BBC News Channel - changes announced

No one seems to care BBC news at the weekends was revised to have only 30mins of live news each hour with programmes filling up the other 30mins. RT news and even AJ have 55min doc on its channel during the day.

I think they do, it was noted when the changes first happened but the weekend has always had shorter bulletins than during the week. Statiscally breaking news is less likely to happen on a weekend. Also these cuts aren't affecting weekends.

It wouldn't surprise me if in the not too distant future Newsnight becomes a simulcast on the News Channel, rather than a repeat, possibly at the new time suggested. It would allow viewer in Scotland to watch Newsnight via the News Channel, whilst Scotland 2016 is shown on BBC Two. Then inevitably after some more time Newsnight could/would move exclusively to the News Channel (with Scotland still having it's opt-out programming on BBC Two).

I assume altering Victoria Derbyshire to start at 9am is probably a realisation that the simulcast with BBC World doesn't really work. Hopefully the additional time might be used to cover more news, and not extra 'special reports'.

UK, no, but that's early evening in the States, morning rush in the Far East, plenty going on.....

This is about the 3rd or 4th time that a 'Best of the Regions' show has been produced for BBC News 24/News Channel :

Active UK / UK Active (1997 launch strand at lunch time)
UK Today (which at one point replaced regional opts on BBC One in England all digital outlets, then just satellite outlets ISTR)
UK Tonight (which was a 1900-2000 hour in the mid-00s)

In which case, World would take care of it?

When I first seen the start of this thread, I thought it was some kind of fantasy schedule. Such a shame that the news channel is on the road to closure, which essentially it is. If they really wanted to save money, why not just close the channel at 6:30 pm or simulcast world earlier? The latter would be preferred, shame that SKY is more of a rolling news channel nowadays, and we can't have that constant ads...

I do think as news channels go, there isn't much cheaper than having a newsreader and one guest go over the top stories, with pictures and a few packages, with the script updated as new stories break.

Would sticking to such a plain format, without lives from outside an empty court building or government office, be boring? Perhaps - but people watch the news channel for an average of 7 minutes as it is anyway, so it would hardly do any harm.

Stop chasing the breaking news, unless it's huge. They could even fill quiet slots with a rolling text service from time to time if necessary.

Perhaps some more "lovely films" instead?

Now that the News Channel is getting this content, can't BBC One HD England show a cut down version after the News at 6?

Or at the very least simulcast the news channel for the half hour. I think actually airing Sportsday on BBC1 HD (though in England only) during each opt out would probably rate relatively well. I'd certainly watch it over regional news, but wouldn't go to BBC News to watch it especially.

But without covering breaking and developing news, a news channel loses a large part of its reason for existing in the first place. A service that just repeats the news of the day in feasible and inexpensive, of course, but who is going to watch it when so much news is now available online 24 hours a day? There's a reason why CNN got rid of its old Headline News channel, which consisted (more or less) of the same news lineup repeated every 30 minutes (1993 promo HERE). No one watched it anymore once the Internet became universally available.

Also, keep in mind that the seven minute average doesn't mean that most people watch rolling news for seven minutes a day. Some don't watch it at all, while others may view it for an hour or two at a time. The latter wouldn't be well-served by a bare-bones service.

As for the idea of a rolling text service -- well that may have worked in 1976, but not in the interconnected world of 2016, in which even on-demand Teletext looks old-fashioned.