[chris]

While I think that broadly the 'unprofessional', 'amateurish' jibes are unfair, the alarmingly frequent cutting off of presenters, reports, interviews and now programmes mid-sentence is the one thing that has really made me go 'that's just not good enough'. You can maybe get away with an abrupt cut for breaking news, but otherwise it just looks terrible. And it hasn't just been opt or break releated, I've seen at least two ordinary in-bulletin reports that have cut back to presenter mid-sentence.

The Newsnight opt-in, opt-out situation is just the oddest bit of it - us dumbasses on here figured out the issue the first time it was mentioned (months ago), I just struggle to see how smart people with years of broadcasting experience couldn't have seen the problem and found a solution in the year of planning and month of piloting - especially when they are so obvious and simple - either a) don't simulcast overlapping programmes or b) if you have to, air it on a 15-minute tape delay and have a Sportsday fill the gap.

I’m sure plenty of BBC staff realised the issue with the opt and warned management. With so many against the merger, was it really in their interest to come up with a solution?