[DTV]

The issue is though the last week and the next few weeks can't be seen as an indication or used as a guide as to how very UK-centric stories/events will be handled by the single news channel since the current interim merged service doesn't have the ability to provide a separate service for UK viewers (bolded that bit since it's absolutely infuriating how that is being willfully/deliberately ignored on this website).

Sorry, I think if you look at the majority of my posts on this matter in the last week, I've more than gone out of the way to point out that it is important to wait for the full service to launch before condemning the merger outright. I also think it's rather outrageous for you to accuse me of willfully ignoring the realities or difficulties of the merger, when I feel I have consistently been one of the members most willing to engage with the realities and difficulties of the situation and suggest plausible solutions to the problems involved.

I presume and hope that you are right that we will get a more sensible and sustainable balance once the full service is launched, I was just commenting that this week has clearly not been a good precedent. While the interim service is temporary, I don't think it is a good thing or a good sign of things to come that the BBC felt that a month of combined output on both news channels was not in the need of some editorial guidance on how to strike an appropriate balance between both audiences. It's also impossible not to remark that many of those shared hours have been skewed significantly towards UK news, even when there hasn't been breaking or developing news that will soon be covered by the opt. Maybe we will get a better balance in the long run, but the evidence so far is very clear that the UK audience has been favoured.