BBC World vs CNN

Well I've been on holiday in Spain all week, 3 days of which I was stuck in bed being violently ill (let's not dwell on that!) with only BBC World and CNN as the English-speaking TV channels to keep me company.

I have to say that CNN is so much more watchable than BBC World these days. I was bored of BBC World after 30 minutes - even though each strand is branded differently, e.g. GMT, Global, World News etc., the channel is effectively a 30 minute loop of the same content peppered with some longer form live interviews.

CNN, on the other hand, has more dynamic presentation and covered a much wider variety of news stories with flair. Each hour has something different to offer, from a change of location and presenter to content and interviews. Considering I could easily watch BBC World for hours on end in the early 2000s (when back half hours contained a lot of different programmes, rather than the same 30 minute news bulletin repeated) and barely touched CNN, this is marked change in my opinion.

I've created this as a new topic (probably will be told off for that) because I'd like to catch both CNN and BBC World viewers just to gauge opinions. Do you agree/disagree? Is this the result of the DQF cuts? Don't get me wrong, you can't fault the BBC's newsgathering operation - it's top class. But its programmes seem a bit lacklustre these days. Particularly Outside Broadcast - that was cringe worthy viewing most of the time with technology that clearly doesn't work properly.

As anyone who has been a member of TV Forum for a long time will know, this is quite a radical change of opinion as I used to sleep, eat and breathe BBC World once upon a time. Am I missing the point here, or does anyone else agree that CNN is a better watch than BBC World these days?

I have to say the bits of World I saw when I was away were a lot more engaging than the domestic News Channel.

Do the standard reasons for why we can't have it in the UK still apply now the funding has changed, and the automation could handle playing a sponsored and non sponsored stings to different outputs etc?

The presence of World Service Radio and Radio 4 on the same digital platforms seems to be plenty of precedent for giving us a (de-sponsored) version of World in the UK.

It's interesting because although I agree with you about the domestic News Channel being less engaging than World News, I think this is in terms of presentation. To give WN its due, it does try to change its presentation each hour (e.g. studio, colour themes) whereas the NC is still almost as formulaic as it was at TVC just with repetitive fancy camera shots.

However, I think the NC is less repetitive in terms of content than WN. I find myself watching the NC at home for longer periods than I could WN when abroad. It seemed to me that it was pretty much a 30-minute repeating cycle for most of the day with occasional WBR/Sport Today back half hours. Content-wise I would say that the NC is a bit more varied.

Presentation, and the hours being self contained with different presenters makes a difference, but also shows like WHYS (which I noticed often has UK contributors, somehow) make it seem more varied.

Personally I think the News channel has improved in terms of seating/stood presentation compared to N6 (which had had its day TBH).

As discussed on the News channel thread, it's still very safe in terms of presentation. I can't help thinking one reason for it being very formulaic is due to the Daily Mail - who like to jump on the BBC for trying anything different. You'd also get the usual comments of 'they're dumbing down' or 'that's a waste of the licence fee' via Points of View.

The closest we had to CNN style presentation to a domestic UK audience (CNN international aside) was Sky News around 2006-2010. They tried splitting up the day into chunks with Lunchtime Live, the World Tonight with James Rubin, the Live Desk etc. It certainly gave you an alternative to what was BBC News 24. But it was all dropped due to viewing figures dwindling. Sky News hasn't really evolved since - which is a shame. Plus of course we lost the ITV News channel who provided an alternative.

Something I've noticed is UK News channels especially, go in phases. They'll do something for 4 years which involves moving around the studio and fancy camera shots, then the channel has a revamp and it goes back to desk and stilted presentation - then another 4 years pass and it goes back to the way it was in the first place. Channel 5 news is another example, although just a bulletin.

I do think the news channel could push the boundaries, maybe with a programme like Outside Source or a 'UK Have your say' type thing. It's a shame the News channel dropped Question Time Extra (remember that?) as that was something a little different in the evenings.

Blimey, Rob! You've deserted World for CNN? Never thought I'd see that happen.

I see your points though. And, at the risk of turning this into a rota discussion - which I don't want to do - I have found more and more recently that it very much depends who is presenting, and that applies to both channels.

I've been avid viewers of both since 1991-ish. I struggle with both channels at times and feel that we've swung too far towards gimmicks rather than focussing on in-depth news, or a straight forward newscast.

I've lost track of the names of programmes on CNN, as they seem to change ultra frequently. What happened to good old CNN World News?

Over on World, things are no better. Glossy big studios and lots of repetition. Not what I'm after.

So, as a consequence, my days viewing tends to involve all 4 news channels, rather than being aligned to just one:

'Breakfast' in my region (6am Dubai) tends to be Mike Embley or Adnan Nawaz on World.
'Early Evening News' is either CTW (CNN) or Newshour (AJE)
My 'News at Ten' tends to be WNT with Zeinab.

Interestingly, I never miss Friday's 5am on World. 8am my time. It's my day off and I get to see the newspaper review.

So, rather than being exclusively allied to BBC World news these days, I agree with your comment about repetitiveness and I tend to jump across all news channels.

I'd rather have a good, sturdy, editorially challenging 30 minutes of News than lots of fluff and stuff across an acre-long studio.

The thing is, with the exception of English speakers stuck in hotels (it always amazes me that most international hotels have entertainment channels in French, German, Spanish et al but often only news in English) how many people actually watch these channels for more than about 30 minutes at a time? CNN is a more interesting channel content wise but this often comes with the drawback that if you're just tuning in looking for the news (which, granted fewer people may be doing these days due to the internet) it can be a good 90 minutes before a straightforward news bulletin comes on. World (and Al Jazeera) are far better from this POV.

I too was the same, which is why I bought a dish in the first place bbc world back in 2000 was awesome, imagine those graphics and presentation in HD, it was too good really.

While CNN certainly does have very long gaps at times between news bulletins, AJE does have regular 90 minute gaps as well; some of their hour long recorded shows are preceded by a recorded 30 minute show

BBC World also does that also. I've turned on BBC World three times whilst on holiday this week and I got Newsnight twice (the same show repeated at different times) and a long report by Robert Peston on phone hacking. So the three times I turned on I didn't get any traditional news bulletin. Can't just say its CNN and/or AJE that do straightforward news.

Foreign rights are a major reason why that happens. If English-language channels were distributed throughout Europe without restrictions, local broadcasters would complain, since they pay quite a bit of money for exclusive rights to Hollywood (and British) programming. Since English is widely understood in Europe, many people would choose to watch the English-language channels, and the national broadcasters would suffer.

Of course, hotels constitute a fairly insignificant share of the market, but they usually offer a selection of what's available on local cable systems. (The basic tier, in most instances.)

The German and the French channels, on the other hand, are not really considered a threat because their imported programming is dubbed. The language barrier limits their cross-border appeal, so they get distributed more widely in other countries.

BTW, that's also a major reason why you never see, say, Dutch or Scandinavian channels in European hotels. They use subtitling instead of dubbing, and are therefore also quite restricted in terms of distribution.