BBC Four & CBBC to close

[DTV]

To be honest, I am quite surprised at how lightly Radio (and not just local) has been cut. If they were feeling really radical, I think you could make a case for merging 3, 4 and 5 Live down into two stations - with 3 as classical music and non-factual talks and 4 as a news, factual and sport network.

[Rex]

I am absolutely not surprised that BBC Four is getting axed. It's arguably the least watched of the main 4 BBC channels, and the fact it became an archive channel doesn't help matters.

BBC Four's viewing figures are a lot higher than BBC Three, there isn't any 'arguably' about it.

Four is getting higher ratings thanks to it having an established audience and prominent EPG slots with which Three has to start over with again as a result of the relaunch of the channel. 

Further down the line, I expect BBC Three to move up to channel 9 on Freeview at the very least when BBC Four is closed - by then it'll have secured Sky 115 with the BBC One HD channels being regionalised.

[Newshound47]

To be honest, I am quite surprised at how lightly Radio (and not just local) has been cut. If they were feeling really radical, I think you could make a case for merging 3, 4 and 5 Live down into two stations - with 3 as classical music and non-factual talks and 4 as a news, factual and sport network.

Merging four and five would be very controversial and would certianly see a massive campaign against it.

[natashajacobs]

In all of this I feel sorry for the kids of the parents on Universal Credit who don’t have a phone or internet access and use the free kids channels, they lose out most from this.

On paper this is a good argument for a children's strand on one of the remaining linear channels.  However, 97% of the UK has internet access so I'm not sure it really stands up once you dive into the figures.  Also BT and Virgin offer heavily discounted broadband for those on Universal Credit.

True but just because you have internet doesn’t mean it’s fast enough to stream tv. Lots of people don’t have fibre. I’m sure there will be some linear outlet on 1 or 2 anyway as I’m convinced cbbc will have a difficult task to keep viewers online

[natashajacobs]

Radio 4 has such an excessively high budget compared to all other radio that it seems crazy it’s continually overlooked for cuts.

[i.h]

In all of this I feel sorry for the kids of the parents on Universal Credit who don’t have a phone or internet access and use the free kids channels, they lose out most from this.

On paper this is a good argument for a children's strand on one of the remaining linear channels.  However, 97% of the UK has internet access so I'm not sure it really stands up once you dive into the figures.  Also BT and Virgin offer heavily discounted broadband for those on Universal Credit.

Another issue is that there is still some parts of the Uk that don’t really get broadband that is fast enough to use to stream Tv.

I'm unconvinced that scrapping linear broadcasting will save much, but:

you really don't need that much bandwidth - a few megs. BT recently refreshed their discounted package to give you up to 40Mbps, with up to 80Mbps for a little bit more per month, and I believe the Virgin equivalent is similar.

With VDSL/FTTH coverage as good as it is we're basically talking miniscule numbers of people here. Even my grandparents could get 80Mbps if they had wanted to, and they were in the middle of nowhere.

[JAS84]

Merging CBBC and CBeebies makes more sense for me since both channels already targeted similar audience and both are originally named as CBBC pre-2002 (or Children's BBC prior to 1997). The merged channels can carry the original CBBC name or having new name, but it will have a impact for BBC Three. BBC3 will no longer sharing similar prequency as the merged channel, instead they become full-pledged general youth-oriented channel. The BBC can think the merger between two kids channels was unlikely, but still very possible.

Yeah, question is: what could a merged service be called? BBC Junior, perhaps?

BBC Kids.
https://logos.fandom.com/wiki/BBC_Kids_(Australia)

[GraemeT]

Surely all radio ‘extra’ channels can just go on sounds only, as streams or similar. Admittedly I don’t know how much £ that saves.

I think the bbc needs to alter the perception of what it does, as much as it does to reduce spend.

People think it’s too big due to the extra channels and spin offs etc etc, but moving them to a lesser format would reduce that perception.

I also think they’ve taken a fairly broad brush on these to say “this will impact news, children and adult tv”.

I think someone said a few pages ago that largely people haven’t noticed many significant changes - and this is about saying “here’s the impact of reduction and were serious about it”


On a logic point of view - removing cbbc is surely just a new nail in the coffin for bbc3 a few years later as now they won’t have linear viewers transitioning...

There’s small cuts that could be shown as sensible like removing regional continuity and moving to prerecord for regional opt outs etc.

I can’t help but think not all of what was announced today will happen

[johnnyboy]

Wonder why they don't put CBBC on during BBC2's daytime hours? Or keep CBBC as a channel and start BBC2 at 7pm?

[GraemeT]

A thought... why does cbbc need to exist between 830-330 when kids of cbbc age are at school.

CBeebies different story of course.

Maybe the old kids morning and evening slots should return on but in bbc2 say 6-8 and 4-7?

[sjames]

Whilst BBC Four is one of my most regularly watched channels, I can see the argument that it could be merged with BBC 2 especially with the cuts in recent years, however I think the possibility of the CBBC channel being cut is a bigger issue.

CBBC is probably the last great outputs of British children's productions. Yes, CiTV exists but is a shadow of its former self. Moving it to solely online is a big risk and whilst the press release says Blue Peter and Newsround would still continue, it does make you wonder for how long? It would be a shame for long running institutions like that to get axed purely due to a short sighted decision of basically cutting out a whole generation of public.

If anything has to be cut, surely BBC Alba and BBC Scotland are more niche than something like CBBC?

[Newshound47]

Radio 4 has such an excessively high budget compared to all other radio that it seems crazy it’s continually overlooked for cuts.

It has a very loyal listener base who would make the campaign to save 6 music seem small if major cuts were proposed.

[telebox2001]

Yes cuts in the nations are "politically explosive" but are also an enormous waste of money. I'm absolutely 100% of the opinion the Scotland channel needs to be scrapped but beyond that there's a lot of duplication of roles and responsibilities.

As a huge fan of the music documentaries etc. on BBC Four this is very sad news. I shall miss them.

[Newshound47]

Yes cuts in the nations are "politically explosive" but are also an enormous waste of money.  I'm absolutely 100% of the opinion the Scotland channel needs to be scrapped but beyond that there's a lot of duplication of roles and responsibilities.

As a huge fan of the music documentaries etc. on BBC Four this is very sad news.  I shall miss them.

But political contentions is always going to be driving feature of how the BBC makes decisions.

[sjames]

A thought... why does cbbc need to exist between 830-330 when kids of cbbc age are at school.

CBeebies different story of course.

Maybe the old kids morning and evening slots should return on but in bbc2 say 6-8 and 4-7?

You could apply that logic to any children's channel though. Of course if kids are off school ill or maybe even being home schooled, or even where school holidays vary across the country it's useful. When the CBBC channel first started they used to show schools programming during the day as well as some classic CBBC shows, there's no reason why they couldn't return to that.