Idea for the news c

Read the comments - it wasn't about distrust, it was that it wasn't a nice simple idea. As AlexS said it was one of the worst ideas ever posted on this forum.

In each regional centre they only employ and rota on enough staff to produce the output they currently do. If they wanted a national bulletin from Birmingham they'd have to employ more people to do that work.

Obviously at 11pm they'd need a full production team and gallery/studio crew, but even if they did a bulletin at 3pm they might get away with using the crew who are on duty anyway (although they'd need a break at some point) but would still need a separate newsroom team producing the national bulletin.


What you suggest is how Al Jazeera English worked at launch - with Doha doing something like 9am-7pm, London doing 7-11, Washington doing 11-4am and Kuala Lumpa doing 4am-9am. Each centre had a totally separate production team, crew etc. There they had the advantage of timezones but even so there was a massive duplication of resources and some complex logistics and it didn't last long.

With everyone in one place it's easier and cheaper to rota, they don't have staff on an 8 hour shift for 2 hours of programming for example

You also have to factor in that Studio E is very efficient with the robotic cameras and automation. Producing that output in Brum would need more people - and probably people sitting in E and it's gallery waiting for it to fall off air, like any other OB.

I don't believe anyone said anything in regards to trust the regional BBC teams, but it's more a matter of cost and lack of resources for that to happen

A long time ago I asked a question on a thread similar to this and the answer was something along the lines of 15 newsrooms reading the same stuff at the same time.

Quick question. During "the troubles" only London and Belfast has 24 hour newsrooms. Is that still the case?

Well Salford will, but of course overnight it's staffed to produce Breakfast and 5 Live rather than provide any newsgathering effort.


I doubt anywhere else, in the UK at least, does. Though of course things are very different technologically these days, I don't see why they'd need to have people sitting in offices.

There will of course be reporters and crews on call should a massive story break, and Breakfast normally have a couple of crews on the road to do their lives who can be diverted if need be

BBC Belfast I believe now have the very bare minimum of staff on hand overnight. BBC Radio Ulster always hands over the 5 Live at midnight, and "the troubles" era has long gone, even though there are a few nut jobs who want to drag the province back to the bad old days, I doubt the Northern Ireland news teams would bother having a 24 hour fully manned newsroom in 2019.

I mean, it's a nice idea.

However, the way the BBC Newsroom in London works is probably worth a brief reflection. It is not only the News Channel which comes in, not even just network news bulletins, but a whole plethora of outputs (World TV, World Service Radio Stations, Online, Regional Specific Bulletins), and then a complex series of editorial and support functions for outputs such as BBC News Bulletins on Network Radio Stations (such as Radio 2 and 6 Music).

In this sense, the joined up newsroom is able to provide a range of services, across many different (and often unseen) platforms in an effective way. It also allows, for example, a much more effective logistics operation in deploying correspondents, capturing incoming feeds, and arranging a joined-up deployment of resources (including when things go wrong).

By comparison, most regional hubs are designed with quite a specific purpose in mind... trying to get some Regions to join up with their neighbouring Radio Station can be an achievement at times... Arguably, most Regions are overstretched trying to produce local content for either radio or their local TV bulletin - I think the idea of handing a 24 hour operation, on a roving basis, would be a bit too much to ask in some ways.

Of course, your point still stands. How could regional work be used in a national way. There has been various attempts to try and use regional reports (including News 24 Tonight which was designed as a specific way of repackaging regional stuff). Arguably, the Nationwide segment of Afternnoon Live does much the same job, although without reports which are often being worked on the 6:30 bulletins.

Then there is the question of cost. One centralised output does reduce costs, often in unseen ways. The way in which BBC News can use assets and talent across a variety of platforms would be limited if, for example, presenters were being sent up and down the line from Salford, or Brum, or York to cover work -- and we won't get into the whole question of relocation and expenses that became a bit of a torch standard with the move of Breakfast.

The BBC has done a lot to de-centre itself from London. The move of BBC Sport and Breakfast worked, in part, because there was existing infrastructure to support. I'm afraid the same can't be said for relocating a rolling news channel, and all that would be needed to support it, into regional newsrooms.

And as I say these days what could someone in a BBC office overnight in Belfast do that someone in London couldn't?

Get a decent pint of Guinness

Salford is probably the only viable place this could be done from, through sharing resources with 5 Live and/or Sports News.