the 1700 hour was most-watched on NC so they made a programme for Huw?

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RE: BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger - Kojak - 11-03-2023

(11-03-2023, 12:18 AM)Frances Wrote:  

(10-03-2023, 11:49 PM)Worzel Wrote:  Also, I think other than Sir Trev, all of the main ITV News presenters appeared on the ITV News channel covering shifts, or back filling hours. 

Now, other than Huw Edwards presenting the 5, name which other 'network' faces would appear regularly on the News channel? Huw would present the 5 when he was rota'd to do the 10 - but yet when George, Sophie, Mishal and Fiona Bruce were down to do the 10, they never did the 5. Nothing against them, but it never seemed right and no explanation was ever given.

We hear the BBC need to make cutbacks and Tim Davie says about people getting 'value for money', there were really obvious areas of News channel/network (presenter) duplication which could've been addressed - especially when the output was coming from the same studio - long ago but weren't and now we're in an even worse situation.

The 5 was once branded BBC Five O’Clock News with Huw Edwards on EPG and website. I guess it’s because normally the 1700 hour was most-watched on NC so they made a programme for Huw?

I think it was a response to Sky's then-newly revamped Live at Five programme with Jeremy Thompson. That had its own branding and agenda ('five more reasons to watch Live at Five', anyone?) so presumably the Beeb thought 'anything you can do, we can do better' and brought Huw in at 5pm, branding that hour like one of the network bulletins.

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(11-03-2023, 12:06 AM)Worzel Wrote:  Wasn't Deborah Turness at ITV News when the 2005 revamp took place and the ITV News channel started sharing much more in the way of network staff/presenters? With her now at the helm of BBC News I'm quite surprised a similar strategy hasn't been adopted?

Strictly speaking, it was David Mannion in charge when that revamp took place. You may have a point about Turness, though I don't know how much is up to her and how much may be overruled by people at the very top (or even people below her doing things under her nose!).

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RE: BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger - matthieu1221 - 11-03-2023

(10-03-2023, 08:22 PM)Newsroom Wrote:  How on earth can this new service even become a reality?

Celia Hatton is presenting the 7pm GMT hour on an evening when regardless of how you deem your news values - at home in the UK - the Linekar/BBC story is the biggest story period! It is leading on the Linekar story!!!!

Ridiculous! Who the F£(K cares outside of the UK???

This is of NO relevance to anyone outside of the UK.

Arguably it does matter because bigger issues are at play here but it should be put into a package and contextualised. Same with a lot of potential domestic UK stories.

At the moment, I think the international audience is struggling to follow what's going on.

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RE: BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger - James2001 - 11-03-2023

They just should show the guide dogs film again rather than confuse the international audience

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