BBC News and BBC World to merge

[Inspector Sands]

• "...speculation that the BBC could outsource nightshift work to cheaper locations, with Singapore and the US said to be under consideration".
  

'Follow The Sun' working, quite common for organisations with worldwide offices to do that. 3 x 8 hr shifts in a row, that are during local office hours

Not the first news channel to do it either, CNN, Al Jazeera English and TRT World have all had similar arrangements

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Slightly surprised by the notion that employing people in Washington DC will be cheaper. U.K. salaries are generally a fair bit lower than those in the US, especially in a city like Washington.

No nightshift payments though. Also fewer people working overnight has other knock on effects on rotas - those working overnights get a protected days afterwards for recovery

[Omnipresent]

Jake Kanter has tweeted that there be just 5 presenters based in London:

https://twitter.com/jake_kanter/status/1...YKmEdKgO2g

[DTV]

Slightly surprised by the notion that employing people in Washington DC will be cheaper. U.K. salaries are generally a fair bit lower than those in the US, especially in a city like Washington.

I'm not necessarily sure they meant the staff would be cheaper, just that the staff they do have in Washington and Singapore are somewhat under utilised - i.e. could be producing more of the channel for no extra money allowing them to reduce staff in London.

I'd rather the Channel was more News Channel-ish than World-ish.

Fine to think this, but tell me which parts of the UK BBC News output you would be prepared to lose to cover up for the lost cross-subsidy derived from BBC World News' advertising income.

[BBCMeridian]

Full details announced:

The new channel will launch in April 2023.  Nicky Campbell''s Five Live show will be simulcast on the UK stream and BBC Two.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2022/b...ch-in-2023

BBC News has set out further details of the new TV news channel which will launch next year, replacing its two existing separate news channels for UK and global audiences. The channel, which will be called BBC News, is expected to launch in April 2023.

This forms part of the plan announced earlier this year to create a modern, digital-led and streamlined organisation that drives the most value from the licence fee and delivers more for audiences.

BBC News Digital Director Naja Nielsen says: “Our aim is to create the best live and breaking video news service in the world - on our web pages, our apps, on BBC iPlayer and on our new TV news channel.

“The way audiences consume news is changing. In recent years we’ve seen a huge surge in audiences coming to our live coverage, with tens of millions following live pages when big stories and events unfold.

“As the world’s most trusted source of news, with a huge depth and breadth of expertise, the BBC is uniquely placed to offer audiences the best analysis and explanation as these stories are unfolding. So we are investing in new capability to cover breaking news stories, and our news channel and digital teams will work hand in hand to bring the best journalism to audiences both at home and abroad.”

The channel will be broadcast around the world, bringing the BBC’s trusted journalism to international audiences and providing licence fee payers in the UK with ad-free access to a huge range and breadth of international coverage which hasn’t previously been available to them. It will feature new flagship programmes built around high-profile journalists, and programmes commissioned for multiple platforms.

UK viewers will receive specific content at certain times of the day, and during certain news stories. A new live and breaking news team will provide universally available coverage of global breaking news, and – when relevant - a domestic-only stream for UK-specific news events, ensuring that audiences get the best live video coverage of the news that matters most to them.

Further details of the plans include:

The channel will be broadcast from London during UK daytime hours, and then Singapore and Washington DC. The BBC will invest in new on and off-screen journalism roles in Washington DC.

Sports programming will be a mixture of the UK-facing Sportsday and new global-facing sports programmes.

The BBC will invest in visualising programmes based on popular radio shows, with new technology and studio capacity to do so. This will begin with the BBC Radio 5 Live Nicky Campbell programme, which will be broadcast on BBC Two on weekday mornings as well as on the UK stream of the new channel.

BBC Studios will continue to have responsibility for securing commercial revenues from the channel outside the UK, primarily through advertising, returning funding to the BBC that can be reinvested in public service journalism. The channel will remain ad-free in the UK.

These plans are now subject to consultation with staff and trade unions.

This is a very sad day in the history of the BBC, the corporation is no longer what it used to be.

[ginnyfan]

Jake Kanter has tweeted that there be just 5 presenters based in London:

https://twitter.com/jake_kanter/status/1...YKmEdKgO2g

This is scary and explains why Martine is so vocal about it all on Twitter. Those 5 will probably mostly be World faces, Yalda, Matthew A, Ross A and maybe 2 News channel people but I have no idea who they could be.

[News48]

Jake Kanter has tweeted that there be just 5 presenters based in London:

https://twitter.com/jake_kanter/status/1...YKmEdKgO2g

This surely cannot be allowed to happen-you surely can't run a News Channel on just 5 presenters.

[NickyS]

All the details here 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2022/b...ch-in-2023

[Roger Darthwell]

All the details here 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2022/b...ch-in-2023

Instead of creating the ''best live and breaking video news service in the world'' these reforms, and this new TV channel will do the exact opposite

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Jake Kanter has tweeted that there be just 5 presenters based in London:

https://twitter.com/jake_kanter/status/1...YKmEdKgO2g

This surely cannot be allowed to happen-you surely can't run a News Channel on just 5 presenters.

Completely agree with you, but it will happen regardless, these plans can't be stopped

[ALV]

This surely cannot be allowed to happen-you surely can't run a News Channel on just 5 presenters.

I think what the tweet implies is that there will only be 5 full-time presenters but there will be 8 correspondents who will both partake in presenting and reporting for the channel. So 5 full-time presenters, 8 part-time presenters, 13 in total.

[GraemeT]

Can they pay huw less and keep some more people ?

[News48]

All the details here 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2022/b...ch-in-2023

Instead of creating the ''best live and breaking video news service in the world'' these reforms, and this new TV channel will do the exact opposite

---

This surely cannot be allowed to happen-you surely can't run a News Channel on just 5 presenters.

Completely agree with you, but it will happen regardless, these plans can't be stopped

Somehow we have to try-Just on health & safety grounds (i.e if someone is off ill) the alarm bells on this should be ringing.

[headliner101]

Full details announced:

The new channel will launch in April 2023.  Nicky Campbell''s Five Live show will be simulcast on the UK stream and BBC Two.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2022/b...ch-in-2023

My initial thoughts are that I think the use of Singapore and Washington outside of daytime hours makes sense, and to some extent is already occurring. 

Visualising BBC Radio 5 Live Nicky Campbell for BBC Two and the UK stream of the new channel I'm less sure about.  I believe there are some radio programmes that are already visualised and shown on the News Channel at weekends and evenings.  If the 5 Live show was only being shown on BBC Two then that would also be okay, as an alternative to the current daytime simulcast on BBC Two.  However also being shown on the new channel does feel like a step backwards from the current offering, even if it does enable the (merged) channel to cover UK breaking news easily at minimal extra cost.

The Radio 5 simulcast on News 24's successor does not make sense given that News 24 already simulcasts Breakfast.  Why couldn't they continue doing that? If I am to speculate the opt-outs will likely be the Nationals and breaking news coverage. But it wouldn't surprise me if the end goal for the UK version of the channel is online-only just like BBC Four and CBBC. I feel this isn't the big thing of the cost-cutting era.

[Keith]

For the likes of this afternoon's leadership results coverage I'm assuming the new channel would look to opt-out in the UK to a visualised Radio 5 Live coverage. Presumably this would be a comparatively low cost way of providing additional UK coverage, compared to utilising a separate studio within NBH. There was some speculation some months ago of effectively merging 5 Live with the News Channel.

[Moz]

Which is Studio F? Apparently they’re using that for UK Breaking News.

[London Lite]

I'd rather watch the World feed than yet another news channel providing a radio simulcast during mid mornings.