Newsnight - Printable Version
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RE: Newsnight - DTV - 05-11-2023
(05-11-2023, 10:20 PM)interestednovice Wrote: I’m not sure of the detail of it (quotas, etc) but yes, to an extent it is.Sure, but the channel does cover UK news substantively during standard non-simulcast hours, so I doubt that the removal of any simulcasts would cause a particular issue in terms of breach of licence, which don't state any set proportions of UK-only content. Plus, given News channel simulcasts are explictly excluded from BBC One's news remit, I suspect Ofcom would take the view that simulcasts were not sufficient were that the case.
The BBC’s broadcasting licence for the NC imposes conditions that it must cover UK news. That hasn’t changed because they tried to claim the new channel was no different from the old. Ofcom said that they would be analysing what the BBC did with the channel to ensure that UK stories were “sufficiently covered”.
RE: Newsnight - interestednovice - 05-11-2023
I’m not sure that the full global feed with no opt-outs at all would be considered enough, but the regularly scheduled programming in addition to breaking news covered through opts would, I suspect, suffice. Especially if we assume they will keep simulcasting most of Breakfast, plus the One, Six and Ten.
The actual utility of simulcasts alone is, as you say, questionable. Personally I don’t think they should even count, but Ofcom appear to take a different view.
Newsnight could/should provide the missing “overview of the day/look ahead to tomorrow” that The Papers arguably used to do to an extent (the actual papers were really jumping-off points for analysis) and this is a different focus to the News at Ten. So some kind of Newsnight or Newsnight-style segment of programming is desirable at around that time.
Even though Newsnight’s viewing figures are relatively low, they are not so low that there is no audience there.
RE: Newsnight - Keith - 06-11-2023
(05-11-2023, 07:00 PM)interestednovice Wrote: The BBC’s own NC, as a now-global service, also has a different slant to bulletins and Newsnight so it is madness to think about curtailing those. A revamped 10 incorporating elements of Newsnight could work - but why do that and end up pushing regional news too late into the evening when Newsnight works better on BBC Two?I've previously posted suggesting that maybe they'd opt for a structure along the lines of...
I hesitate to say it, but if they did axe Newsnight, the BBC would also be casting about for an extra few hours a week of “premium, UK-facing content” for the NC too!
- 10.00 to 10.30: National & International news (BBC One & News channel)
- 10.30 to 10.45: Nations & English regions opt-out (BBC One), Sports bulletin (News channel)
- 10.45 to 11.00: Special/investigative reports (BBC One England & News channel), Extended nations opt-out (BBC One Scotland/Wales/NI)
This would avoid the regional news from being pushed back too far. The structure could also be followed if the One gets extended to an hour. It also minimises the loss of News Channel UK opt-outs. If the One gets extended in a similar way then I suspect the amount of UK opt-out gained would more than cover the loss of Newsnight being simulcast.
It would also potentially give the nations an extended bulletin, allowing for politics affecting the nations to be better covered along with more local news. This concession could be particularly useful politically, should they ever need to close BBC Scotland channel for cost-saving reasons (reinstating BBC Two Scotland at the same time).
RE: Newsnight - interestednovice - 06-11-2023
I personally doubt that they would close BBC Scotland as, if nothing else, they wouldn’t be able to save on distribution costs because they would pretty much have to bring back BBC Two Scotland instead, as you alluded to. Considering the fact that the programming budget is already pretty small, there is little there to cut realistically. There is a bit of an argument that Scotland is perhaps overserved by getting two extra BBC channels of it’s own though - maybe BBC Alba could be merged with BBC Scotland, perhaps to create a BBC Alba Scotland? Some programmes could be in Gaelic and some in English. Gaelic Children’s content could fill the daytime when BBC Scotland currently only broadcasts filler from Radio Scotland. Other programmes could possibly have both English and Gaelic language audio tracks, where possible. Even that idea would be unpopular though. And such a channel would struggle to accumulate Gaelic-language sports coverage which takes up a lot of BBC Alba’s broadcasting time.
The UK already has a full hour opt-out from the NC global feed at One and Six, by the way, as Sportsday is on in place of the regional news. Your idea could work but it would be a cut to the length of “Newsnight” to only 15 minutes a night, plus getting people to stay after the segment (or sit through the regional segment!) could be a problem.
It would at least have the benefit of not missing the TOTH at 11pm on the NC though, so you would actually get the Newsday headlines instead of simply crashing into the programme.
I also suspect that if the “Newsnight” element only went out in England, people would ask awkward questions about that and eventually it would be dropped as a result. It wouldn’t exactly help with promotion or viewing figures either to limit the reach. Viewers elsewhere may be annoyed at not getting to see it; viewers in England may ask why everyone else was getting “more” local news. So it would probably annoy everybody!
RE: Newsnight - JMT1985 - 06-11-2023
(06-11-2023, 09:49 AM)Keith Wrote: I've previously posted suggesting that maybe they'd opt for a structure along the lines of...
- 10.00 to 10.30: National & International news (BBC One & News channel)
- 10.30 to 10.45: Nations & English regions opt-out (BBC One), Sports bulletin (News channel)
- 10.45 to 11.00: Special/investigative reports (BBC One England & News channel), Extended nations opt-out (BBC One Scotland/Wales/NI)
This would avoid the regional news from being pushed back too far. The structure could also be followed if the One gets extended to an hour. It also minimises the loss of News Channel UK opt-outs. If the One gets extended in a similar way then I suspect the amount of UK opt-out gained would more than cover the loss of Newsnight being simulcast.
It would also potentially give the nations an extended bulletin, allowing for politics affecting the nations to be better covered along with more local news. This concession could be particularly useful politically, should they ever need to close BBC Scotland channel for cost-saving reasons (reinstating BBC Two Scotland at the same time).
If BBC One did chose to opt for a one hour of news at 10pm the only show which I see affected could be Graham Norton's show on a Friday which has been pushed to a slightly later slot of 10.40pm now already - Graham would be moved to 11pm and probably his audience would be reduced even further.
RE: Newsnight - Keith - 06-11-2023
(06-11-2023, 02:15 PM)JMT1985 Wrote: If BBC One did chose to opt for a one hour of news at 10pm the only show which I see affected could be Graham Norton's show on a Friday which has been pushed to a slightly later slot of 10.40pm now already - Graham would be moved to 11pm and probably his audience would be reduced even further.Potentially they could opt for the Ten being an hour only Mon to Thurs, with Friday's being as per present.
Alternatively, they could consider moving Graham Norton's show to Saturday night at a similar time, which might help bulk out the Saturday night schedules. I suspect the main reason they've avoided doing this is historically it would have clashed with Jonathon Ross' chat show. Similarly, with Question Time now it's shown live on iPlayer at 8pm there's no reason why that couldn't either move to BBC Two or be shown at 11pm.
RE: Newsnight - DTV - 06-11-2023
(06-11-2023, 10:23 AM)interestednovice Wrote: I also suspect that if the “Newsnight” element only went out in England, people would ask awkward questions about that and eventually it would be dropped as a result. It wouldn’t exactly help with promotion or viewing figures either to limit the reach. Viewers elsewhere may be annoyed at not getting to see it; viewers in England may ask why everyone else was getting “more” local news. So it would probably annoy everybody!My alternative view of an imaginary News at Ten-Newsnight hybrid would be less 'segregated' - with around three stories being given an 'in-depth' semi-Newsnight-esque treatment (extra analysis, maybe one interview per programme), with some standard 2' intro+VT stories being included between them. There might be some concern of a slowed programme, but given how long the lead story can get on the Ten these days, it's not especially radical.
I do agree, though, with Keith's idea for England opting back in, while the nations stay opted out - potentially with their own 'harder', more politics focussed programme (potentially allowing you to 'rationalise' existing standalone current affairs programmes in the nations). Of course, they did experiment with the three nations having their own Newsnight opts in the early 2000s, with only Scotland having any longevity, but they suffered from being duplicative of existing news bulletins and politics programmes (which would not be such an issue in this scenario).
Separation would also allow the residual English programme to cover England-wide but England-only issues (education, health, etc.), as well as focus on particular regional stories (to make up for decreased function on News channel) and potentially airing the odd regional investigative report (as a sop to axed Inside Out/We Are England).
RE: Newsnight - LargelyALurker - 06-11-2023
(06-11-2023, 03:14 PM)DTV Wrote: My alternative view of an imaginary News at Ten-Newsnight hybrid would be less 'segregated' - with around three stories being given an 'in-depth' semi-Newsnight-esque treatment (extra analysis, maybe one interview per programme), with some standard 2' intro+VT stories being included between them. There might be some concern of a slowed programme, but given how long the lead story can get on the Ten these days, it's not especially radical.
I do agree, though, with Keith's idea for England opting back in, while the nations stay opted out - potentially with their own 'harder', more politics focussed programme (potentially allowing you to 'rationalise' existing standalone current affairs programmes in the nations). Of course, they did experiment with the three nations having their own Newsnight opts in the early 2000s, with only Scotland having any longevity, but they suffered from being duplicative of existing news bulletins and politics programmes (which would not be such an issue in this scenario).
Separation would also allow the residual English programme to cover England-wide but England-only issues (education, health, etc.), as well as focus on particular regional stories (to make up for decreased function on News channel) and potentially airing the odd regional investigative report (as a sop to axed Inside Out/We Are England).
I never knew there was an equivalent of Newsnight Scotland in the other non-England nations. Is that definitely the case? Google isn't coming up with anything except complaints in Wales that one doesn't exist.
RE: Newsnight - DTV - 06-11-2023
(06-11-2023, 09:49 PM)LargelyALurker Wrote: I never knew there was an equivalent of Newsnight Scotland in the other non-England nations. Is that definitely the case? Google isn't coming up with anything except complaints in Wales that one doesn't exist.Yes, national opt-outs for all three nations were launched in October 1999, opting out at the TOTH news summary that Newsnight then did. Not sure whether the Scottish opt originally had the same format and was only extended to the full 20 minutes later, but the Welsh and Northern Irish opts were only around 7 minutes and usually only contained a news summary and a single item before opting back in to the main programme. Not sure how long they lasted, but it was at least a good few months.
The Welsh opt was called Wales at Eleven rather than using the Newsnight brand. It initially used a version of the generic Wales Today branding, but lasted long enough to get its own titles. The Newsnight Wales brand was, however, used for one-off opt-outs during later election campaigns.
An article from Broadcast Now (I don't have access) from the time: https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/newsnight-national-opt-outs-start-on-monday/1221105.article
RE: Newsnight - Brekkie - 06-11-2023
The Wales at Eleven titles were great at the time, though not sure they've aged well.
https://youtu.be/81B-jF1yJ3M?si=Er93McSotlAFER8J