BBC National/News Channel from New Broadcasting House

Wasn't it all part of cost-saving? A document came out a year or two ago which also said they would not have double-headed presentation 7-10, which happened at the same time as the business being scrapped.

I don't think it's something the BBC should be saving costs with.

Eh?? You do realise that most of the business presenters just read the auto cue and in many cases weren't even business specialists.
You would have a point if they were axing actual correspondents.

Sorry but isn't that Ben who is a BBC business correspondent who regularly does business updates in the studio and on the catwalk? Surely they are just tarting up his presentation.



Nobody ever said that! The business news remains, it's just presented by the news anchor as 99% of the time the Business presenters added nothing. When they do a have a big business story they have a full business department with actual specialised correspondents to call on which they regularly do.

Whereas sport is different because...?

It isn't..........
In fact Sky news survives well with 2-3 weather presenters or is it less?

Not a mockup - I found it on a BBC World News press images site. See here.

What has Sky News' weather got to do with anything? The point I was making is that I find it strange that they cut back on business coverage and presenters whilst maintaining (and possibly expanding?) their sports coverage and presenter count. It seems like a strange priority for the BBC. Why wasn't sport subjected to the same levels of cost-saving?

For the third time they haven't cut back on Business news coverage just the auto cue readers.

Does it really have to be spelt out to you given the discussion we're having about unnecessary roles/fat?

There you go again talking nonsense about coverage and no Sport hasn't expanded either.

Because it's clearly a more distinctive and specialist area especially now Economics and Business dominate the main news as much as politics. It makes far more sense to keep it in the main news with the main anchor.

Of course a good amount of BBC Weather presenters have meteorological training - hence why they are often called on for important weather stories. They can also interpret weather data better than your bog standard untrained weather presenter.

In a country where The Express can get weather stories from a highly dubious source and get people to believe them, we need meteorologically trained presenters to provide a bit of balance.

More rehearsals in Studio E this morning.
https://twitter.com/BBCBenThompson/status/393676623095930880/photo/1

This is a bizarre argument to say the least - Again I'll address all your points separately, In fact they haven't cut back on Business Presenters as all the ones who were previously working at TVC have now been assigned to other roles or like Ben Thompson are one of the BBC News Channel's stand by Business Presenters in case of a breaking business news story.

Unnecessary roles is an interesting thing, and bringing in the fact that Sky News only has three Weather Presenters is illogical. The reason the BBC has many more Weather presenters is A - it has to provide weather bulletins for BBC One, BBC Two, BBC News Channel, BBC World News and BBC Online. B - It has to update the BBC Website Data. C - The difference between the BBC and Sky forecasts is people actually watch one of them.

Yes Sport is different from Business. On the other hand have you seen the presenter list for BBC NC and WN it has at least 20 if not more for about 4/5 Shifts. Where as the BBC News Channel has 2 Business Presenters on standby for the whole day. Your argument that the BBC team aren't business specialists is hugely flawed as they all pretty much fall under 3 Categories Either Degree in Business/Economics, Previously worked in the City and/or previously worked for Bloomberg.

Sport is a very specialist area, Having all that Sporting Knowledge comes across hugely on Sportsday when they are constantly explaining Sporting rules rather than say reading out Results and Sports Stories. Business is a very specialist area. Economics is too. And when it used to be on NC they used to regularly analyse and perhaps they don't need any training in Business to understand the in depth complications of say GOS. But then again with Business being ever more in the news headlines why would they need any Business Specialists to say analyse the business news.


On a related note is there any further information on who is replacing Robert Peston as Business Editor, or are they thinking of merging Business and Economics? Also Newsnight is still missing an economics editor.