[all new phil]

BBC News Channel is now a mess and frankly a bit of an embarrassment. Anyone with half a brain cell could have seen a British and International combined channel won't work and will alienate both audiences.

Strong disagree here. Of course it could work if done correctly. It hasn’t been though.

The legal action as well is completely of their own doing. It feels very much like they were just too afraid of making a decision. The previous role was made redundant. As long as they follow the correct process they’re legally safe.

Shambles.

[interestednovice]

Of course it could work if done correctly. It hasn’t been though.

The legal action as well is completely of their own doing.

I agree with you to an extent.

Is it possible to produce a professionally-run channel which covers the remit of both former channels, and includes an opt-out for U.K. viewers? Yes, of course it is technically possible.

Practically-speaking, is it almost certain that both sets of viewers are going to be dissatisfied compared to the predecessor services? I would say also yes, but probably not to the extent that they switch off in droves.

They probably could have made something decent out of it, but they really did mess up the initial launch so badly that it compounded the challenges by driving viewers away. Now it’s hard work to win those viewers back even if they sort out all of the issues with the channel. And it’s been over a year, but the service still isn’t “settled”. This is madness and can only really be described as a failure of management.

I tend to think that the legal action was avoidable as well. All they had to do was go by the book and give everyone a fair go at the process. What we’ve heard doesn’t seem to indicate that they did actually do this. It did not make sense that only seven-ish “Chief Presenters” could cover a whole channel, even if you expected others to appear at weekends. They were also terrified of being honest about what the new service was (World News, tweaked with U.K. stories and U.K. opts). I think the “public line” of buzzwords and nonsense about things like “one service, two streams” kind of tipped over into BBC insider thinking too, so the very people working on the project got confused about their focus, audience, what the output should be and so on.

The fact so many experienced people behind the scenes left all at the same time just made everything worse.

I hope they can now pull things back, but they very much threw the baby out with the bathwater last April.

[RhysJR]

This has allowed the BBC to do its favourite thing, report on the BBC. The BBC declined to comment to the BBC.

www.bbc.co.uk 

Martine Croxall: News presenter to begin legal action against BBC - BBC News
Her complaint includes issues relating to age and sex discrimination and equal p…
  Source: www.bbc.co.uk

[interestednovice]

No doubt this will be coming up on Newswatch again, allowing them to repeat the famous: “we asked BBC News to address these comments, but they told us nobody was available for interview and provided the following statement”!

[ginnyfan]

She was supposed to come back to presenting in May, think she tweeted it. Talk about awkward..... It's been more than a year now and no one seems to be able to move on from this situation. Not sure it's helping anyone involved.

On to more pleasant topics, Chief Presenter Sally Bundock has tweeted about rehearsing in ''new'' studio and using new gadgets.

twitter.com 

[lobster]

I don't think anyone can blame Martine for this.
twitter.com 

She applied for a job and didn’t get it. She was offered an alternative (and still high profile) job at the BBC and didn’t accept it. End of story. Move on. At this stage this is ridiculous.

[oscillon]

See the 10 o'clock News is pushed back half an hour for The Apprentice spin-off tonight. The news channel airs World News America and Newsnight.

It appears they did not follow their own schedule regarding Newsnight and aired "News at (half past) Ten" until its weather forecast and then Newsday right from the start (although they forgot to switch the sound to that of the World feed for the first few seconds of the program).

[Moz]

BBC News UK feed not carrying Breakfast this morning as the end of the world approaches…!

[Stockland Hillman]

She applied for a job and didn’t get it. She was offered an alternative (and still high profile) job at the BBC and didn’t accept it. End of story. Move on. At this stage this is ridiculous.

Grossly unfair to all those involved to make a sweeping statement like this. It's not as simple as this, and certainly not the end of the story.

Anyone who's worked in a large organisation at anything over the most junior leval will understand the complexities, and not make ridiculous judgements.

The Deadline article itself quotes "a senior BBC HR executive was not persuaded by their argument, despite a successful candidate saying they had a “tap on the shoulder” from managers. Deadline understands that this “whistleblower” evidence was not referenced in the internal review"

So we have the BBC investigating itself, apparently skipping over the most pertinent and legally risky part of the complaint and you're taking their view as the gospel truth? Ridiculous. Note it wasn't even an independent investigation, despite the million pound costs of the situation and litigation risks - that is very surprising

Nobody with Martines profile would take employment tribunal action - with the extreme stress and publicity - lightly. Fortunately the legal process will finally resolve this situation.