Arguably, it's exactly what the BBC should be doing, but given the size of the audience and that it's over 50% repeats, does it represent value for money ?
It's probably the cheapest TV channel they run as it's almost all material from Parliament which is there to be shown anyway. Parliamentary coverage is produced by a consortium run by the BBC Sky and ITN and contracted out to a facilities company. BBC P runs on minimal staffing and is played out by an external company (a subsidiary of ITV in fact)
BBC Parliament came from The Parliament Channel which was operated by one of the cable companies. The BBC took it over when they didn't want to do it any more. It's not as easy as just getting rid of it... someone's got to run it and I can't see a commercial set-up wanting to take it on
Quote:
In these days of austerity, where cut backs are the new black and government departments facing between 25-40% reductions it's reasonable to suggest that the service could perhaps be delivered differently.
It still costs the same amount to the government whether it's on TV, online or any other medium as the proceedings are all filmed anyway. I can't imagine MPs wanting to go back to the old days of sound only
Last edited by Inspector Sands on 5 July 2010 1:57pm
There is no need for the news to be repeated every hour if there are little or not changes.
You've not quite grasped the point of rolling news have you?
What if I miss the news at 3pm and want to watch it at 4pm? It might be that nothing's changed in that hour, but as I didn't know it in the first place I still don't know the news
I don't doubt that they should do it, and that it's just a feed on a loop, but does it need to be a channel ? Could it not exist as part of other BBC services or online.
I don't doubt that they should do it, and that it's just a feed on a loop, but does it need to be a channel ? Could it not exist as part of other BBC services or online.
Assuming you're talking about BBC Parliament ('feeds on a loop'?) look at the edit to my post above
I do think BBC Parliament should be axed and replaced with a red button version of Democracy Live as and when required (making an extra red button stream available on Freeview outside parliamentary hours) - but to be honest not sure that would actually be saving significant money.
As for 6 Music - always seemed the likely outcome, with the BBC proposing something would be axed knowing ultimately it wouldn't be and therefore the BBC could get away with axing something else and not come off looking the bad guy. I assume then the idea of Radio 2 Extra has now been dropped, and will Radio 7 still become R4 Extra?
There is no need for the news to be repeated every hour if there are little or not changes.
You've not quite grasped the point of rolling news have you?
What if I miss the news at 3pm and want to watch it at 4pm? It might be that nothing's changed in that hour, but as I didn't know it in the first place I still don't know the news
I really don't think there's any need to be that sarcastic.
I was just making a suggestion. There is not a " rolling news " service a lot of the time at the weekends, just half an hour of news plugged with Our World ( numerous times etc ). The news could literally " roll " on the ticker tape at the bottom if there was anything groundbreaking happening. I'm talking about a balance between showing the
really
important bits of parliament with the news.
The content for BBC Parliament is being produced anyway - at minimal cost to the BBC given the sharing arrangement others have already mentioned. It then gets broadcast on the BBC multiplex aiui.
Surely that's no more expensive that leaving that slot on the multiplex empty if the content is being generated anyway? And finding something else to fill that slot is going to be more expensive that the current arrangment by definition.
I was just making a suggestion. There is not a " rolling news " service a lot of the time at the weekends, just half an hour of news plugged with Our World ( numerous times etc ). The news could literally " roll " on the ticker tape at the bottom if there was anything groundbreaking happening. I'm talking about a balance between showing the
really
important bits of parliament with the news.
And committes, Holyrood, EU debates and the like are not important?
I was just making a suggestion. There is not a " rolling news " service a lot of the time at the weekends, just half an hour of news plugged with Our World ( numerous times etc ). The news could literally " roll " on the ticker tape at the bottom if there was anything groundbreaking happening. I'm talking about a balance between showing the
really
important bits of parliament with the news.
The weekends do have less news content, but that's because less happens, and of course there's no new parliamentary material at the weekends either.
There's no way that the BBC News channel and BBC Parliament could join up and be of use to anyone. I don't know what you consider as 'the important bits of Parliament' but the most important events - major policy speeches and announcements as well as PMQs are already covered on BBC News (and Sky News). There's very little else that would rise to the top of the news agenda if they were competing, There's no way it could be done other than having live coverage of the Commons, Lords and the Committees on a separate service, be that online or on TV
Exactly. The only change they'd probably be to the News Channel were BBC Parliament to be axed and focus shifted to Democracy Live would probably be The Record getting a regular slot on the News Channel (I guess around 11.30pm).
