BBC News and BBC World to merge

[chris]

I don't think that they will reject this......bear in mind that Ofcom approved BBC Three's closure back in 2016, the BBC Scotland channel's opening in 2019 and BBC Three's return in 2022. Ofcom has always approved what the BBC decided to do

Didn’t BBC One +1 get rejected? 

In an age where most get their news from phones, it seems sensible. Alongside the new Studio B, I welcome the BBC’s focus on the bulletins after far too many years trying to turn them into effectively another half hour of News 24. 

I do understand the concern around different audiences but I think you can get around that with branded programming throughout the day, purposely highlighting that this hour has an international /UK focus.

It’s interesting that closure of BBC Arabic or Persian is never mentioned to save the English-speaking channels. Any thoughts as to why that might be?

[i.h]

It’ll be interesting if they get this to work, as like others have said, during simulcast hours it often doesn’t work now at the moment.

You either get big domestic stories completely disappearing from the agenda, or alternatively told in a strange manner (“The British Prime Minister Boris Johnson…”)

Or you get lengthy coverage of a domestic story (such as COVID briefings that went on for about an hour) that must be irrelevant to world viewers.

That’s before you factor in all the awkwardness with leaving gaps for advert opt outs and not being able to mention what time it is etc

I'm looking at this in a very simplistic way, purely based on the fact that BBC is struggling to do everything it currently does because of budgets cuts, and I know the World News Channel makes the BBC money from being able to have adverts on it, and I have no idea how much money from this advertising pays for what goes out on screen compared to the license fee paid by people here in the UK, but why is it the job of the BBC to do news for different countries? Why can't the BBC News Channel concentrate on news that affects the UK for the majority of the time.

Soft power. Same reason why the government historically funded the World Service (and since the responsibility shifted to the BBC, has offered more limited funding to achieve certain goals). While it might put a British spin on things, it's a widely trusted news source for people in countries that don't really have one of their own

[Roger Darthwell]

I don't think that they will reject this......bear in mind that Ofcom approved BBC Three's closure back in 2016, the BBC Scotland channel's opening in 2019 and BBC Three's return in 2022. Ofcom has always approved what the BBC decided to do

Didn’t BBC One +1 get rejected? 

In an age where most get their news from phones, it seems sensible. Alongside the new Studio B, I welcome the BBC’s focus on the bulletins after far too many years trying to turn them into effectively another half hour of News 24. 

I do understand the concern around different audiences but I think you can get around that with branded programming throughout the day, purposely highlighting that this hour has an international /UK focus.

It’s interesting that closure of BBC Arabic or Persian is never mentioned to save the English-speaking channels. Any thoughts as to why that might be?

As far as I remember BBC One+1 was rejected by the BBC Trust itself, not by Ofcom

[harshy]

Well there is a brightside to this merger. Maybe....just maybe they will create a COMPLETELY new look. So tired of the current presentation. So boring.  But im not optimistic at alll for any thing remotely currently and fresh though.

Seriously this merger was going to happen sooner or later with the funding changing soon. Also if a major uk domestic story needs to be covered, they can still opt out the UK from the main channel and do rolling domestic coverage. The sky isnt falling. Its gonna be ok. LOL Reminds me of CNNi in reverse. Possibly with a better schedule. We shall see.

Well bbc world news will lose all it’s fantastic varied coloured programmes and it will be Just boring bbc news red.

[Moz]

So it’s only the Six and the Ten using Studio B? Not the One.

[bbctvtechop]

The full transcript of Tim Davies speech

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/speech...-tim-davie


The specific bit about the News Channel is....

We have already brought the editorial leadership of the News Channel in the UK and international World News together, so that live and breaking news happens in a single integrated model across digital, streaming and broadcast. Now we propose to go further and create output around a single TV channel called BBC News. We know there are stories which are key to UK audiences, but less relevant elsewhere, and vice versa – so not everything will be simulcast. However, there will be much more shared output and a fully co-ordinated approach. And we want to break new ground by creating output that can be simulcast on audio and video services.

And I suppose there will be a spare studio, fully maintained and ready to go at a moment's notice, staffed by a full crew who are not assigned to any other programme, and with a full production team with content and scripts fully prepared and researched, picture editors and OBs on standby ready to cover the news, 2 or 3 shifts a day 7 days a week.

It's almost like those resources could be used to, oh I don't know, maintain a full separate channel?

[Brekkie]

So it’s only the Six and the Ten using Studio B? Not the One.

I'm sure they said the One as well but that didn't really make sense considering the One has long been considered a News Channel production.

[Andrew]

The full transcript of Tim Davies speech

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/speech...-tim-davie


The specific bit about the News Channel is....

We have already brought the editorial leadership of the News Channel in the UK and international World News together, so that live and breaking news happens in a single integrated model across digital, streaming and broadcast. Now we propose to go further and create output around a single TV channel called BBC News. We know there are stories which are key to UK audiences, but less relevant elsewhere, and vice versa – so not everything will be simulcast. However, there will be much more shared output and a fully co-ordinated approach. And we want to break new ground by creating output that can be simulcast on audio and video services.

And I suppose there will be a spare studio, fully maintained and ready to go at a moment's notice, staffed by a full crew who are not assigned to any other programme, and with a full production team with content and scripts fully prepared and researched, picture editors and OBs on standby ready to cover the news, 2 or 3 shifts a day 7 days a week.

It's almost like those resources could be used to, oh I don't know, maintain a full separate channel?

I expect the opt outs will either be pre-planned based on the planned news agenda, or will consist of a very basic service, such as when the COVID briefings overlapped the Six, and a very basic version of the news channel would stay on air separate from BBC One until 6:30

[DTV]

So it’s only the Six and the Ten using Studio B? Not the One.

I'm sure they said the One as well but that didn't really make sense considering the One has long been considered a News Channel production.

I guess it might be the case that the Six and Ten are launching from B next month, with One and Weekends joining them after the new channel is launched. I expect enough resources will be freed up by the merger to allow the One to have a bare-bones production team of its own.

[Moz]

So it’s only the Six and the Ten using Studio B? Not the One.

I'm sure they said the One as well but that didn't really make sense considering the One has long been considered a News Channel production.

I guess it might be the case that the Six and Ten are launching from B next month, with One and Weekends joining them after the new channel is launched. I expect enough resources will be freed up by the merger to allow the One to have a bare-bones production team of its own.

Nah. I reckon the One and weekends will just be News Channel simulcasts from E.

[DTV]

I guess it might be the case that the Six and Ten are launching from B next month, with One and Weekends joining them after the new channel is launched. I expect enough resources will be freed up by the merger to allow the One to have a bare-bones production team of its own.

Nah. I reckon the One and weekends will just be News Channel simulcasts from E.

To be honest, wouldn't be that surprised. Which will make it even more fun for World viewers given that the One is generally quite UK-focussed and weekend bulletins regularly contain updates about international news as pressing as who was eliminated from Strictly this week.

[AndrewP]

That’s before you factor in all the awkwardness with leaving gaps for advert opt outs and not being able to mention what time it is etc

They usually get past that by saying x hours GMT on World Service
I've noticed on Newsday on BBC R4 (WS simulcast) they say it's 5 o'clock in London - something that could work. But that might be a bit unpopular with a lot of domestic audiences

[Worzel]

I noticed that Tim Davie said in his speech that the News channel and World News would merge to become simply 'BBC News'.

That was what the News channel was supposed to be called after the 2008 rebrand from BBC News 24. I can't remember what the official line was but I recall insiders saying on TVF that if something was being trailed on say, BBC One, it was to be referenced as coming up on the BBC News channel, but on the channel itself it was simply BBC News. That's never worked very well with both names being used or simply just 'The News channel'.

It's a bit of branding nightmare if they're just going to call it BBC News as we're going to go through this all over again. A presenter on the BBC One bulletins saying 'That's it from the BBC News at Six, more on BBC News, now on BBC One its time for the news where you are' is just going to complicate matters. 'BBC News' means too many things to UK audiences. Its not like Sky News which is primarily a rolling news channel.

For International viewers its less of a problem as there aren't dedicated bulletins as in the UK, but I suspect it'll always be referred to as 'BBC World', 'World' or 'World News' by the general public for the next 2 decades.

Oh and I really hope that finally, we might end up with 16:9 safe graphics rather than legacy 4:3 ones.

[harshy]

I noticed that Tim Davie said in his speech that the News channel and World News would merge to become simply 'BBC News'.

That was what the News channel was supposed to be called after the 2008 rebrand from BBC News 24. I can't remember what the official line was but I recall insiders saying on TVF that if something was being trailed on say, BBC One, it was to be referenced as coming up on the BBC News channel, but on the channel itself it was simply BBC News. That's never worked very well with both names being used or simply just 'The News channel'.

It's a bit of branding nightmare if they're just going to call it BBC News as we're going to go through this all over again. A presenter on the BBC One bulletins saying 'That's it from the BBC News at Six, more on BBC News, now on BBC One its time for the news where you are' is just going to complicate matters. 'BBC News' means too many things to UK audiences. Its not like Sky News which is primarily a rolling news channel.

For International viewers its less of a problem as there aren't dedicated bulletins as in the UK, but I suspect it'll always be referred to as 'BBC World', 'World' or 'World News' by the general public for the next 2 decades.

Oh and I really hope that finally, we might end up with 16:9 safe graphics rather than legacy 4:3 ones.

I think a few weeks ago i did say that they should rename BBC World News to BBC News and thats what they've done it looks like.

[JamesWorldNews]

I’ll be launching an online competition to choose a new user name for me.

The winner gets a prize.