[kookaburra]

Of the many changes associated with the merger, probably one of the most sensible, but you do you.

- 'Following the sun' is typical of international news channels and it makes sense to utilise the Washington teams for more than just a single 30-minute programme per day. The additional staffing costs in Washington are likely substantively less than previous overnight staffing costs from London - freeing up more money to be spent elsewhere.
- Showing extra commitment to the US market is a commercially sensible thing to do, with the US the most lucrative ad market and much of the BBC's syndication revenue coming from the US. Extra money raised this way means more money for the channel.
- From the perspective of UK viewers, where overnights are coming from doesn't really matter as viewership is so low. Plus, overnights on News 24 were historically fairly US-oriented anyway (variously featuring USA Direct, ABC World News, World News Today and repeats of World News America and World Business Report).

As is often the case, your view of what should be happening with the channel would be more expensive/require more cuts for little actual gain.

I completely get that, but one of the BBC’s previous strengths was its reliability and consistency. Always/mostly coming from London was part of that. 

As a non American world viewer, I much preferred overnights coming from London - some of the presenters in DC can be quite grating and over the top in that American way. Alistair Yates they are not. 

They could do a few small things to generic it up a bit and make it feel less American. Using the NBH newsroom background loop is a start. 

I understand management have decided the US market is lucrative but there’s no shortage of American news out there for a non American world viewer and a total dearth of good Asian news with the cuts to CNNI Hong Kong. Investing in the Singapore broadcast hub and making a big push in the region, then charge more for ads, would have been another option.