[interestednovice]

Yes, it must work out as operationally beneficial to perhaps share some resources with Reporting Scotland and also potentially not need to pay people extra for working late.

It also frees up prime-time on the BBC Scotland channel for a last throw of the dice to attract viewers to content which may well be arguably more compelling and popular than the news - dumping the legally-required news earlier in the evening.

Additionally, it’s possibly the beginning of a strategy to try to axe the Nine/Seven entirely, and with it perhaps any new content for the channel. Once the shorter Seven has brought in even worse ratings than the Nine for a while, the BBC will no doubt go back to Ofcom again and make an argument along the lines of: in a climate of cuts, investment in such low-rating, run-once programming can’t be justified, demand isn’t there as viewership is low; we’ve tried a new slot but it hasn’t worked; please remove the news obligation entirely.