BBC News and BBC World to merge

[DTV]

FWIW I would use the network presenters for additional shift (9-11, 2-4, 8-9) to give the core hours between bulletins a UK focus.   Simulcast Politics Live and PM and you're pretty much down to 2 hours of World content during the day.

That's certainly not a terrible idea and both Alagiah and Edwards have previous is presenting other programmes on the same day as network bulletins. I'm just not sure about the routine of how the Six and Ten are prepared and how that would fit in if they were presenting an hour before going on air - though there seems little reason they couldn't work around it.

For all the catastrophists on here, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the BBC's position is likely a hard opening position for negotiations. There are several clear options to maintain a lower, but significant amount of separate UK coverage during the daytime while still meeting the needed levels of spending and staff cuts - it'd be beyond odd if they didn't take one of them.

Personally I'd shift Newsnight to 11pm so it can be simulcast but now BBC3 is back I'm not sure that extra half hour is as useful to BBC2 as it might have been a few years ago.

I'm not so sure about pushing Newsnight back, 23:00 just seems a bit late and it might suffer ratings wise. I think the Ten + Newsnight (inc Paper Review) + visualised Today in Parliament could be a solid 2-hour block for politics junkies.

[Brekkie]

I'd rather Newsnight didn't do a paper review. If they line up the finish time of the 10 not to overlap simulcasting both could work, but the 10 is extended so often it'll regularly cause issues. Not sure how moving it to 10.45 affected ratings, especially as it was at a time when news ratings were high anyway.

It remains to be seen how practically sport fits into there - for me personally keeping a UK focused Sportsday in that post-10 slot is more important than promoting the papers that continually attack the BBC, but ideally both would continue. Perhaps the late London presenter could do the paper review if it's timed accordingly.

[UTVLifer]

Contrary to what many others are expecting, I am expecting to see World content outweighing the current NC content on the new channel - and I would be incredibly surprised to see the likes of Impact and Global disappear from the afternoon schedule as they're successful enough slots currently, with some of WN's best presenters at the helm in Yalda and Matthew, which appeal to the global audience

And I'm also surprised that supposedly they will be simulcasting Newsnight, as doing that would eat into what is currently Singapore's hours with Newsday and ABR from 11pm UK time (with the NC currently not simulcasting the first hour)

[m_in_m]

Contrary to what many others are expecting, I am expecting to see World content outweighing the current NC content on the new channel - and I would be incredibly surprised to see the likes of Impact and Global disappear from the afternoon schedule as they're successful enough slots currently, with some of WN's best presenters at the helm in Yalda and Matthew, which appeal to the global audience

And I'm also surprised that supposedly they will be simulcasting Newsnight, as doing that would eat into what is currently Singapore's hours with Newsday and ABR from 11pm UK time (with the NC currently not simulcasting the first hour)

Surely the Newsnight simulcast would be for the UK only

[ginnyfan]

Isn't the point of all this to have ONE channel with same schedule for everyone?? All the talk here makes it look like it's gonna be 2 different channels once again.

The mornings will be different in the UK, that's clear from the press release, everything after that will be the same for everyone, except for occasional virtual studio breaking news opt outs for UK which I expect will happen rarely since REAL breaking news also happens rarely.

[DTV]

Isn't the point of all this to have ONE channel with same schedule for everyone?? All the talk here makes it look like it's gonna be 2 different channels once again.

The mornings will be different in the UK, that's clear from the press release, everything after that will be the same for everyone, except for occasional virtual studio breaking news opt outs for UK which I expect will happen rarely since REAL breaking news also happens rarely.

As accounced, it'll be one channel in the same sense that BBC One London and BBC One Scotland are the same channel - i.e., largely the same, but with clear divergences and opts. The BBC release specifies that the UK and World streams will receive different content at certain times of day, rather than in just mornings - Nicky Campbell is merely the starting point of visualised radio on the channel, other programmes will be added. Though it is not specified whether BBC One simulcasts will or won't continue, they don't cost anything to do and some (Breakfast and the One) are signed - which is obviously an uncuttable service for some.

But, as we've been discussing, these plans are subject to negotiations with staff and trade unions, as well as feedback from the public and politicians. I would imagine that these plans are a 'hard' negotiating strategy, with the BBC prepared to negotiate towards a higher level of UK-only content than initially announced (especially considering the limited financial difference between offering and not offering different afternoon coverage).

We've seen this strategy before with regards to the News channel. Shortly after the move to NBH, it was announced it could move online due to cuts - ultimately, the cuts were found by eliminating double-headed presentation and additional simulcasts with World News. Then, a few years ago, a full merger was proposed - that turned into more simulcasts. Ultimately, a mixture of union pressures, viewer complaints and politicians worried they'll be on TV less has usually meant that initial plans were watered down. This might not happen this time, but there is clear reason to expect it will.

[deejay]

Visualising Today in Parliament is a good shout actually - though not one I’ve seen mentioned anywhere. It in theory wouldn’t be very difficult or expensive as Millbank visualised their radio studio for NewsCast and made a very good job of it IMO.

However there was a TV version of the programme until relatively recently, shown on BBC Parliament and something like 0330 on the News Channel but it was axed (last year?). It was a clip/link type programme recorded in the single-camera studio at Millbank and bespoke to TV (there was also a weekly highlights programme). Being a bespoke TV show, it will have had a cost compared to the radio version. However visualising the radio version would be considerably cheaper.

---

I’ve seen Newsnight mentioned several times on the plans as one of the UK Opts they’re considering. It has been mentioned that many nights a week it starts on BBC Two before the Ten ends on BBC One. However the style for this new stream appears to be one that jumps in and out of the international stream, so maybe there will be devised a clever way of transitioning between scheduled elements on this stream?

[Mr Q]

Unless I'm missing something, surely the One can be presented by the duty London presenter? Indeed, you could probably use the London (or any regional) presenter to handle any daytime opt-outs for UK breaking news.

[technologist]

As accounced, it'll be one channel in the same sense that BBC One London and BBC One Scotland are the same channel - i.e., largely the same, but with clear divergences and opts…….

I hate to disappoint you but BBC one England and BBC one Nations are NOT the same channel as the Nations are entirely under the editorial control of staff in the Nations.
And have been from 11 days after the launch of DTT ….. I chaired the meeting that agreed to this .
BBC one regions  opt from the BBC one England feed … so it could  be that BBC news (uk) and BBC nrew(world) opt from a sustaining feed like say London or Midlands but it may be more like East E and East W

[DTV]

I hate to disappoint you but BBC one England and BBC one Nations are NOT the same channel as the Nations are entirely under the editorial control of staff in the Nations.
And have been from 11 days after the launch of DTT ….. I chaired the meeting that agreed to this .

BBC one regions  opt from the BBC one England feed … so it could  be that BBC news (uk) and BBC nrew(world) opt from a sustaining feed like say London or Midlands but it may be more like East E and East W

Don't worry, this hasn't in any respect disappointed me. I feel like what we have here is a semantic difference of what constitutes a channel.

[headliner101]

Just to return this thread back to the merger, rather than broader points about BBC funding, I've taken a look at the proposals and attempted to visualise them.

At present, as far as I can work out, BBC World News uses eight or nine London-based news presenters on the average weekday (excluding Focus on Africa) and the BBC News channel uses five (excluding the Six and Ten). That's at least thirteen presenters per day across the two channels. The BBC's initial proposals for the merged channel aim for a total of just thirteen London-based presenters in total for the channel (five as sole presenters, eight as presenter-reporters). My expectation is that these plans envisage a presenter pattern something like this...


...it's not particularly unreasonable for the World side of the channel and only requires nine London presenters to be rostered per week. The problem, of course, comes with the UK side of the channel. Not just are there the inherent problems with mixing domestic and international news, but the hours that domestic are losing (primarily 11:00-18:00) fall within several key peak time slots for other parts of the world (this is when BBC charges a premium adverstising rate in those territories for BBC World News, so weakening the service would be a no-no). This has rightly frustrated some forumers, even if their consequent counter-proposals have been poor.

But there is actually clear wriggle room in the proposals for a better service for the UK with little additional cost (likely as part of a negotiating strategy on the part of the BBC). Below is the current weekday set-up for the two channels, the current 'as proposed' set-up and two potential options for the UK version to improve domestic coverage with limited extra cost.


...unless something odd is planned for the News at One, you are going to have an extra presenter and gallery team in the building for a sole half-hour newscast (though I expect this is the team that would also be used for the possible opt-out). Instead they could be used to provide an afternoon of UK-oriented news coverage, leading into a visualised PM programme at 17:00. This would not mean any extra staffing relative to the already announced proposals and would only cut three hours of UK news per day (compared to seven-and-a-half at present).

With just a sole additional presenter per day, it would be possible to reduce the cut to just the single evening hour. Having two UK-only shifts between 11:00 and 17:00 would leave the UK version of the channel with a level of UK-only output similar to the pre-Covid channel, while still seeing reductions in staffing levels (which is obviously unfortunate, but does seem to be a central thrust of the unavoidable cuts). To me, this seems like the closest to a 'best of both worlds' set-up given the circumstances and I would not be surprised if the final plans end up in this direction.

PS, if you are going to quote this post - crop it!

Or with only a handful of presenters from London, it would not surprise me that we would go back to what World was like through to the mid-2000s where almost every bulletin was a half-hour or more precisely 25 minutes long.  The back half hour would be occupied by something like a duo of World Business Report and Sport Today, Hardtalk, or a magazine programme like Click, The Travel Show, etc.  That would then provide the UK feed an opportunity to introduce live opt-outs whereby they could join Radio 5 Live or other services.  Another thing I am envisioning is something like the old Euro News format where off-screen presenters or correspondents would read the news.

[harshy]

Just to return this thread back to the merger, rather than broader points about BBC funding, I've taken a look at the proposals and attempted to visualise them…

Think you’ve missed that they’re planning to simulcast Newsnight.

The whole thing is just terrible. They should scrap BBC World News and just simulcast the UK aimed News Channel.

Dosent it take it back to 1991 when it was a Uk based outlook going globally simulcasting bbc 1 programmes.

[JF World]

Could I suggest they revive GMT with George at 12:00 UK 07:00 Washington and 19:00 Singapore as Newshour you could have two editions a day at 00:00 UKT 19:00 Washington 07:00 Singapore then shift Newsday live from Washington and Singapore to 01:00-05:00 GMT? or even visualise the radio programme with Razia Iqbal acting as a breakfast/evening programme for the Americas & Asia vise visres a lunchtime/late night programme for Europe & Africa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmIKknIKOr4

[Kojak]

Just to return this thread back to the merger, rather than broader points about BBC funding, I've taken a look at the proposals and attempted to visualise them.

At present, as far as I can work out, BBC World News uses eight or nine London-based news presenters on the average weekday (excluding Focus on Africa) and the BBC News channel uses five (excluding the Six and Ten). That's at least thirteen presenters per day across the two channels. The BBC's initial proposals for the merged channel aim for a total of just thirteen London-based presenters in total for the channel (five as sole presenters, eight as presenter-reporters). My expectation is that these plans envisage a presenter pattern something like this...

Are we sure that the five senior presenters that stay on are all going to be used on weekdays? I would have thought that if they're cutting back, it would make sense to spread the main five across the whole week, and have them do longer on-air shifts (so four hours a piece, or maybe even five, rather than three).

Personally I'd shift Newsnight to 11pm so it can be simulcast but now BBC3 is back I'm not sure that extra half hour is as useful to BBC2 as it might have been a few years ago.

If they really wanted to be radical, they could perhaps merge the Ten and Newsnight into one, hour-long, programme on BBC1.

[DTV]

Are we sure that the five senior presenters that stay on are all going to be used on weekdays? I would have thought that if they're cutting back, it would make sense to spread the main five across the whole week, and have them do longer on-air shifts (so four hours a piece, or maybe even five, rather than three).

I'd be very surprised if they used their senior presenters on the weekend. There is just less news and fewer viewers. Fundamentally, other than the odd thing like a Sunday political, there is a reason that news channels put their bigger names on during the week.

I did consider four-hour shifts a possibility, but I just think it's too long for a rolling news shift. The last time the BBC had four-hour shifts, they were when World did half-an-hour on, half-an-hour off and when the News channel was double-headed. Presenters on a news channel need to stay briefed on the stories they are covering, this is more difficult on an international channel with a gradually shifting news focus throughout the day.