BBC Cuts: BBC2 daytime, Local Radio, Wimbledon/F1 "at risk"

For those of us that work shifts, daytime programming is a very poor relation to evening offerings.
I for one would be very happy if BBC 2 gave us an afternoon film. There are so many classic british films from the 40's 50's 60's that never get seen. I'm sure it wouldn't cost very much to aquire the rights and wouldn't a season like this be exactly what PSB is about?
Please no more game shows,buy a house/sell a house or antique rubbish.

Although simulcasting would cut costs I think to the average licence payer it would seem like a waste of money having two channels showing the same (especially post digital switchover).

A controversial idea but perhaps using the daytime hours for BBC Parliament and shutting down its own channel would be a better solution? Yes I know that sounds like a solution someone who doesn't appreciate BBC Parliament would come up with, but with websites like democracy live will a 24 hour parliamentary TV channel be necessary in future?

Did anybody else start reading the article and then check to see if it was April 1st?

I think the whole purpose of BBC2 is coming in to question, what does it actually give the viewers most days? since 3/4 come along it, I believe help destroy any purpose for the channel.

Or they could go crazy and simulcast a bit of BBC Arabic or Persian! The controversy it would naturally produce would at least let Arabic and Persian speakers know that the service was to begin simulcasting on BBC2. Don't forget they'll soon be funded by the licence fee rather than the Foreign Office and they wouldn't have to worry about filler during advert breaks since there'd be no advert breaks.

Alternatively, they could provide a service similar to SBS in Australia where they screen various foreign language news programmes from around the world to serve immigrant communities in Australia. They haven't really got much to lose if they trialled this, the ratings during that period on BBC2 are that low anyway. It would at least be offering something different.

The demise of the afternoon film across all channels both during the week and at the weekend is quite sad really, especially as Free to air wise for many people the only channel screening films is Film4.

I wonder too if daytime is now somewhat impacted by the rise of Sky+ etc. I know myself now if I sit down during the day to watch TV I'm usually seeing what I've got left to watch from my recordings rather than seeing what's on offer across the channels.

It's not the full time solution but I would like to see more live sport on BBC2 during the day where it's usually hidden away on the red button. I know sometimes it's said that is due to rights issues, but I wonder if actually money saved is outweighed by the 50p or so they spend on the BBC2 schedule each day.

I remember saying something like this would happen when they changed Choice and Knowledge to Three and Four... In increasing the budgets for both channels they basically moved the edgy, younger programming to Three and the interesting, factual content to Four, therefore stripping Two of it's USP and rendering it pretty useless.

There is probably room for one of the BBC core channels to go. BBC Three serves an audience in terminal decline, so that'd be the obvious candidate for getting 'rolled up' in to BBC Two. That'd then allow the BBC to do something else with one whole stream, moving CBBC to share with BBC Two.

I definitely think that 7pm is too late a time to start, perhaps they should actually completely get rid of the CBBC Channel, and have it as CBBC on Two up to about 5:30?

I actually like the structure of BBC Canada with BBC Kids / BBC Choice / BBC Knowledge etc. I wonder if that would be a good way to go keeping BBC 1 but changing the rest of the channels. If you wanted to keep BBC Two then the beeb could do what the CITV channel does and show pre-school programming in the school-time period of the day.

They'd be better off axing BBC4 and integrate it with BBC2. BBC2 has been a lost cause since BBC4 launched, whilst BBC3 targets its audience very well and has a good partnership with BBC1. BBC2 is just 'there'.

The space for BBC4 could either be sold off, or show programming from BBC Worldwide (Dancing with the Stars, Shameless USA etc). Would there be any legalities in place to stop the BBC launching a commercial channel, providing it isn't funded by the license fee?



Other than personal preference, I don't know how you can suggest ditching BBC3 before ditching BBC4. BBC3 has over twice the audience share of BBC4 so obviously serves more people. More programmes that air on BBC3 also make it to BBC1.

Even if there wasn't could you imagine the outcry of advertisments on the BBC!

That would be UKTV.