BBC Broadcast sold to CBS

Hmmm. Let's just take at look at a couple of simple incomings and outgoings, shall we?



So - the sell-off of yet another BBC division brings in £166m - a one off payment. BBC Technology, once an in-house division, now has to have its activities outsourced by the corporation to a company that charges £200m PER YEAR for the services it previously had in-house.

So - even in Year 1 that gives an overall net loss of £34m. And £200m year-on-year that isn't offset by anything, but will be added to by the contract costs of 'employing' CBS to do a job which, again, was previously performed in-house. I suppose some smart ar*e will write back and try to suggest that the in-house cost was more than £200m a year.

Now, I'm not an outsourcing expert, I'm not a financial genius, but something doesn't quite add up here.

Its a disgrace to see the world's greatest broadcaster being gutted like a fish.

Oh FFS. At least we still have some local continuity on BBC Regions, even if the pics aren't widescreen. That said, why are the Beeb dragging their heels getting established regional HQs widescreen-equipped?

Let's hope these "mutterings" are exactly that.

You won't see much diffrence in terms of what is on air. The BBC will be a customer of BBC Broadcast just as it is now (and has been for the last few years) BBC Broadcast (or whatever it is renamed to) will do whatever their customers ask them to.

Also it's worth noting that the people who schedule and plan the trails and presentation have been moved from BBC-B back into the BBC



Channel 5 don't have their own facilities and never have done. five is played out from a company called Ascent, with took over LPC which was formally the transmission arm of Pearson

There is virtually no regional continuity in England any more - not that there really needs to be in most cases.

As for the idea of London handling the regions - if all they need to do is switch to and from a news studio... why does it matter where it's done?

The refit of the regions is taking long because some it is co-incident with a technical refit to digital technology and in some cases new buildings. There's no point in, for example, BBC South West upgrading to widescreen and getting a whizzy new server system when they have to move buildings.

Hmm - why would a regional pre-recorded announcement played out from London sound less regional than a pre-recorded announcement played out from a regional centre?

I'm not suggesting that regional trails will suddenly be made by BBC Broadcast - just that the junction between network and regional programming might take place in London rather than the region. There is no reason to believe regional continuity will suddenly disappear.

There are real benefits - in transmission terms - for performing the regional opts in a central location - as it allows more efficient use to be made of precious broadcast bandwith. It also reduces the requirement for circuits to distribute network to the regions AND return the regional feed back to London...

I think you have to separate content from transmission technology - the two are no longer as linked as they once were.

Does BBC One Channel Islands suffer from being switched in Plymouth and not Jersey - and being broadcast via London?

It's a PR thing more than anything - regional broadcasting should (if possible) come from the region itself. Local continuity might not disappear overmight if it's centralised, but what about the future?

The regions have more control if they do things themselves. The number of network opt-outs on BBC1 South West have been more frequent recently (one is planned for Thursday and another the following week). From an operational viewpoint, if everything played out from London, would Plymouth and other English regions be granted network slots as readily?

Opt-outs will always be required for local news so there seems little to gain from centralising continuity. Hopefully the BBC will provide more regional programming now that ITV is shirking its responsibilities.



That is all highly speculative. Most regions probably aren't going anywhere soon, so why delay things any longer?

When the northern English Regions opted out (last year I think) to show their own drama... a full gallery was probably need to tx the programme and any timeshift of network. This is quite costly and tricky. Centralisation of opt-ing for the English Regions would actually make the process a lot easier and cheaper to do, with one director able to operate several regional (non-news) opt-outs. As the network programmes would be instantly available on the servers then a complete re-order of the schedule to fit in the regional programmes would be very easy. Which would make English Region opt-outs a more attractive propect, and could lead to more opt outs, not fewer.

But they will always broadcast from the region itself - the news studio isn't moving. The news is regional broadcasting, not the 30 seconds of ident and announcement from a dodgy old beta tape



Don't see why not, th scheduling process wouldn't be affected



There's really very little 'continuity' to centralise, on an average weekday it's just 3 10 second pieces of tape

Believe me (and Denton) it would be far easier for any local non-news local opt-outs to come from London. The thing is that presentation (BBC Broadcast) do it all day every day - the regions do it very rarely and when they need to it's a bit of a hassle because they aren't really set up for it




It's not speculative. There are only 4 regions left to be re-fitted - 2 of them are going to need new buildings. The main stumbling block at the moment I suspect is money

Hmm - I don't see much of a PR thing in a BBC One South West corporate ident being played out from Plymouth, and the same ident being played out from London. The news studio remains in Plymouth, and the regional staff stay where they are. There are no regional staff involved directly, full-time in continuity, and I suspect that regional trails will remain the province of the regional teams. Whether the trails are played down to London and cached onto the server, or played out from the region and cut in to the network feed in London is hardly a major difference is it?


The technical switching of regional opts and the political ability to opt-out of network (rather than regional) slots are not linked. BBC Broadcast would perform the opts when they were told to by their clients - BBC English regions I expect... There would be no reason why deriving the regional feeds in London rather than locally should mean a reduction in the ability to opt-out of network slots.

In fact it would improve the quality of such opts I expect - as currently if these require the network feed to be timeshifted, rather than a simple replacement to take place, the ability of most regions to play out the network is limited. Even 16:9 digital regions would not be as capable as London (especially when it comes to things like subtitles, PDC, Now+Next and EPG stuff...)

The BBC English regional centres are places that make programmes, and house regional news studios, they are not fully fledged regional presentation areas - centralising presentation in London (as ITV have - along with Leeds) has real benefits. ITV made the mistake (in many's eyes) of getting rid of regional identity as well - but the two do not have to be linked.



Yep - but where the presentation operation takes place and where the programmes are made, and how many of them there are, are not linked issues.

There are MAJOR quality improvements, and infrastructure savings to be had by handling regional presentation centrally.


Well they're doing pretty well - Nottingham, Norwich, London, Tunbridge Wells, Birmingham, Hull and Leeds are all 16:9 digital.

AIUI Newcastle has moved to the digital server system, and has 16:9 cameras, so now requires a gallery and station re-fit to digital from analogue PAL? Southampton is staying as-is, and will require new cameras as well as a new gallery/station infrastructure, as will Bristol. Neither are currently running the proposed ER Quantel editing system (though both use digital servers for transmission) Manchester isn't running servers either, and I suspect will be waiting to see when the new BBC development will happen before upgrading Oxford Road?

Not sure if Plymouth are staying in their current buildings or re-locating. Not sure if Oxford will spin off entirely or remain part of Southampton for transmission.

All of the "in-situ" upgrades are going to be pretty hard work - as you are going to have to re-build a station whilst keeping as many services as possible on-air for as long as possible. The last time most regions were upgraded - many also relocated (Southampton, Newcastle, Nottingham) - not that many island sites have upgraded on-site (Plymouth and Norwich have ISTR) previously. Of course in the last round of regional upgrades Bristol, Manchester and Birmingham all had multiple studios - so upgrading a regional news studio could have been aided by moving into a different gallery for a while... (Not an option at most island sites)

I am pretty sure Plymouth will be earmarked for a move, AIUI they're in a similar situation to Norwich and Leeds - based in a large old house which the BBC are almost definately going to exchange for something modern.

Oxford is probably an odd case as they've announced a new region from Milton Keynes which IIRC was to take over from Cambridge and Oxford

I think Plymouth has historically been better off than Norwich was - it got a better studio refit in the last round (late 80s/early 90s) and AIUI it has significantly fewer problems with wheelchair access. (Norwich was on 14 or so levels - with only the studio floor having decent wheelchair access ISTR)

I haven't seen any official discussion of Oxford merging with Cambridge as part of the new MK based region. I remember the Oxbridge opt being considered when the London and South East review took place - and Tunbridge Wells and London were spun out of the Newsroom South East region.

ISTR that Oxford + Cambridge forming a full region was considered, as were Oxford opts out of Midlands Today (nodding to the Central South situation) and South Today.

Editorially South Today had most in common with the small Oxford region - and I don't think the situation has changed massively.

AIUI the new BBC MK centre will simply be a relocation of the BBC Cambridge sub-opt to a new location - co-siting with 3CR rathe than Radio Cambridgeshire. This is mainly because there are no affordable city centre locations for a new BBC Cambridge TV and Radio operation...

I think the BBC are aiming to compete directly with Anglia News East and Anglia News West - on similar sized patches. I don't think they are planning to expand so that Anglia West AND Central South have the same competition. Newmarket to Swindon would be a huge patch...