[BN88]

Although I have to think some of the blame here lies with the 5 Live team (or their strategy), honestly.  Irrespective of whether the programme is being broadcast on the News Channel and BBC Two, it makes no sense to me that on a busy morning of breaking news they insist on sticking with their hour-long phone-in topic. It’s not the model for how most 5 Live programmes work - Breakfast, Drive, Nihal etc. all adjust their running orders to covering significant/breaking stories - and it’s also not how LBC, where single-topic hours are common during the day, operates either.

And if you’re going to simulcast 5Live for an hour to get in an extra dose of UK ‘news’, surely simulcasting the first hour of Drive would make more sense?

Agreed - always felt of all the possible radio simulcasts they could have chosen, Drive is actually the most 'rolling news' of them all. It's pacy enough with live reports and live interviews that you wouldn't really have to change much visualisation wise to create a useful hour or 2 of simulcast...

On simulcasting PM - isn't the issue there that they actually have much more pre-recorded reports, and it would be a question of how you 'visualise' that?

[Skygeek]

Agreed - always felt of all the possible radio simulcasts they could have chosen, Drive is actually the most 'rolling news' of them all. It's pacy enough with live reports and live interviews that you wouldn't really have to change much visualisation wise to create a useful hour or 2 of simulcast...

On simulcasting PM - isn't the issue there that they actually have much more pre-recorded reports, and it would be a question of how you 'visualise' that?

I used to work on PM - albeit ten years ago - and that was certainly the case then, and although there are/were plenty of live two-ways with reporters, two headline summaries in the hour, live interviews and studio discussions, 5 Live Drive would be a better fit - especially in the lead-up to the Six O'Clock News.

[interestednovice]

It wouldn’t be too much work to either air some holding graphic (like they do with audio-only content in packaged news bulletin reports) or air the video version of the report for TV - often, radio & TV packages are the same, designed to be understood audio-only but with video content for airing on TV.

However, I object to the concept of “visualised radio” really in the first place and would rather just stick with the world feed anyway. If you want to listen to the radio, do that. It’s just simulcasting again, so we already have access to the output. Officially, the NC world feed isn’t available to UK viewers at all when we are opted out - so we lose access to that content in order to have a duplicate of something we can already get elsewhere. It makes no sense, especially when none of the radio programmes are really news-focused enough to work and heavily opinion-led programming doesn’t fit on the NC.

The global NC feed has the capability to deal with breaking news, being designed as a news broadcast - the radio shows really don’t.

[harshy]

Totally agree the news channel should be showing what’s on global feed not a radio show.

[News76]

Totally agree the news channel should be showing what’s on global feed not a radio show.

Or at least providing a separate UK Service til 11:00pm weekdays/midnight at weekends (well if the current UK opt out service runs until 11:00pm on weekdays, i can't see why a separate news UK news service would run until 6:00pm.)

[News76]

This is not true. And, even if it were, that would only mean more cuts would be coming in the future.

Well then you may as well shut the whole thing down if that's correct!

[DTV]

Or at least providing a separate UK Service til 11:00pm weekdays/midnight at weekends (well if the current UK opt out service runs until 11:00pm on weekdays, i can't see why a separate news UK news service would run until 6:00pm.)

Running a separate full UK news service is (obviously) somewhat more expensive than having the ability to run a fairly minimalist single-story opt-out - requiring more presenters, gallery staff and support staff. While a simple intro/VT-only 'rolling bulletin' set-up would be fairly cheap, I suspect this isn't what many have in mind for a UK service. Things like DtL interviews, breaking news coverage and even simple things like headline sequences require extra staff (e.g., logistics, off air journalists, picture editors) to organise.

Plus, even if there is any reversal on the merged output front, there is zero chance of it being to a degree of more separate programming than at any point since 2015. The most I could possibly forsee (and that's at a stretch) is a return to January/February levels.

[DTV]

Well then you may as well shut the whole thing down if that's correct!

I don't follow. You might as well shut it down if it's not costing more than the two previous channels combined?

[Radio_man]

However, I object to the concept of “visualised radio” really in the first place and would rather just stick with the world feed anyway. If you want to listen to the radio, do that. It’s just simulcasting again, so we already have access to the output. Officially, the NC world feed isn’t available to UK viewers at all when we are opted out - so we lose access to that content in order to have a duplicate of something we can already get elsewhere. It makes no sense, especially when none of the radio programmes are really news-focused enough to work and heavily opinion-led programming doesn’t fit on the NC.

The global NC feed has the capability to deal with breaking news, being designed as a news broadcast - the radio shows really don’t.

This one million times. If you want to listen to the radio, go and listen to the radio. Why on earth are we debating what radio shows should be simulcast on the NC to give some UK content? How about having a properly resourced UK TV news channel?
And if that's not possible, which it obviously no longer is, just close the UK side of the channel completely and drop the pretence that the BBC can provide a proper UK TV  news service.

Seeing the clip of GMT with Lucy Hockings a few pages back emphasizes how far the presentation on this channel has fallen.
I maintain my opinion that instead of the fudge we have now that's butchered both the UK and World channels, that the UK channel should've been sacrificed to save World News in its pre-March 2023 format. 
BBC World News could've been made available on iPlayer for UK viewers as a global news channel without adverts, and Nicky Campbell could've filled mornings on BBC 2.
Then maybe a part-time, daytime only UK News Channel could've returned in a few years time when the BBC's funding was in a better position.

[Brekkie]

Of course we all would rather see a fully resourced news channel but I don't think there is anything unreasonable in the suggestion simulcasting PM would be of more value than a 5 Live phone in, and at a time of day when news isn't really breaking in the way it does in the morning.