Newsnight

Don't blame him. If Scotland really had to opt out mid-discussion it would have been alot better (at least for those not in Scotland) for the Scottish presenter just to but in and say we have to leave it now for Newsnight Scotland, rather than Jeremy having to interrupt the show nationwide - and more importantly the discussion he was in, just for viewers north of the border.


Talking of which, it's a shame we don't have Wales at Eleven anymore. Don't think it last long - IIRC it was dropped when the Ten o'clock News started, so that's a good eight years ago. Anyway, completely off topic but anyone have the Wales at Eleven titles - haven't seen them at all on any of the usual sites.

the issue is not so much the fact that Newsnight Scotland exists its the fact it overlaps Newsnight instead of existing as a separate show. You often lose whole reports and parts of discussions because of it which is silly.

Dropping a whole report is probably the most seamless way to do it. But surely it's not difficult to arrange the running order so there's clean opt point for Scotland is it?

You'd think not, but it's a problem faced not just by Newsnight, but also those bigger regions who have to deal with sub opts (i.e. Plymouth/Jersey, Southampton/Oxford and Norwich/Cambridge). They all deal with the opts in slightly different ways, with varying degrees of success. As I understand it, Cambridge's sub-opt works in perhaps the best way as they run to a fixed duration every evening and it's in the middle of the Look East programme. As a result, both Cambridge and Norwich treat it as an opt with a fixed duration. It's much more the case in the South and South West that the sub opts have to fit in with the main programme, rather than the other way around. As a result there can sometimes be some lengthy filling on the sub-opts before they join the main programme!

Yep - though all three regional programmes have a much easier time than Newsnight - as the Newsnight running order can often contain only 3 or 4 long items, and arranging for there to be an opt-out point as well (Newsnight Scotland is nearly a fixed duration) is a tricky task.

The Cambridge/Norwich sub-opt has historically been handled in a very different editorial manner than Oxford and Jersey. The Cambridge/Norwich split is designed to cover more news in depth - but the main story is almost always pan-regionally covered from Norwich. This is partially because the region has always been covered from Norwich (Oxford was created when the Oxford region switched from Newsroom South East to South Today - so there was no history of a joint region) - but partially because they were competing with the split Anglia News East and West who really pushed the "closer to home" bit.

Running a "Close-up" opt high-up the shot, but not at the beginning, allows the shows to feel both high-quality (viewers see the large Norwich studio and get the benefit of the full production of the main region - and the popular and long-serving Norwich presenters) - but also allows the sub-opts on both sides to concentrate on covering a lot of "lower down the running order" stories for both sub-regions. Opting out for the first few mins would mean that you probably do one sub-regional story in depth, but the story count for the sub-region is a bit lower...

Cambridge DO split the show from the top on BIG stories - but it has to be BIG stories.

At what time does Newsnight Scotland split? Why can't they make it 11pm just after the news summary? Presenter at tvc could do the headlines and stocks then Scotland break away and the presenter starts with 'And the headlines in Scotland tonight are . . . ' then go into the programme

It is 11pm...no matter what Newsnight in London are doing! I would prefer it, if Scotland was on after the main Newsnight, rather than the current situ....but i doubt it will change in the near future.

I just find that there are often stories on after 11pm that do interest me, but have to watch online because of the opt - which itself does sometimes have really good stories...last nite on Wendy Alexander and the teaching of Scottish history is a good example, but quite often the topics discussed dont have much of a new insight to them, or tbh, are just plain dull.

this was especially true during the Hollyrood inquiry when every single night was devoted to the cost of the Scottish Parliament.

The downside of the way Look East do the split is that it is not unusual for the top story in the opt-out section to be played out to both regions at the same time from each sub-region.

The opt works very well though because Look East have created a very clear structure to the programme, that means the opt does not seem disjointed.

Can anyone recall what Cambridge have opted out from the beginning for? I can't recall an occasion, accept a dedicated Friday programme that has been done once or twice. Sadly cost seems to have prevented this long term. Though I have noticed sport is often included in the opt (does this extend the slot)

I thought that on occasions Norwich and Oxford both played out seperate sport packages with a generic intro, outside of the sub opt slot

The Network version of Newsnight after 11pm is rarely about "English/Welsh/Northern Irish-only" items.

If anything, BBC Scotland miss out on some good reports by opting out.

Norwich and Cambridge have run opt-out sport packages (with the Norwich presenter's link being suitably generic)

They've also run split arts packages - with the listings at the end sub-regional.