[DTV]

Was the high story count not a casualty of Delivering Quality First? I seem to recall one of the tenets of that was that the news channels would cover fewer stories per hour, but in greater depth. It would seem to make sense that fewer stories covered = fewer teams/people needed.

I think it was more Lambert than DQF - i.e., when the channel moved to being more focussed on breaking and developing news than just what the news was - but the 'slow down' in pace is something that has been fairly gradual over time and I expect part of it is, as you say, cost-related. Even then, though, there's no need for it to be as slow as it is - things like News in Brief segments don't cost and there must be more than a handful of VT reports going around.