[Mike]

I'll be intrigued to see how the 'UK Editor' post (based in Salford) differs from the Home Editor position.

Significantly cheaper, less London weighting/allowance to be paid and a slightly different job description so as not to upset the NUJ. A saving of probably £20k a year.

Am I right in thinking that the relocation of the BBC News at One to Salford is to help meet "out of London" production quotas, which will be reduced due to the axing of Doctors, which is made in Birmingham?

As for Salford, I'm firmly in favour of that. There is a certain logic to have a block of programming from one area. It already has numerous teams there so why not try doing something outside of London.

You mean like they did in the 90s, where the main bulk of daytime output came from Birmingham, including some of the continuity, but the axe fell on it.

My exception to this is where there are facilities available across the UK, why not diversify truly and spread these productions out - it does make sense to put the News at One in Salford if it has to be outside of London due to the colocation of the Breakfast production teams but I fear we'll see expenses being paid for ferry news readers up and down the UK on a daily basis as we did when Breakfast first moved.

During the early days of the Pandemic, CBS News broadcast the Evening News and Weekend News in a different affiliate studio every now and then with the local production team. The quality stayed the same, as it's pretty much all automated. You could save money by just employing the regional teams, with a pay uplift, to produce the national bulletin using regional staff. A well timed sting at the end of the national programme to allow people to opt out, change the studio graphics to a national template (such a generic template does exist for the new sets btw).

The reason less and less people are getting into broadcasting across the UK is they pretty much have to move. While I'm paying for the BBC I'd rather they gave up this dream of trying to capture gen Z and compete against streaming services and focused purely on quality content you cannot get elsewhere with true diversity of where programmes are made and produced, instead of shoehorning everything into Salford and reporting back to the DCMS 'look we're listening' because the boxes you tick say it's 'Outside London'. I think most LFP would think the same. When was the last time someone from Cornwall saw a programme set/made in their area, or Norwich, or Milton Keynes? However if they live in London, or the North West, they'd be catered for.