Nationwide to return claims The Times

'Shackles of corporatism'?.... you do realise that they are programmes made by departments which are part of a corporation?

Anyway, who said anything about standardisation?

Not necessarily, it would be possible to have the 6 o clock news and then an hour of 'Nationwide' style programme. After all that is what they used to do in the era of Nationwide/Sixty Minutes - tere was a news bulletin at 5:40 as well as Nationwide. But then there is an infinite number of diffrent programe formats they could do.

A later time could be good for some parts of the country, London for example, where lots of people don't get home from work till after 7.

I suppose it would work with the Six O'Clock News running until 6.30 as usual, then crossing to Nationwide at 6.30. Then we could have regional news beginning at about 6.50 until 7.20, and then back to Nationwide until 7.30.

The Six O'Clock News could focus more on international news, and Nationwide on UK news. I think this idea could work quite well.

You'd still have to cover national news on the Six, as if the most important story of the day is domestic, viewers would expect to see it covered first.

I think a better mix would be news first, then current affairs later.

I think you are jumping to many conclusions here. I wouldn't expect the news to start later, nor would I expect the news hour to stretch to 90 mins. I think the idea is to hold across the junction, not across the whole slot, though this would cause interesting scheduling issues until 2000 - especially on days with East Enders. (Maybe they would move to 2x25 min shows from 1910-2000?)

Yes, I know. But it could still have more of an international focus.

Should regional items be on the BBC first network?

Would it not be better for everybody if the BBC had a channel which was only regional using the mega regions in England for non news North, Midlands, South & East, South & West, and regional for the news bulletins and news magazine and current affairs programs, where the regional head of broadcasting could decide the schedule for their own region?

In the multi channel digital age, there is no longer the same limitation on bandwidth that
there once was.

what is this obsession with "international" news?

It's not an obsession, just the fact that there is a lot of important stuff going on the world. Most of it more important than a lot of the stuff that is covered in UK.

Well I get my daily fix of internashionull newsh from James Rubin thank you very much. The ratings for that would suggest that not *that* many people want such a high proportion of stories like that. Unless it's all James' fault.

It very much depends on your definition of "important". Does a plane crash in Iran affect anyone in the UK in any way? Probably not. That doesn't mean it's not important but you could argue it was irrelevant to a UK audience.

Using that argument you could also argue that the weather should lead the bulletin as it's the one thing that will affect almost everyone the very next day. What other news item does that? (and yes, I am playing devil's advocate here).

On the start times for news, UTV beats BBC Newsline simply because of the time it's on. People in NI mostly have short commuter journeys and are home by 6, therefore watch the local news on UTV because it's on first. It's certainly not a better news bulletin. To shift Newsline back further would not improve the situation. Integrating the Nations and Regions into a "wraparound" Six would most likely shorten the news programmes in the Nations which are currently about 3 minutes longer than in the Regions.

The Nationwide style scheduling could work, as when NW did go out, the schedule managed to fit all 3 programmes, Evening News at 5.40pm, Regional News at 5.55pm and then Nationwide at 6.25pm. I don't see anything wrong with having a Nationwide at 7.00pm or 6.55pm if they intended to go straight after the Regions end.

The Sixty Minutes style wasn't a good idea, they crammed it all in from 5.40pm to 6.40pm and as said it all looked the same, plus this method lasted less than a year.

For as long as Kerplunsky doesn't host it, this intended Nationwide sounds better than most of the shíte that goes out on BBC One at 7.00pm most nights.