[Worzel]

The lack of transparency is still pretty staggering, especially from a public service broadcaster. There's only 3 days to go and a senior figure in News is as vague about the channel as when Tim Davie was questioned about the proposed changes at the DCMS Committee last year! 

They're selling this in the few statements that have emerged as a "new channel", not a takeover of World News or the News channel etc. "a new channel with two streams". This flagship channel will launch next week... but in the 10+ year old 'being read its last rights' World News studio, which is starting to suffer from technical faults and failures, with what will likely be a washed out lifeless fake newsroom backdrop with 16-year-old titles to boot and will be either a) hacked to pieces again to work with the Chameleon branding and/or b) bodged to b*ggery, like the long news channel titles... complete with BBC World News presenters. How is that a new channel?

I have nothing against anyone working on the new channel behind the scenes but it all sounds a bit thrown together!

With so much time to plan things surely they could've coordinated the new studio, titles etc to go live, you know, on the same day! As the late great (and I believe should've been an OBE) Martin Lambie-Nairn once said, "there's always going to be a PR issue". If the BBC need to find money from somewhere to do something, they usually do! No other broadcaster (or business) in the World would launch a new product or service like this.

I, we, everyone wishes they'd just be honest and upfront and say it's BBC World News with a few dedicated hours and opts for UK coverage.

Do you suppose some of the planning meetings for the new channel have been a bit like this? Trigger's broom springs to mind. 

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