[Frances]

I think you're right about an apparent shunning of proper news reports among some quarters, I get the impression some senior editors consider it a bit old-fashioned - but I just find that a bit odd considering it is pretty much the USP of television news - if you just want to organise discussions, move to radio/podcasts.

While GB News and Talk TV are certainly notable examples of ''discussion' over news', I'm not sure it's necessarily the BBC copying them so much as a general panelification of TV news since the middle of the last decade - a view that what people think has happened is as/more important than explaining what has happened. I mean, Politics Live - probably the BBC's unedifying pinnacle of this - actually predates the opinion channels.

Comparing the World Service to World News is always a bit hard as, although there is a lot of News on WS, it's more of an international Radio 4 than a news channel. But I'd expect any analysis to find that it's very internationally-focussed during its news programming and with a news agenda that is more newsworthiness/PSB-based than World News used to be. Indeed, if anything, WS has probably got less UK news on now than it did two decades or so ago - back then it used to have a few 'news in the UK' programmes, which have largely gone as standalone programmes.

I think there were only a few packages in an old NC newscast? Especially on weekdays.

I normally watched the old NC in daytime hours and always spotted interviews with correspondents or guests. Most packages were from the One and the Six, and they run them in the 8pm hour.

But compared with the old World, the amount of packages on the new NC has been decreased radically.

I wonder if this is all because said senior editors have seen the incredible success of podcasts, thought 'we want some of that' and so have tried to turn whole programmes/channels into sort-of extended podcasts? Notwithstanding that everyone and their dog has a podcast now, so wouldn't these news channels be better off being an alternative to all of that?

You're probably right about it not being so much the BBC copying GB News, as it is a more general trend. Though I note with great interest that John McAndrew, who is now Director of News at the BBC, was the launch editorial director of GB News (although he left just a few months in). Perhaps his influence is being felt?

The BBC News Board member overseeing the News Channel is Director of Digital, Naja Nielsen, not McAndrew.