BBC Breakfast

Yup, but obviously there's lots of stuff we can't share with you until it's made public through the official channels. We try and oblige wherever we can - I've been on this board since before I even began in journalism and know how exciting it is when there's changes anticipated/confirmed as coming on screen, but the competition read this board too

There were, but fewer in number as today's show left BBC One at 0804 and the regions can't opt out of the News channel. Now I really must go to sleep

I believe the engineer on the sat truck at Sandringham on Christmas morning had a camping-style fry-up on the go again this year, so him and the crew could get some brekkie. (And, looking at the photos, some nice festive lights on the truck's mast too)

Do you think they will ever regionalise the news channel? I'm guessing it's purely the sheer cost involved more than anything.

More than likely that people will not get out of the mindset that regional news should only be on BBC One!
(The same people that only think the likes of Andy Murray at Wimbledon should be on BBC One irrespective of transmission time, in other words sod the 630 regional news!)

What is the matter with people, that they can't change channels?

I think this has been discussed before. It makes no sense. The BBC can only really afford one regionalised chanel (hence why we pretty much no longer have a regionalised BBC Two) and considering certain regional programmes wouldn't be suitable for the news channel (Inside Out for one) it makes sense to stick with regional BBC One.

Well, most of Inside Out's reports aren't really regional, or rather they're of interest to a national audience. Some actually seem to appear on Breakfast, so the idea that Inside Out is a regional programme is all rather cosmetic really. The lighter reports could easily be absorbed onto The One Show. Also, it's put opposite Corrie, hardly a prime BBC 1 slot !

Regional features and documentaries have always gone into graveyard slots. They used to be on BBC Two, with virtually no promotion and an even smaller audience. Moving them to BBC One was seen (and spinned to staff) as a major step forward in making them for the mainstream, though of course it was because of necessity in that the BBC chose not to provide regional opting capability on BBC Two Digital in English Regions.

Putting them against Corrie was always going to limit their appeal, though I dare say the people who would choose to watch them wouldn't be the same people who would watch a soap.

Inside Out could be about to change under DQF - they are being hit very hard with staff cuts and there is even talk of merging some regions' ISO strands. Whether they'll be as big as the Late Kick Off macro-regions I don't know (I've even lost track of whether that's still a proposal on the table).

I think the point is though whilst many may argue the current situation could be resolved (such as absorbing some reports from Inside Out and such into The One Show), the current situation is still better than having a regionalised BBC News Channel simply because the BBC can show a regional programme if they wanted to (for example the programme about Oxford Road that was on BBC One North West - and wasn't there a programme on BBC London alone about the M25 or something). It may be a rarity but moving to a regionalised BBC News Channel would mean it would be pretty much impossible to have such programmes.

Perhaps in a few years we might have 'Nations' versions of the News Channel but no further than that.

The question is really how regional do the Beeb want BBC 1 in England to be ?

There's no issue for Wales, Scotland and NI, those nations have a pretty good range of 'regional' programming, but not the English regions. Never really been the case. English regional output in the 70s and early 80s on BBC 1 was frankly a joke, both news and non news. ITV wiped the floor with them. Regional news has improved no end since the early 90s, but I don't think the public associate the BBC with regional non news programming.

It's all very well having occasional regional programmes, but these are either given 'no hoper' slots, or tucked away at 23:45hrs on a Sunday. There was a recent pan regional documentary about the M25, it was pretty good, but quite honestly could have had a national slot on BBC 2.

Indeed the BBC Plymouth 'Keith Floyd' shows of the late 80s were rapidly promoted onto BBC 2 national slots (and rightly so)

With so much bandwidth available to the Beeb now to show material, I think these occasional regional programmes could be accommodated nationally on BBC 2, 4 or the Red Button.

With a bit of messing about at the central coding and mux centre it probably would be possible to regionalise any BBC channel on DTT and cable without it costing anything more than setting up a control system and staffing it being used. Satellite is the sticking point because you can't reallocate which stream is on an EPG number on a dynamic basis.

I'm not sure about satellite. When C4 had that gas leak at HFR, and switched to their disaster recovery centre, the D-Sat streams that were mapped to Sky Ch 104 were also changed, I can't remember why ? (or rather what was speculated at the time why !) Probably fewer LEMNUS regions available ?