BBC National News: Presentation

Another ridiculous decision by the BBC - it's going to be humiliating if they have to do what they did last time and say you can only watch your regional news program on analogue, which isn't possible in most homes after the big digital push - the problem being even more embarrassing considering today's weather conditions and even more people wanting to watch the regional programs as a result...

Annoying and wasteful; for the fifteen or so regional studios with presenters, reports, crew and other staff working to produce the programs only for them to be effectively cancelled. All to avoid people missing a split second of Wimbledon. What exactly is so hard about clicking from BBC One to BBC Two with a minute or so's warning from the presenters?

I've never been a fan of these decisions in the past - but its understandable tonight. Its all about ratings. 'Events which bring the nation together' etc. And I'm absolutely sure there will be regional news on BBC One this evening . . . albeit in a later timeslot.

I totally agree, Drew. It's happened time and again for years and it's lunacy. They can easily arrange it so that everyone is satisfied by keeping the news on BBC1 and asking tennis viewers to switch to BBC2. It's not even as if it's unusual for tennis viewers to have to switch; such transitions happen frequently during Wimbledon, so I'm sure everyone already knows what's what. To leave people without their regional news programme - especially on a day with a big regional news story such as today's flooding - is negligent. Yet, the BBC never listens.

Well, that was an abrupt end. No proper close, just straight to promos.

Local news in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland on BBC Two

Absolutely ridiculous for sport to be taking precedence. Whoever making such a decision needs to be sacked.

Completely the right decision, I think you only have to look at the ratings for Wimbledon to prove that a lot of the public follow Murray. If all of those millions had to turn over at 6pm, there would probably be even more complaints. Its not as if they cancelled the news, instead they just postponed it.

I disagree, not the right decision, how will telling people to push the up button on their remote before the news harm viewers?

I honestly wish a region would just opt anyway and show their regional news, not everybody cares about sport!

And prove what point? That they are stupid enough to opt out of a match as an important as this one in the crucial last 30 minutes?

If BBC Sport want to keep pulling this kind of stunt, maybe they should pay for the BBC Two distribution to be regionalised? There is no adequate justification for putting the tennis on BBC One at the expense of regional programmes covering the significant flooding many areas have experienced. Public Service Broadcasting? They've heard of it...

It would be an interesting experiment for one of the nations to switch the tennis onto BBC Two and run with the news and regional news as normal, to see what that does for the ratings.

In most European countries where a single PSB operates two or more channels, live sports coverage tends be shown on the channel that doesn't air the main news programs, in order to avoid such scheduling conflicts. (In most cases, it's the "second channel" that shows sports -- but not necessarily so; live sport is shown on ORF Eins in Austria, because the flagship news programs are on ORF2).