[DTV]

Yalda seems quite happy now she’s leaving the sinking ship that is the crippled merged news channel.

I think there are legitimate and significant criticisms to be made of the new BBC News channel, but those criticisms are rarely what I see on here – which largely seems to be borderline hysterical comment about camera angles, presenters and rather strong, but evidence-free, assertions about the great public outroar against the changes. I suspect this isn’t what has disillusioned Yalda.

Sure, the presentation isn’t anything exciting and could definitely be improved, but, apart from a few early hiccoughs, constant declarations of it being amateurish or unacceptable are just ludicrous. It’s bland and workhorse-like – as is frankly rather typical from BBC News. Things could be better, particularly from our perspective, but it’s just not a deciding factor for real viewers – remember, the BBC’s dominance over Sky was cemented in the N6 era. 

Plus, considering the most beloved era of BBC News presentation on here is the cream-and-red era – which consisted of almost entirely static wide and MCU shots, arguably garish and poorly designed astons that failed to adequately distinguish breaking news, and very little differentiation between branded news programmes on News 24 and World – I sometimes feel that the more OTT critiques on this front are really just shibboleths for a group of members whose decision was made up about the changes before April 3rd.

The actual substantive flaw in the new channel, and what I think Yalda is actually ‘saying’, is that too little thought has been given to the direction or purpose of it - not that it is inherently unworkable. Nobody seems to have decided an appropriate target UK-World balance and editorial decisions on which should take priority are somewhat inconsistent, though, regardless of what is said on here, tilted in the UK’s favour. This is compounded by format and slow-pacing issues across nearly all programming, which magnifies such decisions – leading on parochial domestic stories would be more palatable if they didn’t spend so much time on them. Little consideration has also been given to business and sport segments, which stick out as legacy artefacts amid a schedule that is more interested in discussing a few big issues, than reporting a range of news stories. 

Merging the channels was a flawed but necessary idea and it could have been done better, but reports of the channel’s demise are greatly exaggerated and the fact Studio C is now lit in red and white are not the reason Yalda is leaving. People can complain about the presentation, that is, after all, the topic of this forum, but do people really think things would be better on that front with more separated output?