[justinh]

I do think it warranted the lead domestically yesterday - easy to pass it off as a showbiz story but really it's a media story and arguably more about the press than TV - not that the reporting on it reflects that. 

An international audience will include those interested in the media internationally too - so some would be aware of the story and those involved in it, but agree it's not really a top story internationally.


If this merged arrangement is going to work I think they need to look at alternating priorities every hour so the UK is the higher priority one hour and world the next.  That could actually keep the channel feeling fresher rather than repeating the same content hour after hour - even if it is the same content in a different order.

I think no amount of rejiggering can really mend the fundamental contradiction/compromise of the two audiences. Though making a clear distinction between "BBC World News" and "BBC News UK" in the EPG would at least make it obvious to the audience what they're watching.

If the BBC wants to compete commercially with a global news player like e.g. Al Jazeera, then a lot of quite important domestic news will need to be drowned on the news agenda to retain their global audience. 

The compromised arrangement will work to a degree, but I'd imagine the audience for a global news channel is larger than the audience for a global news (and also some UK news) channel. CNN can survive chopping limbs off its international product and substituting US content because there's at least a reasonable audience for American politics and US news storylines around the world.

If the BBC believes it can find an substantial commercial audience that's into global news and also a splash of UK domestic issues/politics overseas, then they're on the right path - but I'm doubtful that's their strategy considering their push into the US.

More likely, as evident by how botched so much stuff has been, the merger is just an ill-thought through cost-cutting move that they've politically boxed themselves into with the promise for "premium UK-facing programming" to the regulators.