[NickyBoy]

Sorry for maybe asking a stupid question, why is that the majority of the domestic BBC News Channel is being dropped in favour for the BBC World News format? Why couldn't the merged channel be based on what the News Channel does, or did?

Because BBC World News makes money and the BBC News channel doesn't. Making that money is dependent on the channel being relevant to international audiences, with the profits the channel makes being used to subsidise the BBC's domestic news operation (also, even without the profits, the channel pays for a certain fraction of the BBC's newsgathering costs). Should BBC World News cease to make a profit, it cannot be sustained as the BBC cannot use licence money to subsidise its commercial operations. If BBC World News goes, the BBC News channel loses roughly half of its output anyway and would be unlikely to be able to survive.

I know there are loads of parochial 'the BBC should be British news for British people' concerns, but pretty much every function that the current BBC News channel does is also done by another BBC service or will still be done by the new BBC News channel. By losing the BBC News channel in its current form, you aren't losing a lot and are saving money. While losing BBC World News would a) take away a key revenue stream (at a time of budget shortages), b) put a massive dent in the BBC's international presence (key to both BBC finances and network news) and c) mean you probably lose the BBC News channel anyway.

As I've said before, it isn't ideal, but it is the better option. Though, to be quite honest, I feel like I've said a lot of this stuff before.

Thanks, that makes sense.