[Rolling News]

I've grown to really like Shaun Ley over the last few years. I really hope we still see him in some capacity from next week, or if not, best wishes to him!

EDIT: just watched back and he said he'll be back at the weekend.

[News76]

In fact this had better not be for him, Annita McVeigh , Martine Croxall Geeta Guru-Murthy, Ben Brown, Ros Atkins and others (Quote) So Long, Farewell Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye. www.youtube.com 

[JamesWorldNews]

Ros Atkins is back.

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[ginnyfan]

Makes sense he presents the final editions of HIS program.

[thePineapple]

Ros Atkins is back.

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In my opinion, it's so much more watchable when he presents. OS seems to have lost its way recently, becoming basically a normal news bulletin except with only one static shot. But tonight, as with when Ros presented regularly, it is written and delivered in the explainer style which it was originally intended to be, and I think that's great.

Yesterday's edition being scrapped would be no big loss , but tonight, watching the show how it used to be, it does feel a bit sad that this is (probably) the last ever edition.

[Chud]

Might be his last regular rotated  shift? Hope not.

Seems like so
twitter.com 

Id have chosen Shaun over Reeta. Will be a shame to see him go, he’s been excellent, especially on Dateline London.

[interestednovice]

If they were serious about filling gaps in the schedule with more original programming instead of so many repeats, they could have kept Dateline London and had Shaun host it.

There’s no reason it couldn’t have continued in the schedule, and it wasn’t that expensive to produce. It was also a far more insightful panel discussion than The Context as it covered news from all over the world. It’s a real shame that we’ve lost Dateline London entirely but are now being “treated” to a second hour of The Context. That show totally lost it’s purpose and charm once Katty Kay left, in my opinion.

[ginnyfan]

Dateline London is the biggest loss of this merger/cost cutting IMO, at least for World viewers. Such a great weekend discussion show, with proper insight and interesting opinions and debates. Everything The Context is not and will never be.

[DTV]

If they were serious about filling gaps in the schedule with more original programming instead of so many repeats, they could have kept Dateline London and had Shaun host it.

There’s no reason it couldn’t have continued in the schedule, and it wasn’t that expensive to produce.

To say it wasn't expensive to produce is an understatement - £70,000 per year was what was quoted as a 'saving' - that's about 0.05% of the combined budget of both channels for 1.4% of their annual output. Ludicrous - in a budget of tens of millions, that's a rounding error. For comparison, the cost of Dateline London for one year is less than the average hour of original network television.

[interestednovice]

I’d like to see how the per-hour cost of The Context compares to Dateline London.

The stated reason for axing Dateline London was that it was too expensive and they wanted to invest the money in other areas of output. Now we are getting an extra hour of The Context, that really doesn’t add up.

It’s a great shame, and the programme fitted so well on both the BBC NC and BBC WN. The sort of thing that should have been prioritised in the merger, you would have thought.

It’s absolutely true that the programme was, in many ways, the opposite to The Context. Extended intelligent debates rather than political soundbites and faux-analysis.