[Lester]

They did speak about the merger (or non-merger as Davie was insistent about) for about 20 minutes in the DMCS select committee today, but very little was said that hasn't been announced - a lot of hedging by Davie around final plans. Understandably, a lot of concern by MPs about the cutback in UK hours and the vagueness of the plans for the breaking news opt - John Nicolson particularly highlighting concern of BBC staff about the plans. I was surprised by how understanding they were about the interests and importance of the commercial international audience, but a clear and undeniable view that the UK viewers will be underserved by plans as they stand. But was interesting how Davie kept talking about negotiations and that schedules weren't finalised, etc.

I saw most of it. I think at times the DG was almost tetchy in his responses over this. He is trying to sell this as closure of both channels and one new channel with two equal streams. What he tries to gloss over is the fact that the default stream is basically BBC World News in all but name and the UK has opt outs, most of which are BBC One broadcasts. What we all know will be a broom cupboard for UK breaking news which will be half an hour behind Sky.