[Brekkie]

Other supposed “legacy” services have a direct replacement - the BBC Red Button has ad hoc drop-in iPlayer live streams for events, etc. The BBC News Channel has no equivalent or equal. As I say, social media is a very poor equivalent. The BBC’s own website is fine but cannot be updated quicker than people can speak (the speed of the channel, which normally goes live to breaking news if it can). A video carousel of reports is no replacement for the channel.

This is why it is so frustrating they axed the dedicated BBC News Smart TV app.   That really was excellent with on demand reports and headlines and could have been a place where in lieu of a news channel you could include the BBC World stream, BBC Parliament and then pop up streams for live breaking news events and visualisation of some Radio content.


As things stand though with a linear channel in operation although on paper viewers may be better served by a live feed of the international channel I personally think a UK focused news wheel format would serve the audience better, though they'd have to lift restrictions on pre-recorded bulletins to make that work.   Like CBSN they can crash into it for breaking news and could dip into the World channel at key points in the schedule too.


Ultimately here though the big issue is how the supposed "merger" was handled.   It wasn't a merger, it was a takeover by BBC World with an effective closure of UK operations and the presenter choices back that up, along with the channel only opting out for UK stories rather than sometimes it being World opting out for international stories which may not be top of the UK news agenda.

If it had been World's operations folded into those of the UK they would have got away with it, in the UK at least.   Really though the concession here is that daytime hours should have always been given a stronger UK focus and as posted previously in theory that should really be possible and is a question of will as much as it is finances.