[London Lite]

More recently, The Edit used the services of freelancer Jodie McCallum who is London based who also works on the ITN Productions produced FYI for ITV2-4.

[interestednovice]

The Nine will continue to limp along until Ofcom approve the changes to the BBC Scotland channel. The Edit/Seven Days weren't part of the service licence so could be dropped without Ofcom approval.

The Nine can limp along as The Seven without any changes to the licence from Ofcom though, and that is the plan in the short term, isn’t it?

Unless 7pm doesn’t count as peak time, although I accept that a 1 hour Seven would be required to meet Ofcom’s current conditions and the BBC want to make it half an hour instead, I wouldn’t be surprised if they did a 1 hour Seven while they wait for the (almost certain to be granted) Ofcom approval.

[Brekkie]

I guess this is all about the crewing of the programme as otherwise see very little benefit in airing it at 7pm.

[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.