[DTV]

Your 5 Live idea is certainly interesting. It's not without potential, but then if BBC World is continuing as a proper news channel whilst News 24 had to close, it obviously makes sense to expand World's availability to the UK, rather than introducing some radio-TV hybrid. I think there's also the issue of it perhaps being seen (perhaps unfairly) as cheap and nasty. Just sticking a bunch of cameras in a radio studio and televising the result doesn't really work. It won't be lost on you that even TalkTV has moved towards producing more shows as TV, rather than radio. As you say, it certainly is doable, but it would have to be radically different to either current 5 Live or the erstwhile News Channel.

Well quite, but the way I see it there were basically three options for the News channel to meet cuts:

- Merger with World News: maintains a fully-fledged TV news channel, but with a more international focus.
- Merger with 5Live: maintains a UK rolling news service, but is more rudimentary presentationally (though, I would agree you'd need a more visual set-up than you've got with Campbell for it to work - but, as other broadcasters have demonstrated, that is possible).
- Stripped-back separate News channel (i.e., primarily linked reports, greater utilisation of network resources, far fewer external contributors, outside broadcasts, etc.): maintains a UK TV news channel, but more basic and less flexible.

Of course, you could 'pick and mix' and have a hybrid of the different options, but I guess which option you prefer depends on what you think the priority of the channel should be and all require a compromise on certain key functions. Content-wise, the merger with 5Live would probably be the closest to a continuity option - but it obviously requires sacrifices presentationally (though, as I say, there are certainly ways of doing it that would work).

How does closing linear channels like BBC Three and Four and moving them online save money?

Distribution, infrastructure and support costs are not insubstantial - taking a channel off air and moving their content online (even without any reductions) would save a good few £m. Plus, with linear broadcasting there is also the issue of repeat fees which do add up and, on channels like Three and Four that are almost entirely repeat based, that is likely a large chunk of the content budget. There are similar fees for streaming, but I believe not in the same league as linear repeat fees.