[Worzel]

Absolutely, it would be eminently sensible and would not be the only way of squeezing out a bit more UK-only output using domestic teams. While, yes we have to see what the UK-opt and wider finished product is like in practice first, the fact that (fairly obvious) compromise solutions like that were avoided - even for the interim period - does have a real 'cutting off your nose to spite your face' vibe to it.

I am fairly optimistic that it will all come right - it just seems to be this interim period that is a bit of a mess. Even then it's only been a week. I'd like to think the BBC bosses are keeping a close eye on it all (though at the moment they seem to be more interested in picking fights with its presenters!) and will intervene if the news content is deemed unsatisfactory. That being said, I expect we will ultimately end up with a solution more like what I outlined. It's the only thing that makes sense - if the people and studio are there, they might as well use them!

But that sort of thing is not unique to now.

Take when the News channel moved to N6 and shared with the national news from 2008. You'd end up with the 'BBC Ten O'clock News Hour' being half presented by the network presenter on BBC One and then the other half by the evening News channel presenter with the rather awkward half past pause, and... 'now with the rest of the Ten O'clock news hour here's Chris Eakin etc'. Why the network presenter couldn't stay on to finish the back half hour never made sense.

Then (up until recently) you'd have the silliness of a weekend network bulletin going out at 17:20, with a separate presenter coming in to read almost the same set of stories in the same order that the news channel presenter had just read out (for all of 10 minutes). When the network bulletin started at 17:05 you were often treated to the same headline sequence done twice within 5 minutes, read by 2 different presenters! There was always opportunities to make cutbacks if needed right there, but it was never done.

The BBC do it with the One now where the network presenter stays on but why not for the Six and Ten? There's no real reason why the BBC One presenter can't stay on to finish off the back half hours at those times. You'd then end up squeezing out 3 full hours on UK-focussed news at relatively peak times. Move BBC London to a small studio and let the news channel continue with the network presenter in studio B.

The BBC never really learnt anything from how the ITV News Channel did things where the ITV network presenter would often stay on to back-fill the channel saying something like 'join me/us over the ITV News Channel in a few minutes when we'll be talking about X, Y, and Z'.

I suspect it's all down to internal politics!