RIP Schools Programmes in daytime

I don't think it's been intended as a preview or promotion for Ceefax in a long long while. It's just a cheap and easy way of filling dead airtime with something vaguely informative.

The fact that it appears in areas that no longer have it available other than in vision is irrelevant

Fine, fine, just a point...

Why couldn't have they shown Schools (on BBC2) in the summer term and then move Schools to BBC Learning Zone in the autumn term? Makes much more sense than moving it this summer.

I would argue the opposite - the Wednesday show with PMQ's is probably the most important show of the week and as the only regular chance to see the party leaders have a form of debate, the BBC should be showing it on one of their main two channels. Also the Daily Politics has far more analysis than the News Channel, and should there be breaking news, having PMQ's on BBC2 means the News Channel can cover breaking news if needed. IMO it should be the news channel dropping PMQ's

Thoigh personally this idea about dropping BBC2 daytime has some merit. I'd like to see the Daily Politics on BBC1 at 12.30 (11.45 Wed) with less antique shows (the repeats could be axed and just the new episodes shown) as a result. I'm not a huge fan of Working Lunch. CBBC would still be on BBC1 in the afternoon and could maybe taken the Saturday Kitchen slot. CBeebies also has a short BBC1 weekday slot and could also gain say 6-8am on Saturdays on BBC1 with Breakfast starting at 8am

The best daytime shows from 3.45-6pm could get shown on BBC1 daytime with BBC2 starting at 6pm to offer an alternative to the newshour on BBC1. Then the BBC should sell the BBC2 6am-6pm slot to the highest bidder IMO. See Hear could go maybe something like 6pm Saturday. The only issue maybe with sports, but BBC2 is meant to be cutting down on the amount of Sport it shows anyway

Unfortunately I can't see CBBC or CBeebies moving to BBC1 on Saturday's, not after the BBC decided to move it all to BBC2 instead. But I do think there is far too much CBBC on BBC2 on this day. They currently show CBBC programming from 6am until 12pm every Saturday which is just ridiculous. Come the DSO, I hope to see all that change and be significantly reduced. The likes of Saturday Kitchen used to be shown on BBC2 in it's early years, so perhaps that could move back to BBC2 come the DSO, allowing BBC1 to show a Disney film or something every Saturday morning and episodes of Wallace & Gromitt on a more regular basis. Still catoring for the kids, but in a more attractive way than simply showing CBBC and CBeebies.

The same can also be said about BBC2's weekday morning schedule. I would cut CBBC by a couple of hours, end it at 9am and show documentaries and old black and white movies, a trend BBC2 used to follow every half term holiday without fail in the 1990's. I remember really looking forward to finding out what B&W classic BBC2 would be showing during a particular week as I glanced through the TV Times

Surely PMQs are available to those who are interested on BBC Parliament anyway?

Yes, but without any preview or immediate analysis

It's definitely the one thing which warrants live coverage on the main channels. Doesn't need to be on the three at once IMO, but then again a lot of the things BBC News and Sky News carry live don't really need to be shown live either.

I do think it's time BBC2 was distinctly different from BBC1 during the day - and one step towards that would be moving CBBC in the afternoons to BBC2 IMO, with all the daytime crap shifting to BBC1. It means BBC2's afternoon schedule isn't just a continuation of BBC1's, whilst CBBC can probably be scheduled better on BBC2, and take it's audience with it too. I'd put CBBC back around 3.45-5.35pm, with something like Malcolm in the Middle filling the 5.35pm slot.

If the morning CBeebies/CBBC slot was then timed to finish at 10am (midday in the holidays), that leaves two hours in the morning and 1.00-3.45pm in the afternoon to fill.

Err - the BBC were told to stop doing it - albeit by the BBC Trust - weren't they?

They were ploughing on with BBC Jam - their Digital Curriculum service that was designed as an online accompaniment and eventual replacement to schools TV, in association with the Dept of Education.

It was a huge commitment to educational content creation and accessibility. Except that commercial providers of similar content got involved and claimed it was exceeding the BBC's Public Service Remit and took it their case to the EU, and the BBC Trust got involved.

These days educational content production is a huge commercial marketplace - and the BBC now has to be careful in moving into areas already commercially exploited...

Good ideas there, although surely come the DSO all CBBC programming will be reduced on both BBC1 and BBC2 anyway, so moving CBBC to BBC2 for the weekday afternoons wouldn't really be worth while in the long term. Perhaps as a temporary solution though that would be an excellent idea