BBC News 24 & BBC World

I'd say it's aimed at people who want world news not who want BBC World. Remember, the average television viewer - ie the vast majority of the UK population - will have never even heard of BBC World!

Just on another point, I mentioned Despatch Box earlier - I caught this for the first time in ages last week, and it has now been revamped with a rather cool and groovy version of the drums and beeps theme. I believe the programme's due to be axed next year, so catch it while you can!

I wouldn't mind Chronicles being brought back - one of the best programmes from the flags era. It looked back at BBC news reports from the past 50 years, with a particular theme each week. It was very interesting, and before I got digital I used to record night time BBC1 in order to watch it.

Oh yes, and bring those flags back!

There was a report in The Inde about the BBC taking the axe to some of its (apparently) less interesting political programmes. They should start to vanish next year sometime. A great shame.

It just happened to be announced on the same day that Despatch Box was called a programme with 'outstanding gravitas' by the FT.

A huge mistake on the BBC's part.

Despatch Box is good - but its future doesn't look terribly hopefully if the key daily debates are moved forward a few hours and you end up with no important government votes after 7pm, and PMQs at noon, etc.

From what I read in Media Guardian, Despatch Box was originally introduced when they axed the nightly Westminster programmes on Radio 4.

Note the BBC haven't actually decided, or at least made public any decision, on what programmes will get changed as a result of this review - the article in this week's Ariel suggested it might well be another year before we saw any on screen changes in their political coverage.

Interestingly, Sian Kervill (former editor of Newsnight) was quoted as saying earlier that they'd actually found out that far from not being interested in politics, many young people were, except that they had very little confidence in the relevance of politicians and Westminster to them.

Another good point they made was that while, some years ago, everyone was talking about the under-25s having this attitude, now its the under-35s or under-45s.

To me what it suggests is they may not necessary reduce the amount of airtime, but may get rid of the Despatch Box style of programmes where parliament sometimes does not appear to exist outside the Westminster village.

Perhaps we'll see more of the Andy Marr style of broadcasting, such as the (very entertaining, I thought) programme he did on trying to convince people why they should vote prior to the election campaign.

How often and how long will the News programme on BBC Four last for? Will there be just one bullitin or few?

There are a few of us who remember 'Book Talk' with Robin Day being an ORIGINAL News 24 programme... Presented by the late Robin Day who was the main presenter on Question Time for a very long time, before Peter Sissons and then David Dimbleby took over...

No such thing as new ideas in Telly!

(BTW The original USA Direct, Europe Direct, Dateline London and Simpsons World titles are still used - they've all been on-air since launch over 4 years ago - and in the case of Europe Direct and USA Direct a bit longer, cos they launched on World from News 24s studios before News 24 launched.....)

i dont believe the bbc should even consider axing despatch box. i think this aparent lack of intrest in politics has been vastly distorted. between the 1950s and today huge social changes have occured, thesedays people succumbe to less social pressure to vote - ww2 was fresh in peoples minds, women's right to vote wasnt that old, trade unions were strong etc - all made voting a more important action.

where as 2 votes (council and parliamentary) were good enough; today, if you live in a province, there are 4 votes (council, assembly, parliamentary, european) - and not all people have the time to vate at all4. people not voting doesnt neccesarily mean theyre not interested either.

of course therre should be political shows for each different depth, but comprehensive indepth coverage should not be replaced by more accesible programming, it should be in addition to

it seems like a cost cutting/ratings grabbing type move, which isnt why we pay for the bbc - lets face it midnight bbc 2 isnt the most attractive timeslot, let it live on i say.... oh and the low viewership is probably due to lack of promotion.

Going back on Topic..........
Joint sessions have begun with News 24 from BBC World, Anita Mcnaught is in the National News studio with a CSO as usual and world viewers should expect to see the N24 studio at 10:00 GMT.

News 24 viewers in the UK should expect a World slant to the news at 10 onwards this morning.

As far as I know, there'll be one bulletin a night at 7.00pm, presumably lasting half an hour.  There was talk at one point of there also being an early morning bulletin at 6.00am, but that doesn't look to be possible since BBC4's channel space will be used by Cbeebies at that time.


(Edited by RW at 9:43 am on Dec. 8, 2001)

AFAIK the current plan is for the bulletin to be at 8pm ... it will also be shown AFAIK on BBC World

Doesn't BBC World have a new bulletin at that time already? If so, why are they building a new studio? Can't they just use the World one?

Politics & red tape are the most obvious reasons why they can't. Same old problem - World is commercial, the rest of the Beeb isn't