BBC News and BBC World to merge

[Brekkie]

God I'm bored of this parochialism on here. Fundamentally, there is value in an international oriented news channel in the UK, there is next to no value in a UK oriented news channel internationally. In addition, the fact that BBC World News is a money-making enterprise and the BBC News channel isn't means that there shouldn't really be a debate over whether which path was best. Though, of course, this doesn't mean it'll be the path the BBC follow.

I wouldn't be so dismissive of that view as people are just basing it on their own experience here of turning to CNN for a US story, France 24 for a French story, Al Jazerra for a Middle East story etc.

Of course though our market is different to those where there is less choice in news services and the purpose of BBC World has always been about impartial trusted news, rather than giving a British viewpoint on events.   Ultimately it is a decision that shouldn't have to be made for the reasons you state but we are where we are.

[itsrobert]

My view, for what it's worth, is that if the BBC is producing a news channel, it should be focused towards its core licence fee paying viewers in the UK. An international news channel is something of a luxury, not a necessity. Yes, I do know all the reasons why BBC World's existence is good, but if they are cutting costs then the focus should be on providing the UK with the best possible output.

Also, I've never understood the notion that international viewers would be more interested in the political turmoil in Sri Lanka than the UK. Why? Why would viewers around the world not be interested in the UK? I'm in the UK and I'm interested to a degree in the news from Sri Lanka. Why, then, would someone outside the UK not be at least vaguely interested in the political turmoil in the UK last week?

I don't see what the problem is with creating a news channel that has the UK at its heart but also includes stories from the rest of the world if they are editorially relevant.

[jaykhan24]

I think BBC should close all the languages on the world services and move those budgets towards English BBC World. I think the foreign office use to fund these service before it was stopped.

[chris]

My view, for what it's worth, is that if the BBC is producing a news channel, it should be focused towards its core licence fee paying viewers in the UK. An international news channel is something of a luxury, not a necessity. Yes, I do know all the reasons why BBC World's existence is good, but if they are cutting costs then the focus should be on providing the UK with the best possible output.

Also, I've never understood the notion that international viewers would be more interested in the political turmoil in Sri Lanka than the UK. Why? Why would viewers around the world not be interested in the UK? I'm in the UK and I'm interested to a degree in the news from Sri Lanka. Why, then, would someone outside the UK not be at least vaguely interested in the political turmoil in the UK last week?

I don't see what the problem is with creating a news channel that has the UK at its heart but also includes stories from the rest of the world if they are editorially relevant.

I’m not sure the political turmoil is the best example - it would have been a major story on World News regardless of simulcasts. 

The stories that will be more difficult to get right is a gas explosion in a British suburb. Who outside of the UK is interested in that? 

Having thought about this for a while, I disagree that domestic should be prioritised over international for the BBC’s news channel. In the age of mobile, linear rolling news is a dated concept, not a necessity. If World News is profitable, why not keep it that way and utilise its profits to improve domestic output online and on bulletins, which is where the majority of the audience is? BBC World News could still be broadcast in the UK, and would if anything improve the BBC’s offer.

[DTV]

My view, for what it's worth, is that if the BBC is producing a news channel, it should be focused towards its core licence fee paying viewers in the UK. An international news channel is something of a luxury, not a necessity. Yes, I do know all the reasons why BBC World's existence is good, but if they are cutting costs then the focus should be on providing the UK with the best possible output.

Also, I've never understood the notion that international viewers would be more interested in the political turmoil in Sri Lanka than the UK. Why? Why would viewers around the world not be interested in the UK? I'm in the UK and I'm interested to a degree in the news from Sri Lanka. Why, then, would someone outside the UK not be at least vaguely interested in the political turmoil in the UK last week?

I don't see what the problem is with creating a news channel that has the UK at its heart but also includes stories from the rest of the world if they are editorially relevant.

Aside from my earlier points that still very much stand, the only people that really watch the BBC News channel for any length of time are news junkies - many of whom would be perfectly fine with an international news channel. Live events that are relevant only to the UK will still be covered on Sky News and the BBC still has multiple outlets to broadcast UK relevant news, as well as the ability to break into BBC One/Two when relevant (and supposedly opt-out of the new channel). BBC World News's audience is an order of magnitude greater than the BBC News channel's, is the only BBC television news for most of the world and, crucially, brings in money to BBC News. Any fall in this audience limits the BBC's ability to turn a profit and runs the risk of making the channel a loss-making enterprise.

Also I wasn't saying that international viewers don't care about UK politics, but they only do in proportion to its relevance. BBC World News covers the Sri Lanka crisis as the main story, before moving on to others. By contrast, the Conservative leadership contest is largely monopolising the BBC News channel's coverage at the minute. On a channel for the international market, the total collapse of a national government is more important and newsworthy than the minutae of a leadership election. The BBC should obviously give more coverage of the contest than other international broadcasters, but it would be ridiculous for it to lead the news for weeks on an international channel.

[Brekkie]

Reach is arguably more important than serving the news junkies though. The BBC isn't there to serve everyone every second of the day but at times of importance, like the events last week, people turn to it in huge numbers and they must be well served.

Of course even without a news channel you'd assume they'd have been quite a bit of extended news coverage last week which in relation to this merger would equate to longer opt out hours when required.

[DTV]

Reach is arguably more important than serving the news junkies though.  The BBC isn't there to serve everyone every second of the day but at times of importance, like the events last week, people turn to it in huge numbers and they must be well served.

Of course even without a news channel you'd assume they'd have been quite a bit of extended news coverage last week which in relation to this merger would equate to longer opt out hours when required.

I do see this, but, as you allude to, pretty much all spikes in BBC News channel viewing comes at a time when even a merged international-oriented channel would be covering the UK story or you get breaking coverage on BBC One. Outside of those spikes, though, I just can't see any good argument for international not taking precedence.

I think the problem with political news is that the BBC don't really have a good, dedicated political news programme any more. Newsnight is the closest, but has a broader remit than simple politics. Ditching Politics Live and having a proper mid-afternoon daily political news programme would be helpful in counteracting the loss from a merged news channel. I know that cost was part of the reason that the Daily Politics was axed, but there is no real reason to have separate reporters - the BBC has more than enough in the politics team already!

[itsrobert]

I don't class myself as a full-on news junkie - certainly not the type that watches it for hours every day. I dip in and out mostly at breakfast time and again during the evening. The only time I spend any length of time watching a news channel is when something interesting is happening, such as last week. But, I do expect - maybe rightly or wrongly - that I have access to BBC News whenever I want it with a focus on domestic and international issues from a UK perspective according to the editorial agenda of the day. It's not enough to say 'there's an app' or a website, those just don't replicate the type of rolling news that the audience have become accustomed to having. To expect me to return to the 1990s situation of waiting for a bulletin is ridiculous. The joy of last week was in seeing events unfold and hearing the analysis of the correspondents and contributions of the pundits.

Therefore, my feeling is - as a British citizen - that I would expect the BBC to prioritise serving my needs over and above the overseas audience. Like I said, an international channel is a luxury. If the new BBC News channel focuses too heavily on international affairs and starts treating me like an idiot by explaining who the Chancellor of the Exchequer is, then I will be tuning out and over to Sky News as I have been doing more and more since the simulcasting started. They're effectively losing the casual UK audience by going down that route (and I guess the overseas audience if they focus too much on UK affairs). Maybe that's the plan - alienate the entire audience and one day the whole channel will be closed down?

[Roger Darthwell]

I don't class myself as a full-on news junkie - certainly not the type that watches it for hours every day. I dip in and out mostly at breakfast time and again during the evening. The only time I spend any length of time watching a news channel is when something interesting is happening, such as last week. But, I do expect - maybe rightly or wrongly - that I have access to BBC News whenever I want it with a focus on domestic and international issues from a UK perspective according to the editorial agenda of the day. It's not enough to say 'there's an app' or a website, those just don't replicate the type of rolling news that the audience have become accustomed to having. To expect me to return to the 1990s situation of waiting for a bulletin is ridiculous. The joy of last week was in seeing events unfold and hearing the analysis of the correspondents and contributions of the pundits.

Therefore, my feeling is - as a British citizen - that I would expect the BBC to prioritise serving my needs over and above the overseas audience. Like I said, an international channel is a luxury. If the new BBC News channel focuses too heavily on international affairs and starts treating me like an idiot by explaining who the Chancellor of the Exchequer is, then I will be tuning out and over to Sky News as I have been doing more and more since the simulcasting started. They're effectively losing the casual UK audience by going down that route (and I guess the overseas audience if they focus too much on UK affairs). Maybe that's the plan - alienate the entire audience and one day the whole channel will be closed down?

If this is the plan, then I think it would be utterly horrific and another proof on how the current management of the BBC is hell bent on destroying it

[RR]

I'm not sure that the question being discussed here in some recent posts is the right one.

There are several sources of funding. The UK channel is funded from the Licence Fee.

BBC World is funded partly by carriage fees in certain countries, but mainly by grants from the government.

I'm not aware that the latter is reducing, so the current debate is about spreading a lower relative level of licence fee (fixed in absolute amount as costs rise). The trade off isn't between BBC World and BBC News in the UK, but how to spend less from the licence fee in the UK in total. One way is to reduce the spend on the BBC News channel by using what is already produced for the overseas audience. Another is to maintain the spend on that channel, but reduce spend elsewhere in the UK.

[DTV]

Therefore, my feeling is - as a British citizen - that I would expect the BBC to prioritise serving my needs over and above the overseas audience. Like I said, an international channel is a luxury. If the new BBC News channel focuses too heavily on international affairs and starts treating me like an idiot by explaining who the Chancellor of the Exchequer is, then I will be tuning out and over to Sky News as I have been doing more and more since the simulcasting started. They're effectively losing the casual UK audience by going down that route (and I guess the overseas audience if they focus too much on UK affairs).

But this is basically my point. A wholly merged channel is a bad idea in the first place, but it is going ahead. That gives them three options - an international-focussed channel that might lose some UK viewers, a UK-focussed channel that will lose global viewers or some crappy compromise that serves nobody and will, in the long run, alienate both audiences. My view is that, as BBC World News brings in additional money for the whole of BBC News, it is preferable to keep the global audience at the expense of the UK audience. While Newswatch may get some whiny letters, losing that audience would almost certainly mean more cuts to BBC News. It is therefore in the best interests of the whole department to go down the international route (though I actually think they'll go down the compromise route).

It's also the case that this all might end up a moot point - we really have to see how frequent the alleged opt-outs are. I remain sceptical that they will be anything but rare, but it should be noted that most of the drama from last week would be covered in depth on even the most international focussed BBC News channel. It's when you get to second-tier UK politics stories - like the day-to-day of the Conservative leadership contest - that there is little justification for more than a short story on a UK-based international news channel.

At the end of the day, I'd rather see the news channel lose viewers to Sky than see Newsnight axed and millions of English-speaking international viewers in Africa and Asia lose one of their few, if only, trustworthy TV news sources.

[Brekkie]

You have to wonder too how much running the actual channel itself costs compared to the cost of the news gathering, especially as the studios and galleries are in place and to the best of our knowledge we know at least one more will be upgraded in NBH and there will be no cut to transmission costs.

[mdta]

I know it seems like a hopeless cause right now, but a less BBC antagonistic Tory government, may make the merge moot, if a better funding arrangement is sought - and a compelling enough argument is made for keeping the two separate entities, with more sharing of content and resources.

[DTV]

I know it seems like a hopeless cause right now, but a less BBC antagonistic Tory government, may make the merge moot, if a better funding arrangement is sought - and a compelling enough argument is made for keeping the two separate entities, with more sharing of content and resources.

Without getting too deep into the politics, the main direction of the Conservative leadership contest seems to be public sector cuts and culture wars - I doubt the landscape is going to get more favourable to the BBC over the coming weeks.

You have to wonder too how much running the actual channel itself costs compared to the cost of the news gathering, especially as the studios and galleries are in place and to the best of our knowledge we know at least one more will be upgraded in NBH and there will be no cut to transmission costs.

The problem with trying to work out the BBC News budget is the BBC doesn't list accounts by department, just by channel. The BBC News channel has a budget of roughly £60m, but I think that network programming, regional news, etc. comes from the BBC One/Two budget. Sky News' total budget is roughly £90m - that will include newsgathering, but obviously the BBC has a far larger newsgathering organisation. So I suspect that the News channel's budget includes some newsgathering, but not all. The actual operational costs of putting the channel on air (i.e. gallery teams, studio costs, presenters, transmission costs) is probably fairly small, a few million.

BBC World is funded partly by carriage fees in certain countries, but mainly by grants from the government.

I'm not aware that the latter is reducing, so the current debate is about spreading a lower relative level of licence fee (fixed in absolute amount as costs rise). The trade off isn't between BBC World and BBC News in the UK, but how to spend less from the licence fee in the UK in total. One way is to reduce the spend on the BBC News channel by using what is already produced for the overseas audience. Another is to maintain the spend on that channel, but reduce spend elsewhere in the UK.

BBC World News is not funded by government grants, that is the BBC World Service. BBC World News is a commercial enterprise, largely funded through advertising (which is dependent on viewership). I'm not entirely sure about your wider point about trade-offs - the trade-off fundamentally is between BBC World News and the BBC News channel because the two are being merged.

[all new Phil]

I know it seems like a hopeless cause right now, but a less BBC antagonistic Tory government, may make the merge moot, if a better funding arrangement is sought - and a compelling enough argument is made for keeping the two separate entities, with more sharing of content and resources.

We all know there’s a cost of living crisis right now. Nobody (Conservative or Labour) is going to advocate for more money for the BBC any time soon. Nothing to do with being antagonistic.