BBC NEWS CUTS

Some of the suggestions on here make it clear people don't know the true costs of things and why the BBC does things in certain ways.
It's like a person thinking their £154.50 pays for everything the BBC does. Like by the time their £154.50 gets to the BBC it's worth £3bn. Clueless and frustrating.

At first I would say that's butchering but some of it makes sense especially the simulcasting and getting rid of OS.

They already simulcast midnight to six am with BBC World News

Changing what you simulcast saves nothing though. Neither does shifting signing to red button.

The changes being made are financial, not editorial.

The issue is, it’s not possible to ‘salami slice’ the budgets anymore and have one guest less here, one live insert less there.

It’ll be more choosing whether US election coverage could come entirely from NBH than save oodles of kit being shipped over, and staff.

That kind of decision.

That makes sense. With communications technology being what it is The beeb can quite easily cover the 2020 election from NBH or just hand over to their american broadcast partner.

Why drop the local news from Breakfast? Surely that's a time when viewers actually need some of the info that they provide. Does news never happen on a Friday, is that why Newsnight isn't needed on a Friday?

How does simulcasting World News on NC save any money when it's already simulcasting BBC Breakfast from BBC 1?

Also take issue with some of the ringfenced content. Ten or so years ago, I would have agreed about the 5 Live content, but not anymore. The station is a mess and lacks a true identity. There has been talk of brand extensions, like a rolling news service and a sport service, isn't that what 5 live is supposed to be?

My suggestions would include extending the world news simulcast on BBC One and BBC News in the early mornings until between 06:30 and 07:00 as the amounts of viewers awake at these times is no greater than late in the evening which is already simulcast and additionally because WN is already focused on Europe at this time of day. As this would allow breakfast to start later I would either extend it on BBC One and the NC to 10:00 in order to cut the daytime budget or finish it at 09:00 on BBC One so that the Salford team can continue on the NC until 10:00. I would also reduce Newsnight to be broadcast for 30 minutes and on Mondays-Wednesday's only (as the viewer base is watching question time on Thursdays and the programme tends to be light on content on Friday's in any case).
Another possibility would be to simulcast politics live on the NC and get the morning NC presenter to also present the One (which is no different to a typical NC half hour except for an in studio weather forecast) so that one presenter can cover from 10:00-14:00. Furthermore I would scrap the Five and extend Afternoon Live until 6 or simulcast with World between 17:00 and 18:00.
I would also scrap the need for a sports presenter on weekdays with any important stories being covered by the main presenter and the less important ones being dropped (there is no need for 3 reports back to back on the Australian open for example) but maintain a business presenter in a similar role to a present.
At weekends simulcast with world until 08:00 and then have a single headed version of breakfast from Salford until 10:00 on BBC One and 12:00 on the NC on a Saturday and scrap breakfast completely on Sunday with the extra hour absorbed into the London NC rota. I would also drop the Saturday edition of PM and make the Saturday version of Today and weekend breakfast on 5 Live single headed.
On radio I would turn 5 live into an opt of world service with only its own breakfast and drives shows (and any sports opts needed) and also simulcast this with radio 4 and local radio overnight. I would combine the news bulletins on radio 2, radio 3 and radio 6 music and also on radio 1 and 1 extra during evenings and weekends, but would maintain Newsbeat during weekday daytimes.
Outside of News I would close the linear red button and BBC Scotland in their entirety, would reduce some sports coverage noticeably giving up Wimbledon as producing coverage of 15 courts some of which are watched by a handful of people at best is not even close to a good use of resources. I would merge BBC 4 into BBC 2, would create a distinct strand for BBC3 on BBC2 between 22:00 and midnight on Thursdays and Fridays, reduce the numbers of programmes in genres well covered elsewhere such as period dramas and weight loss documentaries. I would also make 6 Music a part time station so that it only broadcasts between 7am and 7pm Monday-Friday and 9am-5pm at weekends, would close down all AM radio frequencies outside of rural areas that cannot recieve a FM or DAB signal.

Maybe not Breakfast but certainly an argument all regional news programmes should be, though I think quite a few have already dropped the second presenter.


And considering the simulcasts of the news channel on TV is there an argument that 5 Live and Radio 4 shouldn't be duplicating content. Yes, they serve different audiences but you never hear 5 Live Breakfast making an impact on the news that way Today does.

Overnight BBC news bulletins are essentially made by BBC World News, which has large audiences in the US and Asia at that time, plus Europe later on in the night/very early morning. The schedule is built around this and is a sensible use of people. The back half hours, which are separate from what goes out on World are repeats of programmes like HardTalk, Today in Parliament, etc and one simulcast of Asia Business Report and (World) Sport Today which are being made for World anyway.

Whenever there have been cuts in BBC news in the past, many people have initially suggested merging news channel and world. However once they’ve investigated how they run, how they’re very different beasts and so on they usually conclude the savings won’t be as massive as they think. That may be different this time of course, but the channels already save resources quite well, often merging during breaking and rolling coverage, which can actually improve coverage because they’re not fighting internally over the same correspondents etc. There are also so,e periods of the day where news and world are already effectively merged, or where news channel is simulcasting on another channel.

I don’t think the proposed savings in BBC News are will have anything to do with SD channels transmission slots, nor putting cbbc back on BBC one etc.

On the US Election, it’s worth noting that the Washington DC studio is currently being rebuilt, both cosmetically and technically.

No. Lots of people (myself included) don't get home until after 7

The regional breakfast news, notably travel, would be far better presented as a ticker running during the whole of Breakfast, but I'm not sure that would be significantly cheaper than the present arrangement ?

Wow, where to start with this mess! Firstly Radio 1 and 1xtra already share news 7 days a week, and don't have many updates after 5.45 Newsbeat during the week anyway, so there's no savings there. Apart from weekday breakfast on Radio 2, the same presenter does Radio 2 and 6 Music news, one on the hour, one on the half hour, so no saving there.
Why does 6 Music have to be reduced to those silly times? Why not Radio 3? Or Radio 2? Is that because you're not a listener of 6 Music?

The first half hour of weekday Breakfast is in my opinion the most news focused of the whole show, handling the developing overnight stories, newspaper reviews, sport, weather and local news. I take it, you're not up before 7, unlike so many viewers?

While i agree that something needs to be done about the content on 5 live, your idea of being an opt out service from the World service doesn't work. If you are going to cut it down so much, just close it!

I'm also getting the feeling that you aren't a tennis fan, mentioning the Australian Open and pointless Wimbledon coverage, but Wimbledon is one of the BBC's crown jewels.

The content on the late news is largely identical to the 1830. To the point that it's more of a 'best of' with the occasional correspondent in to do a two way. Watching iPlayer when you get in from work is more credible than keeping a crew in until 10.35pm.