[Connews]

1. Are all profits from World News being used to help the UK news channel? Probably not. And even if not, the licence fee is paid to provide such a service. I’d suggest that the BBC ought to focus on its public service obligations rather than blockbuster dramas — using the licence fee to provide content that isn’t profitable but important.

2. If the UK channel disappears, that’ll eliminate the vast amount of content that it creates for local radio, local TV news, online and social media.

3. I agree that BBC World is more financially viable because sponsorships, product placement and advertising are possible, but a licence fee should be used to support services that aren’t lucrative but are beneficial to the public.

1a. As far as I'm aware BBC World News' profits are largely reinvested into the BBC News division (not necessarily the News channel). In previous years these profits have totalled around £5-10m and so are probably covering the production costs of one or two BBC News programmes.

1b. The licence fee bargain is that in return for letting the BBC provide public service and minority audience functions, the general public get entertainment programming across a range of genres. I don't think it would be fair (or sensible in terms of maintaining BBC legitimacy) to axe dozens of hours of dramas or even more hours of other programming in order to provide evening and overnight content for a post-BBC World BBC News channel. 

2. The BBC News channel does not provide much content for local radio or TV services and that which it does is not comparable in weight to the nearly 11 hours of content that BBC World News produces for the BBC News channel on the average weekday. The BBC News channel is literally dependent on BBC World News, none of the services you mentioned are functionally dependent on the BBC News channel.

3. The BBC should produce services that aren't lucrative but have public value, but I would argue that the BBC News channel is towards the bottom of that list. It is far more expensive than most of the BBC's other 'public service' channels/stations and isn't unique within the BBC in the public service functions it provides. I think it is hard to justify ringfencing such a channel at a time of signficant cuts to more unique BBC services and would be even harder to justify closing BBC World News and the resultant substantial increase in the BBC News channel's budget.

I agree that dramas shouldn’t be axed in favour of a news channel — but the BBC is best placed to offer services that aren’t sustainable for commercial broadcasters. ITV could do Strictly, but we’ve seen a news channel isn’t sustainable for them. 

BBC NC provides a lot of content for local radio and online. Quotes and clips from guests and correspondents are used regularly. It’s a significant newsgathering tool.

The news channel definitely does have public value, I really do disagree with you on that.