[DTV]

Channel 4 News is quite good for world news and analysis, but neither are quite like Newsnight.

C4 News is definitely the closest comparator (and I'd argue actually better than Newsnight at world news since the latter slashed their international reporting a few years ago), but I'd agree that Newsnight does have a certain uniqueness to it, likely owing to its history as an explicitly news and current affairs programme. The problem is that some of the unique aspects to Newsnight within BBC TV news are just rare generally - the FT (and, to a much lesser extent, The Guardian) are the only newspapers to really engage in meaningful policy analysis these days, with much of the rest coming from non-news actors (e.g., the IfG and IFS). These things are rare because they are expensive and require specialists with non-journalistic skills.

I hesitate to say it, but if they did axe Newsnight, the BBC would also be casting about for an extra few hours a week of “premium, UK-facing content” for the NC too!

I think 'would' might be too strong a word. As far as I'm aware, the new channel is not mandated to carry a certain number of hours of UK content (and, even if it was, I'd be surprised if simulcasts were allowed to count towards it, plus the 50% reduction in Nicky Campbell hours would surely have required something else). I think the 'premium UK content' slogan was just a sop to Newswatch viewers, rather than something contractual.