[Flux]

I assume it’s just cost cutting and also, to an extent, part of a natural wind-down of CBBC given the BBC’s stated intent to close the channel soon. Clearly, with some kind of scale-back in the status quo almost certain (even if the channel isn’t closed fully and morphs into an online service) they are not going to be bringing on loads of news presenters, so sharing makes sense.

There was a (golden!) time when they only had one main presenter - Ed Petrie, with Oucho the Cactus; who were followed by Iain and Hacker in the same vein. There were weekend covers but they were never really considered “main” hosts in the same way and (if I recall) were always pre recorded in batch. Personally, I always preferred that and felt they had too many presenters at one point - as if they were scared to replace Iain as Hacker’s straight man. IMO They should have returned to the stripped back setup, allocating one core host, especially with the channel winding down.

I do wonder if and how they’ll keep an element of pres alive when the channel ceases to be. My guess is that Hacker will remain the face of CBBC just with a larger online presence of some sort…?