September and October respectively. I think they're putting a hold on work during the Olympics.
Engineering work has to be suspended for the Olympics, and the paralympics (just as it is for Christmas/NY), so the Tyne Tees switch over starts the first Tuesday after the Paralympics.
I'd be interested to know how many homes are left, after the Meridian and London DSOs are complete that have
NO
access at all to 'digital TV' ? Many without DTT coverage will have given up waiting, and installed Sky, Freesat, or cable (or a larger aerial )
Couldn't they just move the 1, 6 and 10 over to BBC Two when needed, as does that not count towards their quota?
The article says:
Quote:
BBC1 has a commitment to deliver 275 hours of news during peak time
which suggests moving the news to BBC2 would not meet the quote. I would suggest though that if network bulletins were moved to BBC2 and signposted at 6 and 10 on screen and by the commentator/presenter then it would seem reasonable for the Trust and Ofcom to accept them as counting towards the quota.
Perhaps what needs to happen is for some creativity with how news is included. For example perhaps where they the 6 or 10 cannot go out close to it's broadcast time a short summary like the daytime summaries should be broadcast. For football events a five minute summary during half time would also be an idea.
As far as I see it, for two weeks, people are going to know and expect the news to be second fiddle to the olympics - I hope that BBC One will somehow manage, however, to fit in an early evening and late evening news bulletin every day, even if it doesn't fit at 6 and 10.
Surely they could manage to get up to their quotas by extending some weekend bulletins by 5 minutes throughout the year, and making sure the early evening weekend bulletins go out after 6pm, not at 4.30!! In reality it's only two weeks so they shouldn't lose too much...
But of course regional bulletins cannot move over to BBC2 these days - hence the problems every year with Wimbledon
There is nothing that can be done about the regional bulletins but moving the network bulletins might mean a slot could be found for regional bulletins - even if they end up being shortened to fifteen minutes of news, sport round up and weather.
I dont really think it matters whether the 1, 6 & 10 are on BBC One or Two, as everybody gets both channels, unless they live in a part of the country that is still trapped in 1963... i dunno, Blackpool.
But that raises the issue, if everybody has both channels, why do they need to move the news at all? Surely its less hassle to move whatever event is going to overrun over to BBC Two, or to schedule it there from the outset well within the knowledge that it will probably overrun. They've been doing this 'Television' for a while now one would hope they would expect this sort of thing.
Those parts of the country that have made it into the 21st Century arent going to care particularly if the National news gets bumped to BBC Two or if it gets cancelled altogether because they probably have an app for that on their phone, and even the luddites who dont know what a smart phone is still probably know the difference between one and a TV remote.
There are plenty of people who couldn't give a rats-ass about tennis for example, and would be tuning in at 6:30 only to find their versions of Roger, Ranvir & 'Its Roasting' Diane are completely gone.
Obviously BBC One gets more viewers, but to bump the News to BBC Two and possibly miss Regional News out completely just because they think people wont turn over to BBC Two to watch Andy Murray get thrashed by some grunting Spaniard... again... or to see some country we couldn't find on a map compete against another in a sport we wouldnt usually watch (if it wasnt the Olympics) is ridiculous.
There is no reason whatsoever to move the Regional News. If it can only be broadcast on BBC One, then it should always go out at its scheduled time.
"We interrupt this footage of a yellow ball being whacked back and forth for some important breaking news..." or does anybody actually care... I'm guessing the Beeb will do whatever the hell they want and then wheel out some middle manager to completely ignore viewer opinions on Newswatch.
Either that or reconfigure everything for the Olympic period - they're already changing things so they can use the BBC Parly bandwidth on Freeview.
With a bit of planning they should be able to change which network regional programmes appear on for the whole period, so could choose either BBC Two or the News Channel.
Or just have a sensible policy that shunts the Olympics to another channel when the regional news is on.
Either that or reconfigure everything for the Olympic period - they're already changing things so they can use the BBC Parly bandwidth on Freeview.
With a bit of planning they should be able to change which network regional programmes appear on for the whole period, so could choose either BBC Two or the News Channel.
Or just have a sensible policy that shunts the Olympics to another channel when the regional news is on.
It's just DSAT that's the main problem. I think it's pretty involved to switch the regions on to BBC Two or NC and would require an awful lot of re-working that is prob not justifiable for the two week period. I agree with you that the Olympics should just hop channel if required but I'm sure some overpaid audience reviewer will inform us that this spoils the enjoyment for everyone and the world will end if they switched channels.
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