[Former Member 237]

BBC World News has not been serious for a long time , so as said it cannot be compared to someone like CNN. It has always been a half hearted world news channel and the BBC never exploited its full potential. Going forward, I hope the new BBC News channel will be in the famous words of Bloomberg "Bullish". The UK doesn't have a confident channel these days. Sky News used to be that, but since 2010 has lost most of it. The BBC had it in 97, but quickly lost it in the early 2000s.

The new BBC News channel must be confident, bullish, unafraid. If they could model on Bloomberg but obvious geared towards total news. They have the people and locations to do it, already in place. Use the potential.

[DTV]

That's fair justification for having a bigger newsgathering operation and a few extra news/politics opt outs. But a whole extra channel?

I think it's important to remember that BBC Scotland's existence is really entirely political. In 2014, the SNP's proposal for an independent Scotland included replacing the BBC with a new broadcaster. Although the plans weren't particularly thought through, they worried the BBC as losing Scotland would represent losing nearly a tenth of licence income (which would necessitate more cuts to the remaining BBC). BBC Scotland is probably the most prominent way that the BBC has been trying to say 'we can serve Scotland well, you don't need to replace us'. Whether it will work is another matter, but the BBC's view is basically that the little additional spend now would be worth not losing Scottish licence money. The politics of it mean that it's now basically impossible for the BBC to axe BBC Scotland until the independence debate is either settled or dissipates.

It's also worth remembering that the BBC Scotland channel has only marginally pushed up the entire BBC Scotland TV content budget. The channel absorbed the BBC Two Scotland budget and took a significant chunk of BBC One Scotland's. Comparing the most recent accounts with the ones from five years ago, the actual real terms increase in BBC Scotland's total TV content budget is only around £5m (or around 10% of the BBC News channel's content budget). The BBC Scotland channel is really not the money pit that some seem to imagine.

[JamieD]

A new development internally…

www.theguardian.com 

BBC staff to publish damning report on planned merger of news channels | BBC | T…
Exclusive: internal concerns raised over effect of proposals as broadcaster seek…
  Source: www.theguardian.com

[Former Member 237]

Very sceptical of that "report". Why would the action result in people switching to GB news? most who are going to switch would have already done So. And even to suggest people would switch to Talk TV? I'm afraid there is not much logic in that.

Also with the claims of footage no longer being produced, this makes hardly any sense, the BBC is not closing down overseas. Reports will still be produced. The same argument can be made with the claim about local content. As far as I am aware only one region is going.

In short this report will not change anything.

[Newsroom]

Very sceptical of that "report". Why would the action result in people switching to GB news? most who are going to switch would have already done So. And even to suggest people would switch to Talk TV? I'm afraid there is not much logic in that.

Also with the claims of footage no longer being produced, this makes hardly any sense, the BBC is not closing down overseas. Reports will still be produced. The same argument can be made with the claim about local content. As far as I am aware only one region is going.

In short this report will not change anything.

Sorry to be so crude, but I think your remarks are utter nonsense. That guardian is more or less correct. Of course there is a fair amount of 'personal feeling' in it having come from a group of people who face redundancy, of which I know a handful. You only have to read this thread and the thread that came before it to know it is a bonkers idea that is not in favour of this merger.

Dear @admin - it is possible to run a poll on your new site? It would really interesting to get a Shan-shot from News fans as to this proposed change.

[Former Member 237]

Very sceptical of that "report". Why would the action result in people switching to GB news? most who are going to switch would have already done So. And even to suggest people would switch to Talk TV? I'm afraid there is not much logic in that.



Also with the claims of footage no longer being produced, this makes hardly any sense, the BBC is not closing down overseas. Reports will still be produced. The same argument can be made with the claim about local content. As far as I am aware only one region is going.



In short this report will not change anything.

Sorry to be so crude, but I think your remarks are utter nonsense. That guardian is more or less correct. Of course there is a fair amount of 'personal feeling' in it having come from a group of people who face redundancy, of which I know a handful. You only have to read this thread and the thread that came before it to know it is a bonkers idea that is not in favour of this merger.



Dear @admin - it is possible to run a poll on your new site? It would really interesting to get a Shan-shot from News fans as to this proposed change.

So the harmony lasted about five minutes I think I will go back to staying away.  



I am not sure what knowing people who are being made redundant has to do with anything. I understand it might stir emotions, but that is irrelevant in terms of the discussion. Unless they have explained to you why the Guardian is correct. And if that is the case I have not seen a sufficient explanation. I can only refer you to the end of the Guardian article which has a statement from the BBC. This suggests the "report" has no foundation and I have to say I do agree. There is more than one person that works for the broadcaster here and not all share the views of the Guardian. Such arrogance has already closed down two forums, but alas I will leave you to your echo chamber. Will the last one out please turn out the light.....

[Frappé]

This is a discussion forum so it's inevitable that people will disagree and have different opinions. But can we please try and keep it civil.

[Steve in Pudsey]

Would the point about News Channel footage turning up on the Six/Ten not be that clips from live interviews often end up getting used as part of packages?

[bilky asko]

Very sceptical of that "report". Why would the action result in people switching to GB news? most who are going to switch would have already done So. And even to suggest people would switch to Talk TV? I'm afraid there is not much logic in that.

Also with the claims of footage no longer being produced, this makes hardly any sense, the BBC is not closing down overseas. Reports will still be produced. The same argument can be made with the claim about local content. As far as I am aware only one region is going.

In short this report will not change anything.

If the channel is becoming more like BBC World News and less focussed on UK content, then it's natural people who are losing that content will drift and look for something else. That will include channels like GB News and Talk TV.

You seem to have misunderstood the bit about the footage being lost - it's no good if the footage is all from international stories if you need footage for UK stories.

I think you've also misunderstood the bit about regional content - the channel currently features slots that have a lot of regional packages showcased to a national audience - regional stories that deserve a wider airing. This sort of thing is going with the new merged channel.

I am not sure what knowing people who are being made redundant has to do with anything. I understand it might stir emotions, but that is irrelevant in terms of the discussion. Unless they have explained to you why the Guardian is correct. And if that is the case I have not seen a sufficient explanation. I can only refer you to the end of the Guardian article which has a statement from the BBC. This suggests the "report" has no foundation and I have to say I do agree. There is more than one person that works for the broadcaster here and not all share the views of the Guardian. Such arrogance has already closed down two forums, but alas I will leave you to your echo chamber. Will the last one out please turn out the light.....

Of course the BBC are going to defend what they're doing, they're wanting these changes to go ahead. You seem to be very willing to disparage the article (which is reporting a yet to be released report) based on a very short BBC statement.

[DTV]

I think you've also misunderstood the bit about regional content - the channel currently features slots that have a lot of regional packages showcased to a national audience - regional stories that deserve a wider airing. This sort of thing is going with the new merged channel.

The contribution of regional teams to the news channels is something that I was actually thinking about the other day. A large part of the merger is driven by the need to cut the presentation and production staff bill at Broadcasting House. But the BBC has fifteen presentation and production teams dotted around the country that aren't on air for much of the day. So why not have an hour or two a day presented from one of the regional studios. If you did it on a rota*, it wouldn't be particularly disruptive to existing operations and you could have a mid-afternoon or mid-evening slot that blended national headlines, highlights from the regions and a focus on that region. You could call it BBC News from <Leeds, Salford, Cardiff, etc.>.

This would allow for more domestic coverage on the channel, a showcase of regional news teams/output and utilise the fact that the BBC are the only news channel with news teams across the country. Additionally, if mixed with the News at One presenter doing a few hours of rolling news coverage, it would result in only a slight reduction in non-simulcast hours compared to now, while not incurring any significant extra staffing costs compared to the initial proposals. I'm sure that there might be a few hurdles, but with all regions being upgraded to HD/modern playout tech it's more feasible than it would have been a few years ago.

* I would do Scotland/Wales/NI one day a week each (allow for coverage of devolved issues), with the other two days rotating between English regions.