BBC NEWS CUTS

An England wide late show is very poor, and pretty pointless, they might as well just hand over to Five Live at 10pm, how can it reflect anything remotely local or regional being England wide? I imagine they will reverse that down the line.

Regarding regional news, this is one of those occasions where the BBC's dominance and loyal viewers is a negative, as it means cuts can be made but they can always refer to the high numbers of viewers still tuning in. We all know the 6:30pm programme would probably still get massive viewers if it was hosted from a broom cupboard

The local radio stations are increasingly going down the road of "pop and prattle" rather than local news - they've seen an apparent gap in the market from the cutbacks to commercial radio, and many are starting to sound like a tribute act to commercial radio from the 90s with "guess the year", "what's the secret sound" type features and down-the-line celebrity interviews.

I see nothing inherently wrong with that, no one wants lost pets and phone-ins about the bins, but they do need to make sure they're reflecting the culture of the local area rather than providing a music and chit-chat station that could be from anywhere, and that's going to be hard on a skeleton staff.

One story per programme in six regions is a huge reduction in current affairs stories covered from three items per programme in 11 regions.

It's probably worth looking at the 2018-19 annual report to get some idea of TV & radio spending at least at a national level, ref http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/reports/annualreport/2018-19.pdf#page=62. I imagine that the nation and local radio & TV budgets are covered elsewhere in the report. I believe the 2019-20 report should be out in the coming weeks, given the date of last years BBC news articles on it.

They tried an England wide show before between 7-10pm and it didn't work and didn't get the listeners, so yes I agree - just go to 5 Live from 10pm to 6am.

As for broom cupboard, well Look 'Ull was broadcasting from one for a few years!

There shouldn’t be anything national on BBC local radio, it’s just pointless.

They should go down the route of making parts of the schedule regional before making the jump to national, so more programming outside of 6am-7pm could be regionally shared

Plymouth Herald is reporting that the Investive Journalism Hub in Plymouth is to close. There's also coverage of BBC creating a new studio in Exeter College.

https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/plymouth-news/bbc-announces-hundreds-job-losses-4285405

I can't see the team in Plymouth taking it lightly to make Spotlight solo anchored!

Does appear that way. So we’ve probably seen the end of them presenting together already? Maybe Stewart will make the decision to retire and step aside altogether. Be nice to have them both present one more double headed edition to mark the end though.

The England evening show on LR improved when Mark Forrest left and was replaced by Georgey Spanswick.

Personally they should have kept the networked show instead of these pointless tick box local shows which vary in quality which replaced it.

On most editions, you'd get 3 stories ranging around 9 mins each. One would be hard investigative, 1 fluff and 1 shared across the regions.

1x27 of an indepth newsy investigation is better than what was being pumped out on Inside Out.

I think after over 23 years of presenting together it would be a huge disappointment if they didn't get the opportunity for a proper fair well but Covid-19 might decide that fate rather than anything else.