"BBC Must Learn From Mistakes"

The outgoing Director-General of the BBC Lord Hall has said in a speech that the BBC has made mistakes and while changes have been made there are still room for improvements:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-53889254

It looks like on the surface that he taken responsibility but there doesn't appear to be any indication as to how things will change outside the money to be spent on diversity.

To my mind Tim Davie has got a mountain to climb to restore the UK's trust in the BBC.

In my opinion, the BBC made the mistake of venturing into too many areas of broadcasting, areas which it needed not to venture into.

They created far too many channels and brands, and now with the stretched resources, and the constant threat of the future of the licence fee, the best way forward is for them to scale back on the channels and stations and output, concentrating more of their money on what they do best, and not spreading it all thinly and hoping it will all stick together.

I believe the BBC need to review the future role and continued existence of BBC Four, the two kids channels, BBC Scotland, BBC Alba, and the wealth of BBC national and local radio stations. These are the key areas of broadcasting they need to review and change in my opinion.

The BBC have tried to emulate sky with channel choice and failed spectacularly. Far better in my opinion to "reformat the BBC"

Scrap BBC Scotland and Alba and turn BBC 1 and 2 north of the border into the BBC for Scotland with BBC 2 having a "gaelic block" Do the same for BBC For Wales with BBC 2 having a "welsh block". Politically wise to leave NI alone for a while.

Controversial views ahead

Merge the 10 O'clock news and Newsnight into one "hard news" bulletin. That way BBC 2 at night would be a "BBC 3-esque" testing ground for new programmes and ideas on weekdays and have a "BBC 4-esque" flavour at weekends.

Merge BBC 1's morning output with BBC News and turn the channel into "talking wallpaper". Have BBC1's output from 7PM onwards the best of

Sounds fair.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/speeches/2020/tony-hall-edinburgh

His actual speech, not your nonsensical interpetation

Wasnt the BBC encouraged to create new channels to promote Digital TV, they make a succes of it and are then critised for being to big

Excuse me. You're well within your rights to offer a view but knock it off with the insults. My interpretation is as valid as anyone else's and to call it nonsensical is out of order.

The 10 and Newsnight are completely different beasts, merging them would be a disaster as would merging BBC News with their successful daytime output.

Instead of having seperate channels, have the channels in Scotland and Wales the same as BBC1 and 2 just with different branding. Such as BBC Scotland for BBC1, BBC Alba for BBC2, with the Gaelic bloc, and BBC Wales for BBC1 and BBC Cymru for BBC 2 with a bloc for Welsh language programmes, maybe merged with S4C.

Anyway there was nothing wrong with CBBC on BBC1 or 2. Maybe if we have BBC3 we could have it in different blocs whist scrapping CBBC and Cbeebies. Here is how my BBC 3 goes:

Weekdays:

6-7.30 Cbeebies programmes
7.30-9.00 CBBC breakfast show
9.00-3.30 Cbeebies
3.30-6.00 CBBC afternoon (with Crackerjack on Friday)
6.00-8.00 DEFII style strand
8.00-1am BBC Three type programmes
1.00-6.00 Night time repeates

Weekends

6-9 Cbeebies
9-12 A Live and Kicking style programme on Saturday and Smile/Fully Booked programme on Sunday (More Beebies on BBC2)
12-6 CBBC
6-8 DEFII
8.00-1.00am BBC Three programmes
1.00-6.00 Night time repeats

With regards to news, I would, if there is no news channel, I would have

BBC1 6am-9am: BBC Breakfast Show (News, sport and entertainment magazine like BBC News, BBC Breakfast and GMTV/GMB/Lorraine) [with regional opt outs every half the hour]
BBC2 9am-11am Morning News (Sports news every half the hour and regional news bulletins every 10 to the hour)
BBC2 11am-12pm World News
BBC2 12pm-1pm Politics Live
BBC2 1pm-2pm Sports News
BBC 2 2pm-3pm Afternoon Live (regional news bulletins every 10 to the hour
BBC 1 6pm-7.30pm An evening news magazine show with the main news at 6, a half an hour regional segment and some sport and entertainment to follow to the end
BBC1/2 10pm-11pm A news programme hybrid of Newsnight and the 10 o'clock news

What rubbish this thread has quickly turned into. Fantasy restructuring nonsense.

Maybe discussing the actual speech might be a good idea

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Getting rid of Cbeebies or merging it/cutting it back in any way is a stupid idea that will be incredibly controversial. Parents rely on it for a few minutes or hours of peace and quiet.

It’s also, I’d argue, vitally important for the future of the BBC. If people grow up with it, and remember it fondly, they’re likely to continue to support and appreciate the BBC as a whole. I started with CBBC as a child, and still love the BBC. I listen to Radio 2 whenever I’m in the car, I’d fall asleep occasionally listening to Radio Wales (RIP Chris Needs) and I love BBC One and Two, plus TOTP on BBC Four is really enjoyable as an 80s/90s music fan.

I agree. Lets begin.

We’re more out of London than ever before. A decade ago, a third of the BBC was based outside the M25. Today it’s half.

In the last few years, We’ve doubled the proportion of programmes produced in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. And our new BBC Scotland Channel has been a major success. In its first full year, it’s reaching 1 in 6 people each week.

This matters not only because it means so much to audiences to see their lives and communities represented on screen. But also because, as the national broadcaster, spread across all our nations and regions, who is better placed to support the levelling-up agenda?

To me there has always a huge sense of inequality between the nations of the UK when it comes to broadcasting and the BBC in particular. There have been over the past 20 years or so some piecemeal attempt by the corporation to redress the balance. BBC Choice for example in late 1999 onwards did split into 4 "national" stations with the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish variations carrying amongst other programmes a 10 O'clock news bulletin for that particular nation. (BBC Choice England didn't have one)

The creation of the devolved Parliaments and Assemblies in 1999 did in my opinion act as a wake up call for the BBC when it came to covering all 4 nations of the UK more fairly hence the above split in BBC Choice (whether they were connected in some way is unclear).
I'll go one stage further and theorise that BBC Scotland was created by the corporation as a way of not necessarily pacifying the Scottish Nationalists following the referendum but more as a realisation that London doesn't necessarily always know best

Now while I do watch some programmes on BBC Scotland (specifically Inside Central Station and David Wilson's Crime Files) I have to say that it may have been a wrong move financially to create a specific channel for Scotland when the BBC already had 2 channels in Scotland. Now I know nothing about budgeting and finances but it just seemed to me a waste of money when the BBC could have reformatted BBC 1 and 2 north of the border to have a "hybrid" service with the best of the national output (Eastenders etc) alongside a strong regional service.