[interestednovice]

Well the BBC does have form on this kind of grand new start that gets undone relatively quickly. I mean, NBH itself was commissioned just three years after the News Centre at TVC had opened - the prior attempt to bring news into all one place (which itself was a replacement for a planned NBH-style News Centre at White City). And, of course, the original plans for NBH predate the Salford plans, so presumably Breakfast, Sport news and 5Live were all originally destined for W1A too.But the directive to bring all of news together then gets superseded by concerns of being too London-centric, and so some things are moved outside of your single, central newsroom - of course, a lot of specialist news teams have already been moved away.

While I suppose it might seem a bit counter-intuitive, it's ultimately not such an issue these days as communication between locations is much easier and, increasingly, regional centres are being brought up to higher technical standards. Having everything in one place is no longer entirely necessary and the small hiccups are nothing compared to, as you say, easily ticking a box. Plus, to be honest, I'd rather News met their out-of-London targets through permanently moving a bulletin to a proper set than their current occasional and random tours of empty parts of other BBC buildings.

You make a very good point, DTV.

Out of the programmes you’ve cited there, for example, the geographical spread effectively creates a need for extra studio space and staffing. Breakfast, originally, would likely have been planned to come from the original Studio B in NBH. The soft side of the set, where Impact was presented from, would have looked great set up for Breakfast. Studio B was the spiritual successor to TC7 which housed both Newsnight and Breakfast at TV Centre. Even now, in the new Studio B, the set could probably be altered to host a sofa-based Breakfast in a similar way to the manner in which they alter the set for Laura K’s show.

Sports news programming, leaving aside Sport department-produced standalone programmes such as Match of the Day, could easily be accommodated at NBH. Sportsday could simply use a news studio and short sports updates could be presented either from the desk or catwalk within existing studios in a similar manner to business programming. Short updates clearly don’t need a dedicated studio and crew.

I’m sure 5 Live could easily fit in too, especially given that they do on occasion use London-based studios anyway.

The idea that programming should be based outside of London for the sake of it is a waste of money, as others have said. London is the UK’s capital city, it makes sense to have your news department based there. There are economies of scale, working efficiencies and benefits to collaboration (evident both on-screen and off) from having everything all in one place. This was the vision of NBH as intended, and why the BBC invested billions in producing the combined newsroom functions.

Before it was even finished, this vision was eroded and compromised for political reasons. It was simply unnecessary. Breakfast has come from a glorified cupboard for over a decade as a result, and the BBC have spent a fortune shuttling presenters back and forth to Salford. There was also a huge bill for relocation packages which wouldn’t have been needed if they stayed in London. Every single day, weather is presented down the line instead of in-studio because weather is still based in London. Given the programme is about having “the team” sat around the sofa together, this is jarring and presentationally poor. And it’s not genuinely created any jobs in the North either.

Now, under Tim Davie, whole news departments have randomly been moved across the UK to different regional bases for similar political reasons. It is absolutely not creating value for money for the LF payer and is a total waste of effort for no gain whatsoever.

And, by the way, I say all of this as someone who lives outside of London myself.