BBC News - General

They did it when Breakfast was moved to BBC Two for the Olympics or some other sporting event. I don't know how they are going to work around it following digital switchover.

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned already, but it's been announced that Gareth Butler has died at the age of 42.

That is quite shocking and incredibly sad. I believe he edited The Politics Show .

I believe the teatime network news has been moved to BBC One, but the regional news is now likely to run after the late news back on BBC One, as there are too many viewers watching BBC Two via digital - who would get London in England (where BBC Two Digital doesn't allow for regional opts)

Gareth was, I believe, Deputy Editor of The Politics Show. Very nice man - I had the pleasure of working with him some time ago, and he was a gent.

So after DSO, is it going to be impossible to watch English regional news outside of London on BBC2?

That's unless the BBC stop feeling the need to put all events on BBC1.

How stupid to put big events on a flagship channel.

Yes - none of the English regions has the ability to opt-out on BBC Two Digital on DTT, and there are no English regional BBC Two variants on satellite, just a single BBC Two England feed (which is the same feed carried on DTT).

None of the English regions have opt-chains or encoders for BBC Two (their opt-chain is permanently in-circuit on BBC One so can't be switched, and they don't get a BBC Two distribution feed or have the ability to drop-in a new BBC Two as it is statmuxed with BBC Three and News 24 in London)

In the future BBC English regions will be coded and muxed in London, with the opt-out happening in London not locally AIUI. Effectively, like ITV, each English region will feed their studio output to London, who will co-ordinate the switch - effectively it may not be an opt anymore (as you won't be "opting out" of network) This is possible - in fact desirable for picture quality reasons - as the BBC have upgraded their distribution and circuits to allow 270Mbs uncompressed SD feeds from regions to London (replacing the 34Mbs compressed feeds and 140Mbs PAL feeds) and it would also remove the double MPEG2 encode/decode that currently is used.

However I don't know if this will re-introduce the ability to opt-out on BBC Two as well as BBC One. It COULD.

Obviously regions can opt-out of BBC Two on terrestrial, but do they still need to? I guess it would only be for regional promos if anything.

The northern regions regularly opt BBC2 analogue out for The Superleague Show - often at the same time BBC1 is opted out for the Politics Show. Which is mildly amusing seeing the same studio on both channels, lit and dressed slightly differently.

I think that is the point, the regional news on Saturday was going to be scheduled after the main evening news which is going out on BBC 2 because of the sport on BBC 1. Which would have meant on terrestrial viewers would have seen it, but the Saturday regional news is now scheduled for 10.15pm!

They haven't done this for a couple of years now - the Super League Show is always on BBC 1 now.

English regions can only opt out on ANALOGUE terrestrial - not DIGITAL terrestrial.

Given that so many people now watch DTT or DSat and not Analague - there are no regular scheduled BBC Two opt-outs - either trails or programmes - on BBC Two in England.