BBC NEWS CUTS

I'm confused as to why this doesn't already happen. Not from any cost-perspective but simply giving the audience more choice. It just seems the logical thing to do when you can easily switch channels if you're bothered.

Re: Breakfast and regional bulletins - they’ll never be dropped, an essential part of everyone’s morning especially the travel segment.

The merging of World and the NC was quashed the last time News came under review. It just wouldn’t work.

How many of us have moaned when Outside Source isn’t dropped when there’s huge breaking news happening, or how many of us have moaned when the channel hasn’t jumped on a breaking story fast enough.

The channel is a necessity however it’s consumed.



The News Channel is the ‘go to’ for Breaking News and without that, what else is there unless you switch channels.

MOTD is not going to be scrapped. That is load of fantasy concocted out of pure nonsense. BBC One or BBC Two will need it to show it for highlights for their increased numbers of matches due to them sharing their new FA Cup deal with ITV. ITV in this instance might also have to produce their own highlights from the various match days throughout the tournament either on ITV/ITV4 or the ITV Hub.

But I am going off topic now so I will get back to BBC News. I don't think the BBC NC will be scrapped at all. It is likely to be given increased competition from this summer when NBC Sky World News is being broadcast on Sky in the UK & Ireland. That will give Sky a further monopoly on news coverage when the new channel provides increased international news coverage to stories based outside of the UK. BBC News will be need to be there for licence payers as a genuine alternative to Sky in the UK.

That is all that I saying there for the moment. I will give ideas on these rumoured cuts for BBC News later on today.

I read it as the news being at nine and not then followed by the same news at ten.

And to those saying it would be very bad for ratings, yes it would. However if the BBC are going to show that they are serious about being the main PSB then this is the kind of thing that would be point of difference to those audience watching on TV rather than catch up. It's very unlikely to happen, but I do like the idea.

This was one of the most controversial ideas floated back in 2011 as part of Delivering Quality First. The main problem I see is that 5 Live is the BBC's sports network, with much of the evenings and weekends taken up by sport, and there are times during major events such as Wimbledon and the World Cup that the regular schedule gets carpeted over by sports coverage - and that wouldn't go down well with the local radio audience.


Radio 5 Live can be the BBC's sports network, or it can be the backbone of 'Radio England' - but I can't see how it can be both.

The alternative could be to have a separate 'Radio England' backbone, rather like the former all-England evening show, to fill in the time between local programmes at peak times. I think this is how the French equivalent to BBC Local Radio, France Bleu, works. (Not that I support this idea, and the all-England evening show was hardly a great success).

We need the news channel it’s the bridge between domestic and the far superior bbc world news channel it’s the only way to see multi coloured bbc news, hopefully with these cuts we see less studio e constantly red lit and not flexible like the other studios.

Cut Gary Linekers wages he can go back to promoting a famous crisp company.

Worth noting he was paid around £1.75M in both the 2018/19 and 2017/18 financial years according to the BBCs own lists. Considering the recent equal pay verdict I imagine there might be some pressure to cut his salary before others start asking for an equal wage.

I really can't imagine MOTD getting axed any time soon. However spending less money on the presenter and pundits might be an option. Going off-topic I wonder how many stars are glad they're now paid via BBC Studios, so don't have their (high) salaries disclosed anymore.

An idea I had for a fictional history forum was "BBC Now". A "rolling events" TV station where news and current affairs provide part of the backbone but can switch to live sports at a moment's notice. The red button can be used to switch between say live FA Cup coverage or a parliamentary debate.

(Not a viable idea granted but would certainly keep BBC1 free for EastEnders etc)

Probably the same theory behind the end of the ITN channel.

Sometimes I wonder, with all due respect, if you read what you write before you post it.

A separate channel just so BBC One doesn't have to drop EastEnders and friends is quite frankly pushing it. With that logic you might as well just not bother having any sport at all on BBC One, because the whole point of most sporting events on TV is to maximise the reach for commercial gain. Hiding this way on the red button is akin to not showing it at all and that's why it ends up on BBC One.

Do you have a suggestion?

You could split R5 between DAB and AM (which for technical reasons have to remain a totally national service without opt outs [1]) and an opt out-able service using the BBC LR FM network. This also has the advantage of the local stations being able to vary their opt out activity, based on prevailing local news.

[1] Yes, I know TalkSport opt out regionally on their AM network, but the results in overlap areas is crap.