[matthieu1221]

Breaking news of the start of a large scale evacuation of UK citizens from Sudan, but the UK opt on BBC News is chatting about Prince William and his compensation claim. Then move to chatting about Biden running again for President in 2024. This is woeful.

You have to go to GB News to hear that the first flight has left, and that everyone has been told to make their way to an airfield.

Has there systematically been a UK opt-out every weekday since the merger?

[Matrix]

Breaking news of the start of a large scale evacuation of UK citizens from Sudan, but the UK opt on BBC News is chatting about Prince William and his compensation claim. Then move to chatting about Biden running again for President in 2024. This is woeful.

You have to go to GB News to hear that the first flight has left, and that everyone has been told to make their way to an airfield.

To be fair, there are about four or five lines of quite big breaking news coming out. William's compo claim, for sure, but also then Biden, Lola James, and Harry Belafonte. 

The first flight leaving was covered, albeit it did take about 30 minutes for it be a stand alone item. FCDO advice to get to the outskirts of the airfield has been covered for days now and features prominently in both pre-packaged reports and during live ad-libs.

[Stuart]

Breaking news of the start of a large scale evacuation of UK citizens from Sudan, but the UK opt on BBC News is chatting about Prince William and his compensation claim. Then move to chatting about Biden running again for President in 2024. This is woeful.

You have to go to GB News to hear that the first flight has left, and that everyone has been told to make their way to an airfield.

To be fair, there are about four or five lines of quite big breaking news coming out. William's compo claim, for sure, but also then Biden, Lola James, and Harry Belafonte. 

The first flight leaving was covered, albeit it did take about 30 minutes for it be a stand alone item. FCDO advice to get to the outskirts of the airfield has been covered for days now and features prominently in both pre-packaged reports and during live ad-libs.

William's compo claim is not breaking news, Biden is international news about a US election in 18 months, and I don't even know who Harry Belafonte is.

The FCDO was telling everyone to stay put for days. It was only this afternoon that they suddenly told them to go to the airfield. That was more important breaking news than anything else. Evacuating up to 4,000 people (far more than the few hundred moved by other European countries) takes planning. It's the most important news story of the day.

[Matrix]

To be fair, there are about four or five lines of quite big breaking news coming out. William's compo claim, for sure, but also then Biden, Lola James, and Harry Belafonte. 

The first flight leaving was covered, albeit it did take about 30 minutes for it be a stand alone item. FCDO advice to get to the outskirts of the airfield has been covered for days now and features prominently in both pre-packaged reports and during live ad-libs.

William's compo claim is not breaking news, Biden is international news about a US election in 18 months, and I don't even know who Harry Belafonte is.

The FCDO was telling everyone to stay put for days. It was only this afternoon that they suddenly told them to go to the airfield. That was more important breaking news than anything else. Evacuating up to 4,000 people (far more than the few hundred moved by other European countries) takes planning. It's the most important news story of the day.

I'm not debating editorial decisions - suffice to say that each one of those stories are significant, breaking lines. Harry Belafonte is also one of the most important civil rights campaigners of the age. It's been a busy news day and the teams have done their best to provide adequate coverage a few shots of a plane leaving Khartoum, whilst also a developing line, could wait 40 minutes.

[Kojak]

They could have always displayed the plane news on the flipper - oh, wait…

[cando]

twitter.com 

Is the gap closing?

Britain's watching. We're talking about less than a quarter of a million watching news channels here.

Indeed and this is exactly why resources are better spent on other parts of the news division.

I remember the head of ITN around 2007 saying that the war between Sky News and the BBC News 24 was like watching  "two bald men fighting over a comb".
 The audiences remain miniscule for the costs involved.

[DTV]

I remember the head of ITN around 2007 saying that the war between Sky News and the BBC News 24 was like watching  "two bald men fighting over a comb".
The audiences remain miniscule for the costs involved.

While news channel audiences per hour are relatively low, I'm not sure it's wholly fair to say the audience is miniscule relative to costs. Others will be higher, but the BBC News channel's cost per viewer hour is in line with the main BBC TV channels (and lower than some radio stations!). And, of course, it's important to remember that the channel's audience does accumulate - it's not the same few thousand watching every hour - BBC and Sky News' reach figures are something that many 'down ballot' channels would be envious of.

[harshy]

Well on a merged channel it’s going to be challenging this amount of breaking news I’m just glad they got consistent titles at least for me it’s more watchable.(I’m easily pleased)

[cityprod]

If they want to up the UK news content on the channel, they should do the equivalent of what RTE News do with Nuacht, they should air S4C's Newyddion, BBC Alba's An La, and BBC Scotland's The Nine.

[James2001]

and I don't even know who Harry Belafonte is.

He's the one that isn't Sidney Potter

www.youtube.com