[ALV]

Can the BBC just pause the merger and keep things as it is now? I mean ever since 2023 the NC's resources is basically cut to barebones, there's not much left to reduce and further save costs significantly.

Currently the NC is running on a skeleton resource of four weekday shifts:

Morning Shift 1 (0900-1100) [2 hrs]
Morning Shift 2 (1100-1300) [2 hrs]
News at One Shift (1300-1400 & 1700-1800) [2 hrs]
Afternoon Shift (1400-1700)  [3 hrs]

...while there are currently zero weekend shifts. Plus, all the NC produced feature programmes are already cut to zero (e.g The Film Review, Dateline London).

How about the BBC further consolidate these four weekday domestic shifts into two weekday domestic shifts as follows:

Morning Shift (0900-1400, including News at One) [4 hrs]
Afternoon Shift (1400-1800) [5 hrs]

...while the evenings and weekends will continue the way it is currently, simulcasting with WN.

Surely it won't cost BBC much to maintain two domestic shifts every weekday right? I think this would not only allow BBC to maintain a barebones domestic service to UK viewers, but it would equip them the capability of covering breaking news effectively during the busiest time of the weekday with the highest probability of having UK breaking news.

Yes, domestic breaking news coverage is still gonna suck on evenings and weekends, no matter which merger proposal is adopted, BUT at least the peak breaking news hours are covered and a minimal domestic service can still be provided.

IMO it's way better than spending money maintaining a "UK breaking news standby team", which I don't think it will work effectively as intended, as our fellow respectable insider bbctvtechop suggested.