Well, some interesting ideas in this thread, including merging BBC News with CBBC.
I'd drop BBC4 and put all that stuff back on BBC2, to make 2 do what it was set out to do to start with. BBC2 has become a lifestyle channel whereas what it used to do is now on BBC4. It's a ridiculous situation.
I think this is a sweeping statement most weeks, but particularly in this one when tonight at 9pm there's a ninety minute drama about the Holocaust and tomorrow at 9pm is a documentary about Belsen, while last week there was the documentary about population control which proved especially controversial.
I don't understand why people say BBC2 has "become a lifestyle channel", my first memories of watching BBC2 in the eighties come from my parents watching the DIY shows On The House and Tricks Of The Trade, plus Entertainment USA. BBC2 has always been the channel of Delia Smith and Gardeners World and Pot Black. They've had programmes like this since the channel began. And in the past they certainly weren't showing foreign films at 9pm, like BBC4 do now. Anyone who used to watch Moviedrome will remember having to set the video for gone midnight.
Panorama I believe had its budget significantly cut which is why it now seems to float around as a filler and deals with things like smart motorways, whereas previously it was more hard hitting. I dare say it now ticks a few boxes for current affairs coverage if nothing else, even if it does deal in "fluff" a lot of the time.
Smart motorways is a perfectly legitimate topic for Panorama, transport infrastructure is a major issue - that's why we have a Department for Transport - and when BBC Parliament did that evening about railways a few years back there was an eighties Panorama about British Rail in the line-up. Transport is a major issue, and I see tonight's has been picked up by the papers.
They can't all be about arms dealing, and it's always been the case that Panorama mixes international stories with more domestic, populist stories. You can look at the most recent episodes -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006t14n/episodes/guide - with reports on China, Saudi Arabia, modern slavery and war crimes. That's always been the case throughout its entire history. A diet of nothing but relentless foreign news would never attract big audiences which, at the end of the day, is the point of doing the programme.
Besides, the last time I watched Dispatches it was about train tickets, so it's hardly Panorama alone that's encouraging mass dumbing-down.