[interestednovice]

Even if we don’t, it’s only a month until the full new arrangements kick in and long countdowns don’t air often.

You say that, but I wonder if we in the UK might start to see a few more long countdowns on the newly merged channel? I'm sure there will be LOTS of points where our feed has nothing to show whilst World has adverts?

Well, yes, but we have already seen the “template” for such hours as part of the extended simulcasts that already exist.

Break filler in the form of BBC adverts, This Week in History (at least mildly interesting) and sometimes a clipped report edited to cover a gap. Outside Source frequently used to do the report one but has stopped bothering, I think. All of that then padded-out with the long filler numberless countdown, the occasional extended weather forecast, and pre-recorded generic Mishal Husain voiceovers (in the case of overnights) saying “This is BBC News, headlines at the top of the hour straight after this programme”. If World News then goes to an extended “irrelevant to UK” programme, we get it padded out with the sorts of things that have been airing at 8:30pm since they axed the evening shift.

In fact, that reminds me of one of my bugbears with the channel as it is: for a while, despite increased reliance on simulcasting, there has been an “anything but World News” attitude to the BBC News Channel. So we have often had a repeated Hardtalk, or the umpteenth repeat of Click, filling a slot instead of programme like Asia Business Report. Yes, Asia Business Report is obvious “non-UK content” but it is also live, factual information which British viewers might be interested in. Why cover it up with a repeat they could be watching on iPlayer?

Also, the idea of a rolling news channel is that it is “rolling” as much as possible. Weekend filler programmes are fine when there is not much going on, but if a programme is live the channel should be showing it - and if there are as many breaks as Sky News then why are we paying a license fee? The BBC should be showing relevant content to UK viewers during World ad breaks. On the strength of recent reporting, it sounds like Deborah Turness has been thinking along these lines, to her credit, but in the past it has been a real weak-spot for the BBC. They certainly shouldn’t be giving British viewers an inferior service (i.e. less live content) than World News viewers receive.

The BBC adverts also wear out from repetition, as they don’t have many, which is so irritating - things like Peter Crouch’s podcast were constantly on the channel a few years back which was galling when much of the money saved on News Channel production has been “reinvested” into podcasts for BBC Sounds to chase a young audience - and I say that as someone in that demographic myself; the idea of podcasts is easy to listen to content which is free and can be sponsored, so totally not a “BBC area” if you ask me).

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A totally unknown presenter, at least to me, is heading this first hour of the eternal simulcast that just started.

That’s Anjana Gadgil, I believe she’s presented on overnights quite a few times. I’m sure I’ve seen her before!

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I quite like your scathing and sarcastic use of the phrase “eternal simulcast” though. Very apt!