[AndrewP]

And Sri Lanka is not India ! Remember the amount of output there is from dehli

Perhaps... but the nature of native speakers for Tamil being cross-border meant the service also covered the country. I do note that the Sinhala Section continue to be fully under the BBC's control, however it's a much more basic service than Tamil.

My sentiments entirely … but I’m sure that TheBBC will ensure that Standards are upheld

There was a segment on this subject on yesterday's Newshour with the venerable Tim Franks, where they said that the new company - mostly being made up of former BBC staff - will continue to adhere to the BBC's editorial standards, at least for now.
We'll have to see how this all pans out.
I've attached an audio recording here: up.metropol247.co.uk 

Thanks for replying btw Technologist, you're always a fount of knowledge

[PATV Scunthorpe]

Another new-ish use for the pushback. As the live coverage of the Post Office Inquiry straddled the TOTH, the pushback was used for the first two minutes of the hour to display the headlines. They previously did similar for the news summaries when visualising Nicky Campbell, but it looks like a new design similar to the QR code promotions.

up.metropol247.co.uk 

[janewaysbun]

Can we just take a minute and observe how basic, cold and barren the pushback screen looks nowadays, the same can also be said for the split screen, gone is the texture, moving background graphics of old (attached) to something so plane and unimaginative, yuk

[TheJarv]

Martine hints at a May return being on air

twitter.com 

[Brekkie]

Another new-ish use for the pushback. As the live coverage of the Post Office Inquiry straddled the TOTH, the pushback was used for the first two minutes of the hour to display the headlines. They previously did similar for the news summaries when visualising Nicky Campbell, but it looks like a new design similar to the QR code promotions.

up.metropol247.co.uk 

Feels like actual news on the channel now has been reduced to a few sentences in text form. Frankly they might as well replace the news channel with Ceefax.

[RhysJR]

Feels like actual news on the channel now has been reduced to a few sentences in text form. Frankly they might as well replace the news channel with Ceefax.

Roger Mosey saying something similar earlier in the week. You'd hope the approach detailed below was grounded in market research, but it doesn't sound particularly appealing to me.

twitter.com 

[Keith]

Roger Mosey saying something similar earlier in the week. You'd hope the approach detailed below was grounded in market research, but it doesn't sound particularly appealing to me.

twitter.com 

On a general thought, I wonder if the roll out of the new regional sets and gallery upgrades theoretically would make it easier to packages to be recorded in those studios, and then shown/reshown on the news channel?

Watching Look East last night one of the reports featured some analysis in the studio from a reporter using the video walls in a corner. As the majority of sets now have the corporate look it a piece from these studios wouldn't stand out as much, certainly compared to if it featured the old Look East set. I'm assuming that local news packages are now stored on a cloud server, which can potentially be accessed from any BBC News location/gallery, compared to the days when it was physically stored on premises.

[DTV]

Roger Mosey saying something similar earlier in the week. You'd hope the approach detailed below was grounded in market research, but it doesn't sound particularly appealing to me.

As I said a few months back, I suspect the source of the standard format of prolonged news discussion stems from a combination of a) Outside Source and 100 Days/Context rating relatively well, with the former a strong socials performer, and b) it being a general trend across news anyway. Wanting to emulate their successes is not a bad idea in theory and you don't want to seem oldhat, but I feel it ignores the context (ironically) of the evening shows' success - they worked as limited end of day programmes (plus higher viewing partially down to slot) - as well as failing to see that the BBC should really be doing what others aren't.

As I'm a bit of a broken record on this, I obviously agree with Mosey's comments (even if, yes, slowing story count started before merger) and have always thought it'd make more sense to go pacier, so as to include both more international and UK stories. I don't want to spark another round of fantasy formats, as it's a discussion had many times over, but more stories, actually doing clear, concise and visual news reporting (including packages), and UK in Brief/Around the World segments seem so obvious solutions to the current plodfest that it is infuriating that it continues.

[all new phil]

As I said a few months back, I suspect the source of the overwhelming format of prolonged news discussion stems from a combination of a) Outside Source and 100 Days/Context rating relatively well, with the former a strong socials performer, and b) it being a general trend across news anyway. Wanting to emulate their successes is not a bad idea in theory and you don't want to seem oldhat, but I feel it ignores the context (ironically) of the evening shows' success - they worked as limited end of day programmes (plus higher viewing partially down to slot) - as well as failing to see that the BBC should really be doing what others aren't.

As I'm a bit of a broken record on this, I obviously agree with Mosey's comments (even if, yes, slowing story count started before merger) and have always thought it'd make more sense to go pacier, so as to include both more international and UK stories. I don't want to spark another round of fantasy formats, as it's a discussion had many times over, but more stories, actually doing clear, concise and visual news reporting (including packages), and UK in Brief/Around the World segments seem so obvious solutions to the current plodfest that it is infuriating that it continues.

I think an element of it is there’s no real clear indication of who the viewer is right now. I was never a fan of the format of old, where you had double headed presentation, business / sport presenter in the studio etc - but I understood who they were aiming at. It was quite broad in its appeal. Now I’ve no idea. What’s the audience for a cold single-headed plod through some seemingly unconnected mix of international and hyper local stories?

I got the rationale for the recent changes and thought they could be workable if done right. Despite what you see on screen though, I would still guess the channel is better resourced than Sky News. Their issues are completely down to a lack of vision and imagination rather than resources.

[DTV]

I think an element of it is there’s no real clear indication of who the viewer is right now. I was never a fan of the format of old, where you had double headed presentation, business / sport presenter in the studio etc - but I understood who they were aiming at. It was quite broad in its appeal. Now I’ve no idea. What’s the audience for a cold single-headed plod through some seemingly unconnected mix of international and hyper local stories?

I got the rationale for the recent changes and thought they could be workable if done right. Despite what you see on screen though, I would still guess the channel is better resourced than Sky News. Their issues are completely down to a lack of vision and imagination rather than resources.

Yes that's definitely a big part of the issue too. 'Who exactly is this for?' is something that's often crossed through my mind when I've caught the new channel - even whether it should be UK- or World-prioritised has seemingly not been answered.

I think BBC World News circa 2007-13 is a good comparator here; not just because things like the Alagiah WNT were probably the most consistently watchable BBC news channel programmes, but because that was a channel that was confident, on the up and with a purpose - every single slot had a focus and an audience in mind and it showed.

The resources point is also good. Cost is sometimes cited for the disappearance of packages, but, if a broadcast news organisation the size of BBC News can't have 6-8 relevant domestic 2' VTs and 6-8 relevant international 2' VTs to hand at any one time, that's some combination of choice/failure rather than a financial issue. National broadcasters in smaller European countries running on pennies to the BBC's pound can put together enough for full-length news bulletins, let alone their UK competitors.