BBC to "cut number of programmes it makes" according to Davie

[telebox2001]

Turning BBC Two into BBC News in daytime is a daft idea, what happens to coverage of Wimbledon and Snooker as it can't all go to BBC One.

Well, as I said, you hit a bit of a problem for the few weeks a year that Wimbledon or Snooker is on. But in those cases you could easily drop an afternoon of rolling news if there are no major stories on. During an afternoon Snooker slot, that typically lasts from 13:00-17:15, you could have a short news update at 14:00 and 16:00 and a longer update or short bulletin at 15:00. It might be a departure from the rolling news we currently have, but it isn't dissimilar to what happened in the 90s with the hourly news summaries. If there are big stories, then the BBC would have to make a decision which should take priority - as they did before News 24.

Before you say 'but it isn't the 90s', well obviously. But what is being outlined is the BBC effectively returning to pre-digital levels of original content production. There is no need for the BBC to have post-digital levels of channels if they aren't going to produce enough content to fill them. At no point did I say this is what they should do, I merely suggested it as a radical possible solution to the problems facing BBC Two. Let's face it, ten years ago you and I would have said it was daft to simulcast 3 1/4 hours of BBC News on BBC Two during the morning, but here we are.

Whilst this is quite an interesting idea, it's not inconceivable.  Wimbledon overspill isn't the issue it once was: there's now iPlayer.

Afternoon snooker, realistically, could go on BBC One.  The vast majority of the daytime lineup even on One is fairly expendable.

Of course, Two's real problem IMHO is Three and Four have taken away significant chunks of their traditional "alternative" remit, and as a result has diminished the amount of new material available to air on the network.

[CantGetIn]

BBC Four looks to be safe, I would not be surprised by a CNN+ style closure of BBC Three! or as I suspected a few weeks ago some kind of merger.

The Telegraph's take on this story is that the BBC is no longer pushing to attract younger people.

[Brekkie]

BBC2 is already closed during the day except for Politics Live and live sport. It's effectively the archive channel BBC4 becomes in the evening with virtually no commissioning costs. From this interview channel closures aren't on the cards - it's about spreading content thinner.

We are already seeing most money saving measures in action such as more imported shows, more factual formats and BBC1 primetime embracing reality TV formats in a way it hasn't previously so expect more of that.

[Cusack]

The timing of this does seem to coincide with today's news that the government was looking for more ways to help people with the cost of living crisis. If I was being cynical I'd suggest this might also be an attempt to prevent any further cuts to the licence fee.

I dare say if it wasn't for national politics they might consider closing the BBC Scotland channel. After all that channel has some original programming and requires an additional channel number & resources on platforms. Arguably if it were to close they could reintroduce BBC 2 Scotland, a promise to make Scottish programming more prominent, and maybe have a Scottish Six.

Radio stations such as 4 Extra are already essentially an archive service. Similarly BBC Two weekdays in the mornings already simulcasts with the News Channel. I dare say for small savings they might be tempted to look at trying to automate the likes of 1Xtra and 6 Music.

Why auotmate 1Xtra and 6 Music? They are two stations that you could argue are doing things that can't be found in the commercial sector so should carry on as they are. Also don't these stations have the lowest budget of the BBC's live radio services? Why not cut budgets for the likes of Radio 3 or Radio 4?

[Roger Darthwell]

BBC Four looks to be safe, I would not be surprised by a CNN+ style closure of BBC Three! or as I suspected a few weeks ago some kind of merger.

The Telegraph's take on this story is that the BBC is no longer pushing to attract younger people.

BBC Three has just got it's budget raised by £80 million, it would be madness to close it again!

[DTV]

Of course, Two's real problem IMHO is Three and Four have taken away significant chunks of their traditional "alternative" remit, and as a result has diminished the amount of new material available to air on the network.

Yep, BBC Two is basically a husk - everything that it used to do was taken away from it, leaving just a few factual and general entertainment programmes that wouldn't fit on BBC One. It lost young adults to BBC Three; lost arts and had to share factual with BBC Four (with that content not reabsorbed by Two now Four is archive only); Children's, that took up most of its morning schedule, was taken off terrestrial; Schools and Learning Zone were axed entirely; the late-night parliamentary review was shifted to BBC Parliament, then axed. Then you've got BBC One lifting not just any of its successful programmes, but becoming the first broadcast slot for basically all daytime programming (even Flog It!, the last big daytime brand that was really BBC Two's, has been axed).

Don't get me wrong, there is still good stuff on BBC Two, but it's just not enough to be a channel by itself. Merging Two and News would be a radical solution, but merging Two and Four wouldn't be - a lot of the archive programming could move to daytimes - you could have Archive Afternoons. If BBC Two is going to be a partially 'archive' channel, it might as well be popular archive material rather than just repeats of BBC One daytime programming.

[Brekkie]

We're in danger of going down the "make cuts to what I don't use" route again.

Budgets and spending are a complicated thing and sometimes these cost saving exercises end up spending money in order to save money. There is also often money there for some things which has never been there for others - for example it's been suggested time and time again the money couldn't be justified to give Breakfast a set worthy of the nations number one breakfast show but then they manage to fund a new studio in a third party space for Morning Live, when previously it had come from a set owned by the BBC which is dormant in the mornings. Other things are counter intuitive such as it often being more cost effective to produce and present sports coverage on location than back in the UK studios - though of course covid and remote working has skewed the balance a bit in that rergard and I'd be surprised if the World Cup didn't largely come from Salford.

Sometimes too the solution to saving cash can be the polar opposite for two things - for example in terms of cutting programme content in some scenarios shows with fairly lengthy runs could probably see their number of new episodes a year cut by as much as half and get away with it, but in other circumstances actually extending the run of certain shows may fill the hours cheaper than others. Flog It was mentioned earlier which exists quite nicely in repeat mode on BBC2 at the moment (always like how every day has a completely different BBC Studios endcap!) but actually commissioning another run of 60 odd new episodes could extend the life of those repeats a couple of years longer.

[XIII]

It's actually cheaper to commission in volume, MasterChef's multi year renewal is probably the best example.

I suspect the reason to repeat BBC daytime content on BBC Two is because it's cost effective, it's very expensive to repeat ancient episodes of the classic stuff whereas factual doesn't.

BBC Two still has its place and if you start putting BBC Two from 6am-6pm, you can bet the news junkies on here would want it extended even further.

[DTV]

Sometimes too the solution to saving cash can be the polar opposite for two things - for example in terms of cutting programme content in some scenarios shows with fairly lengthy runs could probably see their number of new episodes a year cut by as much as half and get away with it, but in other circumstances actually extending the run of certain shows may fill the hours cheaper than others.    Flog It was mentioned earlier which exists quite nicely in repeat mode on BBC2 at the moment (always like how every day has a completely different BBC Studios endcap!) but actually commissioning another run of 60 odd new episodes could extend the life of those repeats a couple of years longer.

There's also the BBC One approach of mixing repeats and new episodes - Homes Under the Hammer, Bargain Hunt and Escape to the Country are broadcast on a policy of two new episodes per week and three repeats. And I wouldn't be surprised if another daytime slot ends up with some form of studio bound programming - there's a reason that the early years of BBC Daytime were almost entirely populated with talks shows and magazines.

[XIII]

Sometimes too the solution to saving cash can be the polar opposite for two things - for example in terms of cutting programme content in some scenarios shows with fairly lengthy runs could probably see their number of new episodes a year cut by as much as half and get away with it, but in other circumstances actually extending the run of certain shows may fill the hours cheaper than others.    Flog It was mentioned earlier which exists quite nicely in repeat mode on BBC2 at the moment (always like how every day has a completely different BBC Studios endcap!) but actually commissioning another run of 60 odd new episodes could extend the life of those repeats a couple of years longer.

There's also the BBC One approach of mixing repeats and new episodes - Homes Under the Hammer, Bargain Hunt and Escape to the Country are broadcast on a policy of two new episodes per week and three repeats. And I wouldn't be surprised if another daytime slot ends up with some form of studio bound programming - there's a reason that the early years of BBC Daytime were almost entirely populated with talks shows and magazines.

I think Rip Off Britain and Crimewatch nicely fill that studio bound role but they're on ad hoc. 

The BBC policy of a mix of new and repeats isn't unique to them, a lot of daytime shows in the US do that, Judge Judy was the best example.

[telebox2001]

We're in danger of going down the "make cuts to what I don't use" route again.

We're really not.  

I've always felt BBC Three was a solution to a problem that didn't exist in that young people stream first and foremost; they consume very little linear TV that isn't live.

BBC Scotland I just don't get the point of. Why does Scotland need its own channel?  Why can't that content be bought into custom versions of One and Two like it is in other home nations?  Why is Scotland a special case?

And as I've said upthread, both Three and Four are largely responsible for stripping away large elements of Two's remit.

It's not that I don't use them - Four I do, a lot infact.  But I would much rather have two linear channels of exceptional quality, rather than four or five where the content is spread so thinly any substance is lost.

[DTV]

BBC Scotland I just don't get the point of. Why does Scotland need its own channel?  Why can't that content be bought into custom versions of One and Two like it is in other home nations?  Why is Scotland a special case?

Scotland is a special case because it has a secessionist government who have previously suggested that, in an independent Scotland, the BBC would be replaced by an alternative public broadcaster. This would, of course, take a significant chunk out of the BBC's income. Therefore, the BBC has decided that it should visibly prove that it is able to serve Scottish audiences in a (probably futile) attempt to convince the SNP that it should be allowed to continue as the public broadcaster in an independent Scotland. BBC Scotland's existence is entirely political, with the BBC presumably making the judgment that the costs to run the channel outstrip the potential costs of losing Scottish licence income.

Politics is behind most of the obvious cuts that haven't been made. The main reason that BBC Local Radio in England hasn't undergone the obvious restructuring (i.e. mergers to bring them in line with TV regions) that could save the BBC quite a bit of money is that MPs are frequent guests on their local station and kick up a fuss anytime the BBC suggests it. This is similarly why BBC Parliament had managed to stave off significant cuts in previous rounds, because MPs complained.

[tellyblues]

BBC2 is already closed during the day except for Politics Live and live sport. It's effectively the archive channel BBC4 becomes in the evening with virtually no commissioning costs. From this interview channel closures aren't on the cards - it's about spreading content thinner.

We are already seeing most money saving measures in action such as more imported shows, more factual formats and BBC1 primetime embracing reality TV formats in a way it hasn't previously so expect more of that.

Perhaps not if they continue to underperform. Long-runners like Sewing Bee and The Apprentice may hold up but the new ones don't.

Like I said a while ago, it's difficult to replace these shows. An option could be regional optouts or programmes for the BBC3 demographic but older viewers tend to turn their noses up at them as if BBC1 should only cater for their needs. If there's stuff they don't like then they should just suck it up, younger viewers likewise, but there's definitely an imbalance at present.

[adamiow]

I would have thought that the logical solution is to trim back commissions - knocking episodes off series to save money.

[L1]

I would have thought that the logical solution is to trim back commissions - knocking episodes off series to save money.

It is probably cheaper to commission longer series I would imagine, hence less series overall saving more money