Changes to BBC Parliament & Political Programming

I hope the election reruns will continue, like they do now, on an adhoc basis.

I find this a bit hard to believe. The Annual Report is always released at this time of year - as you can see from the Media Centre website, last year it was on Wednesday 19th July https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/speeches/2017/tony-hall-ara-2016-17, the year before on Monday 12th July. I think you're underestimating how long it takes to get an Annual Report together, let alone find a time for Tony Hall to launch it. They clearly didn't just decide on Saturday teatime when England got in the semi-final to rush the Annual Report out.

And as for the second point, how likely are the tabloids to report on changes to the BBC's political programming anyway? It's hardly going to be front page news, especially as the changes basically see the political programming on BBC1 and 2 reduced by about ninety minutes a week, and at a time when news bulletins are longer than ever to boot.



Well, ITV were the leaders in this area - Weekend World began in the early seventies and the Beeb were certainly playing catch-up in that they didn't have any similar political show on a Sunday until This Week Next Week began in 1985. From then on both channels had a lunchtime show, the Beeb had This Week Next Week, On The Record, The Politics Show and Sunday Politics, while ITV had Weekend World, Eyewitness (which was a total disaster, apparently some people at LWT thought its appalling quality could have cost them their franchise in 1991), Walden, Jonathan Dimbleby and Sunday Edition (with Andrew Rawnsley and Andrea Catherwood, which only lasted a few months). Then ITV did abandon the slot in 2006 because they were no longer obliged to do it by law, as Ofcom relaxed the number of hours of current affairs they needed to provide, and the Beeb had it all to themselves.

Meanwhile the Sunday morning slot began on TVam in 1983 and again there was no equivalent on the Beeb until TVam lost their franchise and David Frost arranged to move the whole thing over. So in both instances the Beeb were pretty late to the party.

It was interesting to see in the press release Gavin Allen's comment that they can't justify having two broadly similar shows on the same day on the same channel. When Breakfast with Frost started, that was on at 8.15am and On The Record was on at 1pm, so you could certainly argue that the two were far enough apart to not tread on each others' toes. But as Frost got later and later (when he left in 2005 it was on at 9.30) and the lunchtime show got earlier and earlier, it did seem a bit pointless, now there's just an hour between them.

That said, I'm always surprised by people on my Twitter feed who seem to spend the whole of Sunday morning watching Marr, then Peston/Ridge, then Sunday Politics, while simultaneously hating every single minute of it.

Seems possible that weekends during weeks when they are on air could still be used for those specials, particularly repeats of ones that have already been edited and complied.

I don't think the devolved administrations have the exact same recess dates, so it won't be as long as 16 weeks

and another that does that all day except in prime time

Presumably this might also impact the salary release next year or will Sarah be expected to contribute more frequently to other network bulletins to compensate for the Politics Show reduction - unless Marr is stepping down.

Re:Bespoke programming on BBC Parliament.
There have been some great 'exclusives' on that channel.
Conversations, the Steve Richards 'Reflections' monologues/lectures, the speakers house parliamentary lectures series, political broadcasting archive raids and theme nights based around a parliamentarian, or political event. All very interesting - if tx'ed to death during the parliamentary downtime. And that's probably the issue that got it onto the bean counters radar.

How many times did Prof Vernon Bogdanor's series of lectures about UK political parties get played over the recess last Christmas/New Year? The full set of 4 separate talks must have been shown at least 4 or 5 times.

Also, yes the election night results shows are great fun to watch with an eye on history, but don't those broadcasts need someone in the gallery to be actually there during payout? So, it's not just a case of loading all the parts of the broadcast into the playout system, and letting it do it all by itself. Otherwise, we probably would have had far more of them as regular fillers than we have.

So, disappointing, yes, but a gain for the screen saying 'BBC Parliament is currently off the air as Parliament is in recess' , whilst this also is Book Talks loss.

And actually, I'm surprised BBC Parliament hasn't gone the way of BBC Three and become an on-line only channel accessible via the I-player.

What? BBC Four and Cbeebies timeshare, it's only CBBC which airs an animated caption in downtime rather than an MHEG one.

Worth noting that at the end of last year, Amol Rajan wrote an article for the BBC site where he made media predictions for 2018; one of these was that a major BBC News service would be axed. I wouldn't at all be surprised if there were more cutbacks to come. I really cannot see any of the One, Six or Ten going, nor could I see them axing Newsnight; now that BBC Parliament is being phased out, I can't help but think that there's a chance the News Channel may be next.

The news channel is little more than Simon McCoys show now anyway.

I've completely given up on it now. 10-15 years ago it was all I watched news channel wise. I couldn't stand Sky News and never ever watched it. I'd sometimes watch the ITN/ITV News Channel. These days, since the BBC cutbacks, Sky News is my go-to news channel. For the most part it continues to be a serious news channel providing the type of news programming I like. In contrast, every time I switch the BBC News Channel on it's either some sort of foreign news simulcast or silly news like interviewing puppets. It's no longer a credible news channel in my opinion. 5 years ago I would have railed against its closure - now, I'm not bothered at all if it stays or goes. It's a shadow of its former self.