"BBC WORLD"

Has all the changes BBC World have made over the last year worked, I mean are they making a profit, or going in the right direction?

What was wrong this weekend Anya was presenting, the titles were wrong, the tower was static and eventually when on screen graphics came back on, they were static too. It was a total mess. This is always the case on BBC World, they always make more mistakes than News 24. Is that because they´re understaffed?

Well the TOG system when it works well it is brilliant, however it seems to crash too often unfortunately...

I really doubt such an outstanding organization would be let understaffed. But it seems to me the technical problems are so frequent on this channel. Back in february 2004 there was a special edition of Fast Track in which they showed a piece on the prospects of airing BBC World in airliners. I was left stumped by the professionalism of the staff, taking each second of each report into count and so forth. I just wonder why then there sometimes occurs long blackouts like the one we got this morning at 7:30 CET.

You'd be surprised. During the week, there are usually 3 directors in the gallery and a floor manager. At weekends, there are only 2 directors running the gallery, and no floor manager - the presenter has to take over that role as well as their own.

Have you noticed that Mike Embley's got into the habit of adding "very shortly indeed in fact" at the end of the 25 minutes news show, when introducing what comes next? That along with his good old "stay with us if you can". He's to my (limited) knowledge the only presenter to mention "if you can".

The BBC World coverage of the Gaza Strip so far has been excellent. Are they showing the live reports that Lyse Doucet and Orla Guerin and Matthew Price and James Reynolds are doing. Did you see when James had to translate on the spot the French one of the Isrealis was speaking to him. Excellent. He is one of their best reporters by far.
But... they don´t seem as flexible as CNN, who can go to straight to a news story like the air crash in South America. They seem too constrained by the programming on the half hour...and the ad breaks!

There is a BBC World survey out on news channels. The survey looks like it is divided to people in the US and the rest of world and tailors based on it. One question is would you be interested in getting BBC World on a 24 hour basis in the US. So there is hope for US distribution!

To my judgement there is no place for BBC World on the US rolling news networks market. By the way BBC America already exists. There would be too many competitors: CNN, MSNBC, FNC, Canadian news channels as well. For the biz you've got CNBC, the world leader. And frankly I don't think many Americans would choose to tune in to a foreign network, they are by far too patriotic. What's more they tend to be very much narrow-minded and so they only put interest in predominently domestic news. That's why Fox is the most watched news network. BBC World does not bring them what they are the most interested in.

BBC World now out performs CNBC in most markets where they go head to head.

There are an awful lot of Americans who want an alternative view from the parochial one they are given by their own networks. That is why the Broadcasts on BBC America and WLIW do so well. There is certainly a market for BBC World in the states. 24hour distribution is one of the prime aims of the channel and has been for many years.

Marcus, you may recall back in the Summer of 2004, there was an article in Arial regarding World and distribution in the US. The hope was to get distribution in 2005, but nothing so far....whats happening? On top of that CNNi became available to viewers not long ago on digital cable, while CNN US started simulcasting Your World Today.

As far the survey goes, its good, but not good enough and ill explain why. There should be a section on world's website that should have pre-composed e-mails with e-mail addresses to US cable operators saying how the channel would be beneficial...etc. Bridges TV did that and it worked well for them to get more viewers.

In my opinion the BBC has some of the best Middle East coverage, especially when theres big stories such as the Gaza Strip Pullout, they get all of their top reporters in the Middle East out such as Oerla Guerin, James Reynolds, Matthew Price & Jon Leyne, and of course Lyse Doucet who although isnt based in the Middle East, she makes you feel as though you are there. This was especially evident during the Final Days of Yasser Arafat and his Funeral when the atmosphere was very tense and Lyse presented the main coverage and gave it a sense of urgency and historical significance, basically she made the viewer feel part of the story.