[interestednovice]

Also, the thing with the 'news first' and 'shouldn't do what commercial broadcasters can' approaches to the BBC that a lot of people on this forum seem to have is what BBC News TV output do commercial alternatives not do? You might have been able to say something years ago, but, partially thanks to the detabloidisation of ITV and Sky News and partly down to cuts, pretty much anything that BBC News does on TV is done to an at least similar quality elsewhere. Now you can argue that BBC News should be doing more different things, but - as things stand - I think it's hard to argue that BBC TV's news output is more unique than its entertainment output.

In a way, that’s exactly the point. The previously-special and unique news output (such as Newsnight, Our World, even the rolling news channel which had no ads and was UK-focused) has all been cut back to “save” less-unique entertainment output from needing heavier cuts. Whereas if news hadn’t been cut, the BBC would be doing more “unique” things than it is now.