[DTV]

I'd agree that the BBC's ventures outside of London have always felt rather forced - the problem is that the dates have clearly been decided based on nothing other than 'we're going out of London on those days'. I know that it is not possible to be wholly reactive in where the news is coming from, but there are more than enough pre-planned events (or at least news stories with a few days of warning) that doing non-London based bulletins could actually feel like it has some purpose to it, rather than simply being quota-fulfilling.

Also, from a presentational perspective, the fact that the BBC's sojourns have either come from odd standing positions or incredibly cheap-looking makeshift sets has just made it look half-hearted. The rollout of these national-quality sets in the regions with sykline backdrops could actually provide an opportunity here - on a pre-planned event day (e.g. a party conference in Birmingham) you could have the 'BBC News at Six from our studio in Birmingham'.

Anyway, getting a bit sidetracked - as others have said, I do think it's important for out of London news programming to be either habitual (and demonstrated in the reporting) or actually relevant to the content of the programme (otherwise it just feels box-ticky).