BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger - Printable Version

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+--- Thread: BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger (/showthread.php?tid=103)

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RE: BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger - Radio_man - 19-02-2023

(19-02-2023, 11:37 PM)News76 Wrote:  I'd say yes to that but make it up to Midnight making it 9:00am-midnight 7 days a weeks.

Are you going to pay for this service yourself?

As DTV says, a reality check is needed here. The merger is happening because there's no more money left in the news budget. The pot is empty. The license fee has been frozen, and cut in real terms, for well over a decade. 
The merger plans are a compromise to keep a linear TV news channel going for UK viewers. The other option is to close the BBC's UK linear TV news service completely, which I'm sure was considered. 
But to think that by the end if the year, we'll get a 2012 level BBC News Channel again is living in a fantasy world.

If you feel so strongly about this, write to your MP, demanding that the license fee is significantly increased, and to complain about how the cuts of the last 10+ years have hollowed out BBC news.

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RE: BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger - News76 - 20-02-2023

(19-02-2023, 11:56 PM)Radio_man Wrote:  

(19-02-2023, 11:37 PM)News76 Wrote:  I'd say yes to that but make it up to Midnight making it 9:00am-midnight 7 days a weeks.

Are you going to pay for this service yourself?

As DTV says, a reality check is needed here. The merger is happening because there's no more money left in the news budget. The pot is empty. The license fee has been frozen, and cut in real terms, for well over a decade. 
The merger plans are a compromise to keep a linear TV news channel going for UK viewers. The other option is to close the BBC's UK linear TV news service completely, which I'm sure was considered. 
But to think that by the end if the year, we'll get a 2012 level BBC News Channel again is living in a fantasy world.

If you feel so strongly about this, write to your MP, demanding that the license fee is significantly increased, and to complain about how the cuts of the last 10+ years have hollowed out BBC news.

And some people here will be getting "reality check" followed by "I told you so" from me when this merger/compromise does crash and burn so don't expect me to back down on this, i don't care if i live in fantasy land or the only person on here who has this opinion, it's what needs to happen-Good night!

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RE: BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger - Radio_man - 20-02-2023

(20-02-2023, 12:01 AM)News76 Wrote:  

(19-02-2023, 11:56 PM)Radio_man Wrote:  Are you going to pay for this service yourself?

As DTV says, a reality check is needed here. The merger is happening because there's no more money left in the news budget. The pot is empty. The license fee has been frozen, and cut in real terms, for well over a decade. 
The merger plans are a compromise to keep a linear TV news channel going for UK viewers. The other option is to close the BBC's UK linear TV news service completely, which I'm sure was considered. 
But to think that by the end if the year, we'll get a 2012 level BBC News Channel again is living in a fantasy world.

If you feel so strongly about this, write to your MP, demanding that the license fee is significantly increased, and to complain about how the cuts of the last 10+ years have hollowed out BBC news.

And some people here will be getting "reality check" followed by "I told you so" from me when this merger/compromise does crash and burn so don't expect me to back down on this, i don't care if i live in fantasy land or the only person on here who has this opinion, it's what needs to happen-Good night!

So where's the money coming from? The BBC is not a charity. If you cannot grasp the fact that the BBC needs funding to run a service........

If the merger is judged to be a failure, then the most likely outcome will be the closure of the linear TV news channel in the UK, with World News being saved, and maybe a full World News channel being made available to UK viewers on iPlayer with breakfillers and promos instead of adverts.

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RE: BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger - DTV - 20-02-2023

(20-02-2023, 12:01 AM)News76 Wrote:  And some people here will be getting "reality check" followed by "I told you so" from me when this merger/compromise does crash and burn so don't expect me to back down on this, i don't care if i live in fantasy land or the only person on here who has this opinion, it's what needs to happen-Good night!

Look, nobody is saying that the merger is going to be amazing - based on what we know, pretty much the best-case scenario is that the new channel is not-terrible. But that's the situation the BBC is in - they need to make £500m in annual savings. For scale, the closure of the News channel will merely plug 10% of that funding gap. These cuts aren't a trim being made maliciously, but a radical restructuring out of existential necessity.

Now, you can not like that, you can think that the proposals for the merger aren't great or could reasonably be better - this is a forum, we're all entitled to an opinion. But I'm a bit bored of the somewhat selfish 'the service/programmes I use and like should be exempted from cuts' attitude (or in your case 'should get a sigificant funding increase'). That's not really reasonable when talking about unavoidable cuts of this scale, especially when talking about a supplementary service that has historically seen below average cuts.

Also, while you are entitled to believe that the outcome of the channel being seen to fail will be a wholesale reversal of all changes since 2015, I think it is right that any belief this is actually plausible is labelled fantasistal. While there is undoubtedly some level of an increased UK service that could appear if the new channel's UK offering is deemed insufficient, it just isn't going to be on the scale of even a return to the channel as it is today. There just won't be the money or the staff. Without a significant and unforseeable turnaround in BBC finances, the best you'll be able to hope for is something involving a different utilisation what is left of the BBC's UK news resources after April.

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RE: BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger - ViridianFan - 20-02-2023

I know from my view a lot of it comes down to frustration and general annoyance that the BBC has been put in this position in the first place due to politicians basically punishing the BBC. I find somewhere like this useful to see others who share the same feelings and don’t look at you as family members do when you start ranting about it!

I think what I find hardest is watching what was once something I used daily become something I can’t watch anymore. That’s nothing to do with those on screen but as it just feels like it’s trying to please everyone and not managing it if that makes sense. It feels very disjointed.

I think there would be equal frustration from world viewers if the merger had been the other way round and the domestic news channel was effectively saved at the cost of the world news channel. I know this wouldn’t be the case due to the revenue world news brings in.

I do think it feels harsh (for want of a better expression) on the uk viewer that to start with the talk was of merger and yet the outcome especially when we look at the appointments made feel like a closing down of the news channel with all the faces that have been so associated with news 24 loosing out to world.

As many people have said, the signs going on what’s happened recently aren’t looking too hopeful. Personally I think neither audience is going to get out of the news channel what they want.

I also fear also that this UK breaking news opt out is either going to be rarely used and then dropped or not used at all. Or it will be of such poor standard with someone sat on the balcony that actually it does a discredit to the staff working so hard.

I like others on here would love to see a return to the news 24 days however I am well aware that it’s extremely unlikely to ever happen without a massive funding increase. That doesn’t mean I wont stop wishing for it, I just accept its not going to happen.

I will end by saying I do really hope they manage to pull of something which works. Something which managed to satisfy both audiences but i am not holding out much hope as the two audiences have such different wants I fear it may be too bigger difference to bridge.

(Also sorry for the amount of “I think”s. Brain isn’t firing on full power yet today!)

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RE: BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger - all new phil - 20-02-2023

I just can’t get my head around posters here thinking that something should continue to be funded at levels that don’t reflect its value. The fact is that people consume news differently to how they did 15 years ago. I really think it needs to be understood that the fondness (for want of a better word) that some have here for the news channel is massively out of step with the wider public, and focusing its resources in the right places (app, online, social media, podcasts) is 100% the right thing for the BBC to do.

They could plough millions into the news channel, it still wouldn’t change habits which are increasingly moving away from linear channels for news consumption.

Never thought I’d be quoting Hairspray here, but “you can fight it, or you can rock out to it.” In other words - embrace where things are going rather than trying to cling onto where they were.

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RE: BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger - Worzel - 20-02-2023

Pilots are apparently beginning for the new channel today, if yesterday's Sunday Times article is correct.

Is World News still coming from studio C today as I would've thought they'd decamp World News to a different studio to allow pilots to take place? I notice there was some speculation on here about the new channel launching from C in the interim while studio E and the newsroom is refitted. That was based on the 'relocating the channel from the basement to the newsroom' line.

My guess remains. I reckon the channel will soft launch in A with a VR render of what the new studio E will eventually look like to make the transition a bit more seamless.

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RE: BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger - Newsroom - 20-02-2023

(20-02-2023, 01:07 PM)Worzel Wrote:  So today pilots are apparently beginning for the new channel, if yesterday's The Sunday Times article is correct.

Is World News still coming from studio C today as I would've thought they'd move World News elsewhere ti allow for pilots. I notice there was some speculation on here about the new channel launching from C in the interim while studio E and the newsroom is refitted.

My guess remains. I reckon the channel will soft launch in A with a VR render of what the new studio E will eventually look like to make the transition a bit more seamless.

World are indeed in C today.

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RE: BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger - Moz - 20-02-2023

(20-02-2023, 01:07 PM)Worzel Wrote:  My guess remains. I reckon the channel will soft launch in A with a VR render of what the new studio E will eventually look like to make the transition a bit more seamless.

Any chance you could repeat that a few more times. I’m not absolutely clear on what you think’s going to happen.

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RE: BBC News Channel/BBC World News Merger - all new phil - 20-02-2023

(20-02-2023, 01:07 PM)Worzel Wrote:  My guess remains. I reckon the channel will soft launch in A with a VR render of what the new studio E will eventually look like to make the transition a bit more seamless.

They can barely make a VR render of an existing set look good, what chances have they got with one that doesn’t even exist yet?

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