BBC News: Nations & Regions

Oh, I actually agree!

I wasn't trying to suggest that UK Today should never have been gotten rid of in the first place, just for the sake of such rare events! I just didn't put it very well, I guess.

I was just trying to say that it'd only be okay to move regional news over to BBC Two if something other than London News (e.g. UK Today-style solution or something) could be put in place.

All of which would obviously be impractical. Such a thing would have to be planned at least a couple of hours or something in advance, in order to put such a thing together. It'd be daft to go to bother, when it's easier to to just move whatever the sport is, over to BBC Two instead.

As opposed to having all of England watching BBC London News, couldn't they simply show the News Channel on Network and fill the rest of the slot with the rest of the news hour? At least this way the vast majority of English viewers could get some sort of relevant news instead of London local news.

This would only be needed if the full weekday Six was moved to BBC Two. If, as happened on Saturday, it's only a five minute local bulletin, then it's not that much of a problem to have everyone watching London.

Yes - though given that the weekend bulletins are simulcasts of the News Channel, they probably had far less time to consider this, and the junction would have been incredibly tortured.

No English region has a BBC Two Digital opt-out chain - so the digital outlet doesn't matter - they can't opt out on it.

When the digital services were initially set-up there was no provision for any digital opting at all in England (hence UK Today replacing regional opts on the single BBC One England digital service broadcast on satellite, cable and digital terrestrial)

Quite quickly the regional centres (and sub-regions) were given a BBC One digital opt-out chain (which entailed quite a lot of distribution and equipment installation) but not a BBC Two chain (as the minimal amount of BBC Two English regional output didn't merit it - and it was decided to switch all English regional opts to BBC One - with the exception of the North Macro-regional Rugby League stuff)



It is all English regions digital viewers (not just satellite). BTW - there are lots of people watching satellite who aren't "Sky viewers" these days. Some use FTA boxes others use freesat, to watch the BBC and ITV satellite services that Sky viewers can also see... I watch DSat services on my PC some of the time, with a satellite capture card.



Though I suspect the ratings for the sporting events that cause this are such that the BBC believes that the majority are happier to see coverage transferred. I suspect the Murray/Gasquet match moving to BBC One straight after EastEnders last night will have meant a lot more people watched it (and will have been grateful to watch it) than if it had stayed on BBC Two.



I suspect that the BBCi Press Red sport streams will have that role for minor events - but the channel controllers of BBC One and BBC Two will still want to show the big events on their channels, and will accept the disruption that this causes.

Something I always wondered... why was it not England Today?

The lunchtime and early evening bulletins were originally a sub-opt into News 24 - so had to work for a UK audience on News 24 as well as an English audience on BBC One. UK Today had been a strand on News 24 already - so it made sense to retain the name. The UK Today Breakfast bulletins were also seen UK-wide on News 24 as well.

Even when the main bulletins were produced separately for BBC One England DSat viewers (I think by this point DTT had gained opt-out facilities on BBC One) they still carried Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland news. I think the feeling was that there was no real reason to exclude news from the nations, as it wasn't aiming to be "local news for everyone" more a "more a UK news that wasn't on the nationals" bulletin.

As long as 10million viewers continue to tune in to BBC One after EastEnders to watch Andy Murray on Centre Court, I don't see this happening. It surely demonstrates that a greater audience WANT to see these kind of major events on the main network - a schedule isn't written on tablets of stone, in circumstances like this it is made to be changed. Having the flexibility to do this is as much a public service surely?

Thanks for the explanation. I can sleep at night again now.

They don't really have the flexibility though. If the end of the match was left on BBC Two with the BBC One continuity mentioning it at each junction then it wouldn't have caused problems for so many people (viewers and BBC people).

By moving it to BBC One they annoyed...

Sky+ users who either tried to record the tennis or any of the other show effected while the BBC were still updating the EPG (its all very well changing the schedule but changing the EPG should be a priority when they do).

BBC News Channel - they had to fill for 40 minutes before they could start the 10 o'clock news.

BBC Nations and regions staff had to stay 40 minutes later than planned for the regional news.

The cast and crew of Criminal Justice - although its impossible to say how many viewers it lost by being moved, we know for sure that a lot of people who had set a recording device and weren't around to update it would have missed it.


On another note, how would the subtitles have been handled yesterday?

At one point the tennis was being shown on BBC One and BBC Two at the same time, only for a minute just so people could switch channels without missing anything. While the pictures were the same on both channels (graphics may have been different) Sue Barker spoke on BBC One (while normal commentry resumed on BBC Two) to say what was going on and then spoke on BBC Two (while BBC One had the commentary) to tell viewers to turn over.

The subtitles on both channels were correct. Since the BBC weren't expecting to broadcast two live shows at the same time (even if only for a minute). How did they get live subtitles on two channels at the same time when each channel had different audio?

Just jumping back to Saturday's opt-out cockup, do you have any info on whether it was whatever you thought it was?

Last night (Mon 30th June) here in the "Cambridge region", we were stuck with BBC London News at the end of the belated "Ten", on Sky channel 101. Marvellous

noggin has explained to me via PM, the complexities of how the BBC on Sandy Heath works. I didn't quite understand it all, but it involves BBC One "England/Network", rather than just BBC Norwich, as one might expect!

I don't know whether or not Cambridge Look East went out on any TV platfoms (analogue or digital) last night (?) I can oly account for Sky, as that's what I've got. Actually, now that I think about it...

Sky, by it's very nature doesn't involve the "transmitters" (e.g. Sandy Heath) at all, of course! I see no obvious reason why "BBC One East (W)" on Sky had London News on it last night!

Even if Norwich Look East would've only contained Norfolk/Suffolk/Essex news rather than pan-regional news, I'd still rather have had that than bloody London! Hmpf.

Is that something noggin wouldn't mind be shared with the rest of us?