[DTV]

It's the least worst choice. Chances are, if someone is tuning into BBC World News they might be interested in live coverage, if not, they can switch channels. No other international news channel will likely cover it in live and in full.

Just as if I wanted Jan 6 committee coverage I'd switch to CNN in the hopes that they are showing it, and if I wanted live coverage of Monday's confidence vote in France I'd switch to France 24. If neither of the two were showing those two respective events, which are significant news stories of their respective countries, I'd be very disappointed.

The problem, though, is that if viewers regularly tune into the BBC and are confronted with coverage they are not interested in, then switching to another channel becomes a habit and, eventually, they just switch on the other channel to start with - not what you want if you are a commercial channel, especially when the margin is so fine (commercial income only has to dip by around 10% for the channel to go into the red).

Plus, as I've said before, BBC World News is not CNN or France 24 and its prior success comes from this. The Asia evening peak audience that this marathon coverage of an internationally inconsequential domestic story was broadcast to want a summary of the day's news from around the world - they didn't get that. That's not an audience well served. Plus, this story just isn't of the same magnitude of an investigation of a potential collapse of a government or an attempted coup in the most powerful country in the world.