[bbctvtechop]

The idea of a team that is just waiting in the wings but may not go on air, sounds like something that wouldn’t last very long

Also what constitutes domestic breaking news? Something massive that may only be a few times a year, or every time the BBC News app fires an alert off?

I mean it's just an odd idea from every angle. If you are paying a team that can go on air at any time, why not just pay them to actually be on air or combine them with existing on air teams (News at One, Westminster) to ensure that you have a full permanent daytime opt. You'd still be able to drop the opt on days of major international news, but have a much better ability to cover UK news during the day.

Precisely my thinking.

And it's not just the presenter sitting around waiting. You'll need a producer to research, maybe a guest producer, a director and studio crew (if in a clip studio, probably just a director), an Autocue operator, a team of people to maintain and fix the studio and gallery, a scheduler to ensure coverage each day, and probably 2 managers to line manage them all (one editorial, one technical, although they won't be managing them exclusively).

If you want true 24/7 ability to opt out for a UK domestic story (Manchester bombing happened at about 10pm, Exeter shootings happened I think on a Saturday morning?) then you can't get away with a "small" team, you need probably 3 teams a day on standby, so that is probably 8 individual teams to give year-round coverage.

There is also the editorial question of who decides to opt out and how long for, plus how to opt cleanly in and out. If a big international story and a big domestic story are happening simultaneously, what gets resource priority? Can the domestic presenter during the opt out cover the international story too?

Basically, if there is true 24/7 ability to opt out, you may as well have that team of people on duty actually making and presenting content.