[all new phil]

I think some people genuinely think there will be a team sitting there twiddling their thumbs, waiting for UK breaking news to happen.

This taps into exactly what I've genuinely been wondering regarding the occasional ad-hoc UK opt-outs.

There clearly won't be a team (however small) sitting about for whole shifts just on the off-chance that UK breaking news happens, of course. So...

I wonder exactly what people and resources will be pulled into action for UK opt-outs, with no detriment to whatever they'd otherwise be doing, and how quickly they can be mobilised when the need arises.

But that’s no different to how anything happens. The very nature of news is that it is largely unexpected. What do you think happens if a bomb goes off somewhere? They put the resource where it needs to be. There won’t be a bomb team waiting around to be deployed, they’ll be journalists working on things already that they’ll have to leave. 

Journalism is a multi-skilled profession more so than ever these days. Everyone increasingly needs to know how to do anything. We’ll no doubt end up with a team of reporters who can go live on air as and when required, but their core role won’t be presenter.