Cutting Victoria Derbyshire down to an hour surely makes it even less cost effective to produce, even if BBC Two are involved with the funding. The show is not exactly popular, and I don’t think BBC News will be any worse off from dropping it altogether (although they will lose their vehicle for picking up awards that the public don’t vote for).
I’d personally like to see a debate style format, something like ‘The Daily Debate’ or ‘The Morning Debate’. If the slot is branded as anything other than a standard hour of BBC News, it needs a clear purpose.
I swear that whenever I watch the BBC NC overnight, there is some kind of technical problem. For the first 10 minutes, Newsday seemingly didn't have L3 graphics. I understand that there are fewer viewers at this time of day, but surely it is important to know who the person on screen is.
At the end of today's Derbyshire, they did a 'best-of' which was full of misery features and used Reith, which seemed more like a farewell, although Joanna Gosling mentioned they were back at 10am on Monday.
It also cemented what the VD show is, not about news, but true-life stories and lovely films.
BBC Two schedules are just truly appalling at the moment. The channel needs a huge overhaul. There used to be a time when it knew what it was for, now in 2018 I have no idea what the point of BBC Two is anymore.
Tuesday 8th November 2018 - 6.00am until 9.00am wall to wall repeats. 9.00am until 12.15pm a simulcast with BBC News Channel, including VD show. 12.15pm is the first BBC Two show Politics Live. 1.00pm until 6.00pm back to the repeats.
To be fair until a few years ago BBC2 basically just screened CBeebies where it now screens news anyway once the schools programmes were axed. The issue with cutting the PSB content from the PSB channels is once they're gone you're left with hours to fill and nothing to fill them. That said though BBC2's afternoon schedule of repeats is still interesting than BBC1's afternoon schedule (which is often half repeats anyway).
Back to the news channel and the idea that Victoria Derbyshire was launched as any cost cutting exercise never made sense - a produced show is always going to cost more than rolling news. In terms of costing cuts you'd think simulcasting Breakfast through to the end and simulcasting Politics Live would be an obvious way, then leaving a three hour window in between for "Morning Live". GMT can air when Politics Live doesn't.
At the end of today's Derbyshire, they did a 'best-of' which was full of misery features and used Reith, which seemed more like a farewell, although Joanna Gosling mentioned they were back at 10am on Monday.
It also cemented what the VD show is, not about news, but true-life stories and lovely films.
It propably will be farewell offically soon the way things are going.
Another coincidence is that Derbyshire lost her long time producer Louisa Compton to Dispatches, so since she left has continued to follow the Compton template of misery, the occasional lovely film (they seem to be less these days) and occasionally some news.
It'll be interesting to see how VD pans out next week, will there be less padded interviews and debates and more of a clock based format or a rushed through hour of human interest features with the headlines and sport?
Wouldn't mind a UK-focussed version of OS at 9am, utilising the balcony, touch screen and/or some pres from within the newsroom itself.
I’ve never seen the point of Outside Source... or indeed any news programme which thinks a presenter awkwardly turning to press on a screen improves news presentation.
And personally, I can take or leave a balcony - holiday hotel rooms aside, obviously.