[itsrobert]

How is this merger going to work in terms of breaking rolling news coverage on BBC1? Since the advent of News 24, the standard approach has been to take their coverage. If a significant UK news story breaks (e.g. a rail crash, some domestic political story etc) that has limited relevance to the global audience, how will that be handled? They mention UK breaking news opt outs from a "tiny studio" but is that seriously going to be sufficient for BBC1 audiences? How will they accommodate studio guests etc? Or are we going back to a time pre-1999/2000 when BBC1 news reports and rolling coverage (limited as that was before Diana's death) are the responsibility of the National team? Will it be handled like ITN does and they will put the main BBC1 on duty newsreader on air with the rolling coverage/news report?

I do understand why people are suggesting that going back to network bulletins without a dedicated rolling news channel is perfectly fine, but I would like to know how many of them have actually lived in a pre-rolling news world. It wasn't great - you had to wait for the next bulletin, end of. In those days we had Ceefax/Teletext which I suppose is akin to the online/app presence but sometimes it's nice to actually see a news story unfold before your eyes on the TV. We have all very much become accustomed to that in the past 25 years. 

Moreover, I can't say the current scheduled BBC1 bulletins are ideally timed for most working people. With commuting as bad as it is nowadays, 6pm is optimistic to be at home in time to sit down and watch a news bulletin. By 10pm I'm not really wanting doom and gloom just before bed at 10.30. I'm in unwinding mode by then. My optimum TV news time is somewhere between about 7pm and 9.30pm which is why news channels have been so useful for me at least. Thankfully Sky News still exists which is where my TV news consumption is about to move lock, stock and barrel. I'll keep the BBC News app but that's about it. I only really use that to see the headlines and alert me to breaking news, which I would usually follow up on the TV anyway.