BBC Two 2018 Revamp

The more I think about it, it dates back to as early as 1983, when Play School moved to BBC One in the mornings, (coinciding with its overhaul), whereas before it was repeated in the afternoon strand, and after Play Away's axing, BBC Two was deprived of regular children's programming until the See-Saw strand moved to there in June 1987.

Have I Got News for You?, which premiered in its first decade on Two, this October, marks twenty years since new episodes began premiering on BBC One.



Even so, ITV's always been one step ahead of the BBC in daytime: they have their mix of chat shows: (This Morning and Loose Women) and have really made it up in the late afternoon for the loss of the CITV strand in 2007, with game shows like Tipping Point and The Chase: quintessential teatime viewing, (though the Beeb did respond with Pointless on BBC One in 2012).

BBC Staffer moves .....

BREAKING BBC4 channel chief Cassian Harrison joins BBC Studios on a nine-month attachment

BBC2's Patrick Holland will cover BBC4 in his absence

More here https://t.co/jFwTLSbr1H pic.twitter.com/5JwOQnHfjS

— Broadcast (@Broadcastnow) May 4, 2020

And of course, the Times are reporting now that BBC Four "may be" in risk of closing. Twitter's in a slight uproar regarding it. The worst part is that there's no evidence of this from any BBC sources, so it may just be fear-mongering.

Here is the story, which strangely isn’t on The Times site pic.twitter.com/xqJwwuFhUh

— Stephen Pollard (@stephenpollard) May 5, 2020

As an aside, I do think the closure of BBC Three was a massive error. The message it sent out to the younger audience was that they just don't matter. BBC Four's output could easily be folded into BBC Two. (From whence it came, really.)

Unfortunately, a large amount of BBC4’s audience expects their niche interests to be catered for whatever the cost, despite being well catered for elsewhere (ie Sky Arts, endless documentary channels, actual theatres and concert halls). The BBC3 audience, on the other hand, only really has significantly lower quality content produced for them elsewhere.

I think the real issue to bringing that audience back to the BBC is that you have to convince them that content is still being produced for them and them directly. There sort of needs to be a big publicity towards the brand and unfortunately, I don't see many people referring to shows like Fleabag or This Country as "BBC3" shows but rather only iPlayer shows.


On many Twitter posts, I see people mentioning "Why don't you merge BBC3 and BBC Four?" and although it sounds ingenious on paper, I don't see that working logistically. Certain shows are targetting an audience, but by clashing an older generation with a new teenager audience, it simply just confuses both. I'd love to see a Red Button feed sacrificed instead of BBC Four if they are wanting to bring BBC3 back, since all those feeds are ever used for are special events and sports, so by still airing those on BBC Three, the public know where to go for events they are interested in, plus good programming for a younger and much more focused generation, since the BBC doesn't even need to try to attract older audiences since they already get them quite easily.

The problem with getting rid of the red button feeds are that, okay sure, you could put it on iPlayer or online. But not everyone has access to the iPlayer - and these are still essential feeds during the likes of the Olympics and Wimbledon, and if anything they should be used more.

If I may float a suggestion - merge BBC News and BBC Parliament.

Closing/merging Red Button or Parliament will save them very little money and wouldn't solve any problems. BBC3 and 4 have far larger budgets.

Merging BBC3/4 wouldn't work and isn't an option that would ever be considered.

I've never seen a reason not to fold BBC Four into BBC Two, especially given how BBC Two's purpose seems to be fading away more and more, not least because of shows like Top Gear being pinched by BBC One, and the content BBC Four shows was once at home on BBC Two.

That point has been made many times and it's not really true, a lot of what BBC Four has commissioned and shown would never have been on BBC Two. A lot is too niche and too low budget to ever have got a commission on BBC Two. One of the things that the channel is most famous for - its scandi-dramas certainly wouldn't have got a look in

I must agree, a lot of what is now on BBC Four wouldn't have seen the light of day on BBC Two.
Sky Arts is probably the closest to it in the commercial sector, but that goes more towards performing arts - theatre, music, opera and that sort of thing - whereas Four tries to be more inclusive on a wide range of things. And it gave us Only Connect, which is the sort of show that's quite hard to get on mainstream TV as it is, so it was perfect for BBC Four, and something new for them, which worked out pretty well actually for all involved.

Agreed. I really think people who suggest it would be easy to merge the two channels do the both of them a disservice.