[DTV]

I still struggle to see the financial sense in having a "UK opt standby team"...

Apparently the BBC can afford hiring and maintaining a team to standby, and spring into action to do UK opt-outs at any time from 0900 to 2300, but they can't afford to hire two shifts (or even one) and maintain a minimal core domestic service from 0900 to 1800 on weekdays?

It's an odd situation, and a question I did ask when it first came up, but I think it really comes down to what level of News channel service you are prepared to accept. Presenters and studio/gallery staff are only part of the cost of producing the News channel - things like extra location correspondents and multiple external contributors per hour (which they are too reliant on these days) do all add up when done every single day.

So you could ditch the opt in favour of a limited News channel service, but it would need to be stripped back compared to now - consisting solely or primarily of packaged reports that would be filed anyway and utilising only DtL correspondents that would still be on location for other programming - effectively a channel of rolling bulletins (personally, I'm all for a pacier channel, but this might be swinging too far the other way).

Given how vague details about the new opt (and wider channel) have been, I do think it's worth waiting and seeing how it works before writing anything off, but it's also important to stress that the alternative cost-saving limited UK service would still be a cutback on even the pre-interim situation. Plus, given the editorial leanings of the interim period, my expectations are that the UK viewer will do better out of the merger than the world viewer anyway.