Didn’t take long for Your World Today to be dumped for U.S simulcasts. Because who needs strong coverage from the International team when you can have Wolf yelling for everyone to ‘stand by’ and saying ‘Happening now’ every few minutes.
Can’t say I’m surprised though. This weeks sums CNNI up well - the actual International coverage is normally good fare but too often plays second fiddle to Domestic or African Voices/World Sport etc
But to be fair, what is happening now in the U.S. is truly historic -- no less so than what occurred in Britain a few days ago, when BBC World News also (appropriately) joined the News Channel. There is huge demand around the world for the latest on the impeachment, so it makes sense for CNNI -- for many viewers the only U.S.-based news channel available -- to cater to that demand.
Get where you're coming from and that'd be fine if they weren't:
a) Doing it every other week - I know there's been lots of big news out of America in recent years but are they always so big that we'd remember them in a few months time. There are plenty of times CNNI has simulcasted for events that I doubt anybody now remembers. At times, it feels like the primetime line-up is only there for if it's a quiet news day.
b) They often do it for stories that are plainly more on International's patch - surely CNNI were better placed to cover the Notre Dame Fire for example than CNN Domestic especially since it happened around the time Hala is normally on air. Luckily Brianna Keilar was on CNN Domestic who is always excellent but surely on International stories CNNI should be taking the lead (last night not being one of those cases)
c) There are already ample simulcasts in the CNNI schedule. If somebody wants the CNNUS perspective then that's already pretty well covered from 1-5amUKT and 9am-1pm UKT.
Agreed that maybe last night was one of those occassions CNN were right to simulcast but surely simulcasts should be the exception and not the norm like they often are.
I wouldn't mind so much I guess if the coverage quality was similar as both BBC News & World News are pretty high quality (at least when BBC News is doing their own shows) but CNN Domestic is noticably worse than CNNI.
Though in any case the Your World Today Instagram seems to suggest Cyril and Isa were both a bit ill so maybe a simulcast was for the best.
Last edited by BFGArmy on 27 September 2019 10:05am