[Jeff]

It needs resolving urgently, hopefully there are discussions taking place this weekend and not waiting until Monday.

A stand off benefits nobody, especially now as all of the talent are controlling the ability of the BBC to deliver output for the viewers.

It needs to be resolved today - no ifs ands or buts. If the pressure cooker wasn’t at 11 last night, the stands taken by the Football Focus and Final Score teams over the last few hours means things have reached boiling point.


It is utterly untenable for this fiasco to be dragged out into tomorrow and potentially putting coverage of a 1 v 2 Women’s Super League game in jeopardy.

Maybe that was their intention? We know News staff have their own grievances over neutering to appease the government that’s also responsible for the brutal cuts that are taking place. Maybe it’s been a stitch up? Though messy and whether it was intentional or not, for concerned and disgruntled BBC staff, this has been way more effective than any planned quiet strikes would have been.

It's also very quickly shown up the mess we all knew the merged BBC News/World channel was going to be in its first week, by having to fill the channel with a story that's completely meaningless to people outside the UK. Was blatantly obvious right from the start that the merged channel wouldn't be able to properly handle a major story of UK interest, and this has shown it.

You can’t use this week as a indication/guide as to what the merged service will be like when it properly launches since the combined service at the moment doesn’t have the ability to do breakaways for UK viewers.