Should BBC Parliament be scrapped?

BBC Parliament urgently needs to be scrapped, for 2 main reasons:

A) It only broadcasts for about 15 hours a day
B) Every now and then it goes on recess

It's on summer recess now until September 10th! Get rid of this channel!

It serves its purpose I suppose. It just needs a bit of a revamp. Okay then, a lot of a revamp.

Someone has to broadcast the coverage in this day and age... and as the only really capable broadcaster of doing this, the BBC has to do it!

If not scrap it, sell it! This channel makes the BBC look bad I think!

It's not a comercially viable channel - they would struggle to find advertisers, as the Parliament Channel did, and that closed down.

I don't see that it's doing any harm - but why would it need to broadcast for longer than 15 hours a day? MPs aren't in the Houses of Parliament 24 hours a day are they? And it's hardly the BBC's fault that MPs get the summer off to do sod all (to keep them in tune for doing sod all for the rest of the year!). It may not draw a very large audience, but neither do a lot of channels on the EPG; but if you want to keep a track on what's going on in the Palace of Westminster, or the Welsh, Scottish and N Irish parliaments then this is the ideal channel. It was also a brilliant channel for live, uninterrupted coverage of the build up to the Election, which may not have been that interesting, but it's there for people to watch (or listen to on DTT) if they want to.

I feel that it really could do with a makeover, however, and if possible should start broadcasting in 16:9 and in stereo. Plus it could do with new idents and NEW TRAILERS! They've been running that bloody awful one with Esther Ranson and David Belamy for over 3 years now!! AGH!

Totally agree with you Mark. It's not the Beeb's problem MPs go on their hols!!

Not sure though about 16:9 and stereo. Is there that much point in increasing (and dare I say it...wasting) money when it's really not necessary?

Cheers, Asa

Yeah, but if they do go widescreen they may be able to fit prescott in

It might as well be kept, Its not doing anybody any harm, it probably costs £3.57 a day to run it, so its not wasting the licence fee.

Interestingly... BBC Parliament only costs them £3m a year to run... compared with £48m for News 24 and £922 for BBC One (analogue).

BBC Parliament is an essential part of our democracy.

Parts of the Commons ARE NOW 16:9. Westminster Hall & Portcullis House have 16:9 facilities ready to be used.

I'd expect Parliament coverage to be added to Sky News Active when they go octoscreen.
I'm not sure what you mean about the BBC only being able to provide coverage of Parliament. It's hardly difficult!!!!
Sky do an excellent PMQ's programme every Wednesday, better than Westminster Live on Beeb 2.

It makes more sense for Sky to put it on Active, as when the commons etc is in recess they can simply change the output on the channel.