[Studio7]

What was the reason for there being a UK opt for an hour at 7pm last night? There wasn't any major UK breaking news story - please don't tell me it was for an hour of plugging the Schofield interview?

I believe it was indeed.

[Scratch_Perry]

What was the reason for there being a UK opt for an hour at 7pm last night? There wasn't any major UK breaking news story - please don't tell me it was for an hour of plugging the Schofield interview?

Sadly it was!

[oscillon]

What was the reason for there being a UK opt for an hour at 7pm last night? There wasn't any major UK breaking news story - please don't tell me it was for an hour of plugging the Schofield interview?

It was indeed Schofield interview in full (43 minutes) plus some comments about it collected throughout the day to fill the rest of the hour. (They could've done a brief UK news summary in the last 10-12 minutes but alas, comments took priority.)

[Brekkie]

To be fair I think that was probably a good call - right to give the interview a linear outlet in full and also right to give some time to the reaction to it (they've run into trouble previously for airing interviews then not adding further context).

[Radio_man]

It was indeed Schofield interview in full (43 minutes) plus some comments about it collected throughout the day to fill the rest of the hour. (They could've done a brief UK news summary in the last 10-12 minutes but alas, comments took priority.)

The UK government is literally taking the chair (whom it appointed) of the public inquiry (that it set up) to court to block said inquiry obtaining vital evidence of government communications during the height of the most devastating pandemic in 100 years. We have the PM at the time saying he'll circumvent said inquiry and hand over relevant communications directly, which the government is still trying to block.

Yet no in-depth coverage is given to this, with context as to why our current PM might want block details of his communications during the height of the pandemic being scrutinised, but BBC News UK can devote an entire hour to coverage of a daytime TV presenter that had a brief, consensual relationship with a younger man.

Words utterly fail me.

[Pips2022]

Those experienced faces mentioned above are returning soon, but yes it’s rather dragging on

[Reith85]

I was surprised by how much attention the Schofield story got at the start of the Ten last night. Especially considering what had happened in India and with Boris & the Covid inquiry.

I don't agree with the running order last night but it's worth pointing out that BBC News wasn't alone in putting the Philip Schofield story first - Sky News also had it first from what I saw, ahead of the India train crash.

[DTV]

Sure, it's a story that some people in the UK are talking about, but it's not - as the News at Ten had it yesterday - a lead story (with nearly 10 minutes devoted to it) on the same day as a major train crash in India, the Covid inquiry issues and rail strikes. It's not, as it has been at least three days in the last fortnight, a story worthy of being the lead on a semi-international news channel. Even Newsnight devoted half their Friday edition to Schofield, which, considering the programme couldn't find even five minutes for the Italian general election last autumn, is just a bit ridiculous.

I mean, I know that there's a lot of decent journalism going on behind all the weirdness, but there's just so many questionable, fairly un-BBC editorial calls at the minute that it's becoming a bit routine and increasingly hard to write-off as occasional bad decisions. People will say that 'others do it', but that's the point - the BBC's unique status means it's supposed to pursue a news agenda that is based more on how newsworthy a story is, how much it actually matters than how sensational or human interesty it is. That's not to say there is no place for them on the BBC, but not at the top of the running order, not with the level of analysis that you can't be bothered to even afford elections in G7 countries.

[ginnyfan]

Didn't they also show the interview in full, earlier in the day, when the young newbie with glasses presented the opt out? I guess that was not enough for the Schofield hungry UK audiences.

[SuperSajuuk]

I don't agree with the running order last night but it's worth pointing out that BBC News wasn't alone in putting the Philip Schofield story first - Sky News also had it first from what I saw, ahead of the India train crash.

The significant difference between BBC News and Sky News is that, afaik, Sky News is entirely a domestic news channel which just happens to be broadcast internationally: therefore, its focus is always going to be on domestic stories. Indeed, when I've been watching the channel, domestic stories are more likely to be mentioned without any issue [alongside other important international stories that may impact the UK], since the audience of Sky News is specifically UK viewers.

As a result, if you watch Sky News abroad, you already have an expectation of a domestic news channel with most stories being UK focused. That wasn't the case with the BBC, where domestic and international viewers were separated and the stories on the domestic channel were very unlikely to end up on the international feed (unless they were a big story like Brexit or a change of prime minister).

With the merged channel, international viewers are now subjected to meaningless domestic news that they probably don't care about, and never have had to care about.