News Channel to move online (speculation)

Guido Fawkes writing for today's Sun on Sunday claims the NC could move online as part of the next set of cuts.

http://www.sunnation.co.uk/camerons-back-seat-bombshell-over-tackling-is/

This is the same Guido Fawkes who if I recall was the only journalist invited to the Conservatives infamous Black & White ball. Probably safe to assume his political independence has long gone, and should be read with caution.

The BBC says in their press releases that their NC is the UK's most popular news channel with over 9 million viewers a week. How on earth could this channel go online only with that magnitude of viewers who watch it every week?

Thankfully right now I think it is a stupid idea and it will never happen until broadband speeds improve significantly over the next several years to allow online broadcast TV to eventually become sustainable.

I watch the BBC NC regularly because IMO the quality is at a much higher position than the likes of Sky News.

Although I used to watch Sky News regularly when I was a kid because it was the only regular news channel my grandparents had available on analogue UPC cable in the Republic of Ireland up until 2008. The other news channel on that platform full time is CNBC.

Now that I have BBC News HD on FTA over 28.2 it really is a very handy option to get it for nothing rather than paying a monstrosity of cash for Sky News HD as part of a monthly Sky subscription.

If the BBC end up having to find £650m annually then I don't think we can expect anything to be of the agenda. In fact scrapping the channel completely is possible. £650m is the total cost of all BBC Radio for a year so no mean feat to achieve.

The whole story of moving it online seems a bit odd - the cost of actually putting the channel to air would be negligible to the cost of the newsgathering. It's much more likely that the channel would close and some of the savings would be diverted to online content, not a news channel online. Perhaps the channel would close and World News would be made available in the UK? Who knows? But m_in_m is right - nothing should be considered out of the question.

Even if this story isn't true, I can see even more integration with WN in the future, especially if the new licence settlement isn't to the BBC's advantage.

What could happen is a merger with WN, with a UK opt this would allow for the UK to opt-out for big breaking British news stories and domestic heads during commercial breaks, while keeping Breakfast, VD, PMQ's, Sportsday, The Papers and the network news bulletins.

It's not an idea I like suggesting, but I'd prefer that to an IPTV domestic version.

What could happen (and feels like it is happening !) is BBC World drifts towards being a bit more 'UK' orientated (certainly they now don't make any secret of the fact they are broadcasting from London, a few years ago it was almost taboo to admit that), and the BBC News Channel becomes less parochial. Then the two channels fully merge.

I can actually see the logic of putting The News Channel on line, but (as with BBC 3) not a linear channel,
but rather somewhere you can build and view your own VOD 'playlist' of news stories. Compare the number of stories that are featured over a day on the News Channel (or any TV News channel), with number of stories you'll see in a (so called) quality newspaper. There's no contest.

Looks like I will be turning over to Sky then

I think there's still a place for a linear domestic news channel which really does come into its own when there is a big breaking story.

It would be something of an own goal for more cuts to force the News channel to close down when on a day to day basis it plays a significant part in the Government's own news cycle.

That is what the Tories want.

Nothing would satisfy the Tory government more if Sky News returned to having a monopoly on rolling news in the UK.

However the axing of the NC would make another commercial domestic news channel a possibility, although like Sky, it'd need to be subsidised as it's a loss making operation.

Yawn.