[bbctvtechop]

I don’t know what BiB means.

Disagree with your point though. Surely it’s a lot cheaper having a break out service than a separate channel.

And I know people have raised the point of “if you’re paying them to stand by anyway you might as well pay them to be on air” - but I don’t buy this argument. My work had an on call service - we were paid a smaller sum for being on call but only got paid for working if we were called out.

BiB = "Bit in Bold"

I hear what you're saying. But you also said "They break away at least daily". So, if they were operating the same method as your "on call" example, then there's no money being saved anyway as the call out happens multiple times a day.

Except that on call method absolutely wouldn't work in broadcasting. For one thing, I suspect in your example the staff were otherwise sitting at home, and there was a realistic expectation of some travel/response time (2 hours, say) to get to the office or to a client. That clearly cannot happen in news broadcasting. The staff member has to be in the office/newsroom ready to go with literally seconds' notice.

Secondly, it's not just the presenter. You need a crew, however minimal, and a studio which is maintained and in go mode at all times.

You could argue that when they're not presenting they can be contributing to the general journalistic research. Great. Who does that when they are presenting? Do they then have a journalist on standby for when that happens? A journalist who needs paying to be in the office regardless of whether they are needed or not? You can keep this argument going in circles. And, that's only the presenters/journalists. What are the standby technical crew doing while there's no need to opt? Sitting in an empty, but ready to go, studio waiting for something to happen? They may as well be on air in that studio producing a non stop UK opt...

...or a News Channel.