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

BBC2 offering nothing though means overall the BBC is offering a less varied programme selection during daytime - and closing BBC2 wouldn't really directly change what BBC1 offers.

With 3 & 4 I have no idea what BBC2 is supposed to be anymore.

Daytime across One and Two are shockingly bad populist drivel that lack in ambition and do nothing on the informing or educating front (with a couple of exceptions).

BBC Three - Liked it when it first launched not a fan these days but it does have some good original content. BBC Four is a ghetto, fantastic content but still a ghetto. Personally I'd shut down 3/4, have kids content on Two during the day and have 2 go back to being a mix of youth and high brow - sounds an odd mix but it always used to work. No doubt people would be in outrage if anything like that actually happened. Doubt much will change, it never does.

The best situation would be for BBC2 extend CBeebies by half an hour until 12pm. Simulcast BBC2 and the BBC News Channel airing 12-3pm, with Daily Politics, GMT and rolling news. Move CBBC to BBC2 and slightly extend it to air 3-6pm, and then air as normal from 6pm. Move the better performing daytime programming to prime time or BBC1, axing the rest.

In a digital age, there is no reason at all why there should be kids TV on the main channels (ie BBC1) as viewing figures suggest children will watch regardless of the channel. Keeping it on BBC2 means they can shift it from BBC1, whilst still keeping it 'mainstream'.

Overall in that scenario, on the surface it only looks like they're losing 2 hours to the news channel. The only issue would be BBC 1pm news, is it shown on BBC News as well?

Considering CBeebies is already on air 8.30-11.30am every weekday it's fair to say already they've given up on the mornings. I do think sooner or later CBBC will move to BBC2, but although it makes sense to put the daytime output in one place on BBC1, it isn't without problems, especially when it comes to sport I'd imagine they'd be more reluctant to give up the afternoon on BBC1 than they are now with BBC2 (and even that's just for snooker really) - and they're not going to want to move CBBC then drop it everytime they need to.

Back to penny pinching - it's only filling half an hour, but would surely make sense to move The Daily Politics back to 11.30am and show the full GMT for an hour at noon. Obviously PMQs still takes precedence on Wednesdays, but GMT is dropped then anyway, so it makes no difference. Perhaps though rather than simulcasting PMQs on the News Channel too they could air GMT on Wednesdays.

It's also a shame BBC Switch was axed as perhaps that could have been given a more prominent role on BBC2, and rather than looking to start BBC3 earlier they could look at using 5-7pm on BBC2 for a younger audience (as it did in the days of The Simpsons), moving the 6pm filler back to daytime where it belongs.

Could we get a simulcast of 'The Hub' during the day? That would be another half hour/hour they could fill. I think The Hub runs around 1600/1700 from what I can remember.

Assuming that none of this happens until digital switchover is completed or near completion, the only issues arriving from dropping CBBC from BBC2 in favour of sport is mere inconvenience. And eventually, CBBC on BBC1/2 will probably become a simulcast.

You raise a good issue about BBC Switch, but I think the failings with that lie in the branding. It was quite patronising towards the target audience. Perhaps there would be some room for some sort of 'Three on Two' strand (ie BBC3-esque programming on BBC2, possibly branded as BBC3).

As already highlighted numerous times throughout the thread, BBC2 is being made increasingly redundant by BBC1 being mainstream, BBC3 being aimed towards younger viewers and BBC4 towards ABC1. It doesn't leave much scope, so BBC2 will just inevitably become a showcase for the rest of the BBC channels.

Simple idea.

Sort the daytime and primetime programming into...

"Populist Drama, Entertainment, Mainstream Comedy & Live Events", and put them on BBC One along with News summary bulletins.

"Niche Drama, Lifestyle, Subversive Comedy & Factual", and put them onto BBC Two along with international News, Politics and Newsnight.

"New Talent, Young Comedians, Young Writers, Young News Agenda, Young Drama" for BBC Three, now 24hrs.

"BBC Classics, Arts, Culture, Guest Lectures, Academic 'Essay' Factual shows" for BBC Four, 24hrs with classics in daytime.

CBBC and CBeebies merged into one channel, Young programming in the morning, toddlers during the day, school kids after school, then a bedtime story before classic kids tv through the night.

I agree mostly with mdatuk, but there are a couple of things I would disagree with; firstly, political programmes and world news is an integral part of BBC One, although I could see political programmes and world news being simulcast with BBC Two. Secondly, I have young relatives of different ages, many of whom watch The CBBC Channel, and would extremely dislike the idea of the channel being merged with CBeebies. Similarly, younger ones don't understand The CBBC Channel at their age, and this proves that the plan may perhaps confuse younger viewers.

I understand this, but it is in the name of cost savings, as well as giving each channel a reason to exist. In a multichannel world, you could make the case for UKTV making a kids channel, and ditching CBBC altogether.

I'm not sure it was ever thought of as anything more than a box-ticking exercise, it seemed from Day 1 they couldn't wait to say "right, tried that, doesn't work, axe it". Little promotion from the outset, nasty pandering branding and poor scheduling that kept, um, "switching"; doomed from the start.

The obvious thing to do would be to move CBBC to Two 3-5.30pm and reintroduce the old DEF II slot between 5.30-7 complete with decent original programming and imports. That won't be as easy a thing to do now following the public demise of Switch.

Prior to that, how about CBeebies/Schools archive 'til 12, a 2-3hr current affairs block (Daily Politics, GMT, News 24 back hour programmes, Working Lunch ) with 1hr of filler if the former.

And Overlord X.

I don't understand the obsession with merging CBBC and Cbeebies.
If you had kids, you would know the fact that these are two different channels for two different audiences. Younger kids don't understand CBBC. Older kids don't want to watch Cbeebies.
And since ITV appear to have given up on kids telly, there is a place for the BBC doing this.

Also, it is in the long term interest of CBBC, Cbeebies and BBC News to stop the simulcasts once DSO is complete. This gets people used to typing 80 or 503 for BBC News, rather than 2 or 102, which is only available for a small part of the day. Guiding people to the specialist channels will drive audience growth, throughout all 24 hours, not just for a few, something simulcasting cannot achieve.

There is also way too much substitution on this thread. Doing something else may save some money. Like all things in life, the best way to reduce cost is to stop doing things at all. Turning BBC Two off from 4am to 6pm (post DSO) will save the most money possible from this proposal. Heck, the BBC could even sublet the hours of Freeview to turn a profit.