Weekend bulletins & scheduling

Hello, this question is from a foreigner's perspective...

How come weekend bulletins on BBC One and ITV are not on a fixed schedule like their weekday counterparts? It must be infuriating for the viewer, who has to always look up what time the next bulletin is; and for the people who produce the bulletins as each day is different...

Thanks

Not really infuriating for the viewer as it's always been the case, and the weekend bulletins are often the highest rated of the week.

History is the short answer - bulletins weren't fixed in the early days of TV and when fixed full length bulletins launched they were on weekdays only, with the weekend model remaining. C4 and C5 both launched full length bulletins at the turn of the century which were somewhat fixed in the schedule but over time that has dwindled away a bit, although you're never too far away from a bulletin at 6.30pm on C4 on a Saturday.

The weekend bulletins are not completely unscheduled either - the BBC Sunday night bulletin is fixed at 10pm and usually ITV airs theres at 10pm too, with the early one at 6.45pm most weeks of the year. On both channels they bookend the weekend schedules so viewers aren't having to find them - the times may change slightly but they're in roughly the place you'd expect to see them.

You've got to remember that viewers' schedules aren't as regimented at the weekends too. Often people will stumble across the news at weekends rather than tune in specifically.

There isn't much content to fill the bulletins with too - less happens at the weekend.

A lot can depend on what else is scheduled around it. Where schedules are cleared for football (for example) the news moves to accommodate it. On that basis it moves typically before it. I seem to remember the ITV News moved as far back as 4:30pm on at least one occasion in order to fit some sports coverage in.

Of course weekday bulletins are not immune to getting kicked out of their regular 10pm slots, primarily because the channel's covering football and it's gone into extra time. It may have been World Cup 2002 I think it was when ITV was covering an England match, it ran into extra time, then it ran into penalties and the news didn't go out until 10:50pm.

Having said all of that, most viewers have access to at least two 24hr news channels so drifting bulletins on the main channel isn't that much of an issue if you really want a news fix.

BBC news on Sunday evening does seem to be fixed at 10pm most weeks now. As said the news goes out when there is space.

Back in the day ITN early evening news on Saturdays was usually around 16.45 but that contained the football and horse results.

Is the news fixed in countries outside the UK?

ITV's coverage of the Six Nations Rugby pushed the Saturday evening regional bulletin to 1300 a couple of weeks ago.

There is inconsistency with regard to BBC weekend regional news - there is only one bulletin on a Saturday but two on a Sunday. Given that the BBC's TV and radio services in the UK are funded solely by the licence fee, one would have thought that the weekend news bulletins would be dictated by consistency rather than ratings.

There used to be a Saturday lunchtime bulletin, but I believe DQF put paid to that one.

I remember that but the issue of consistency with regard to BBC regional news on both days of the weekend still arises.

Does DQF mean Delivering Quality First?

I remember a time when regional news at the weekend was just one bulletin daily on BBC, compared to TSW running 2 bulletins, lunchtime and early evening.

Don't even have to go back that far - it's only in the last few years that ITV cut back to one bulletin at the weekend and the BBC added a second. I'd guess about 5-6 years ago.

So why did the BBC drop the extra regional bulletin that it used to broadcast on Saturday lunchtime?