BBC News Channel & World News to merge?

https://twitter.com/rachelkennedy84

Pretty ominous.

Proposals to merge World and NC with some opt outs.

Those tweets in question...

BBC: No decision yet made...we're working on detailed proposal to move from 2 24 hour news channels to single channel shown both UK +abroad

— Rachel Kennedy (@rachelkennedy84) May 17, 2016

BBC: this option will be considered by executive Board in July along with 5 other options. Alongside this we are working on BBC News Mobile

— Rachel Kennedy (@rachelkennedy84) May 17, 2016

BBC: We envisage a channel which offers global agenda, broadcast from London with global opts driven by commercial opportunity +UK opts

— Rachel Kennedy (@rachelkennedy84) May 17, 2016

BBC: reduced News Group spend on on-air/on-screen people over last 5 years. Will seek to reduce by further 10% in real terms over next 5

— Rachel Kennedy (@rachelkennedy84) May 17, 2016

It's also touched upon towards the bottom of http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36308976.

The 12.30 BST edition of GMT on World led with a British domestic story about smuggling in prisons. This may the sign of things to come.

I know people will argue against me, but that's not good news for BBC World. It will be like CNN International, in how they have a large amount of US stories.

It will leave only Al Jazeera as a truly international news channel.

It depends on how BBC World News (UK) is operated. I still think we'll have some UK specific shows such as Victoria Derbyshire, Sport Today and the weather is likely to be split between the UK and World and UK events will still be covered, such as yesterday's celebrations in Leicester, The Queen's Speech and PMQ's on UK platforms only. I wouldn't be surprised if GMT at 1300 is replaced by the BBC News at 1 and a domestic paper review remains using the World presenter.

I'd also imagine when World does back half hour shows on weekdays, this may be an opportunity for the World presenter to present UK centric stories.

The Biz Live AM and Outside Source 2100 editions have shown that it is possible to have a global agenda and still provide some domestic stories.

Even with significant simulcasting of BBC 1 & 2 news bulletins and politics programming on the UK feed of a combined channel, I don't think this will work.

Rightly or wrongly, people are most interested in what's closest to them and a channel with an international led agenda with token UK content is not going to have much appeal. Witness how the relatively trivial matter of the BBC closing its recipe pages has been one of the most popular stories today.

The two channels are also very different in terms of pacing and presentation. BBC World News is very "start stop" due to the way presenters have to allow for different regional schedules. It really lacks pace and flow. It's rather odd watching a presenter sign off saying "Bye for now" only to reappear a couple of minutes later.

It's also a very basic feature of news presentation to give a sense of time of day which BBC World News cannot do.

I'm afraid this will either spell the end of the News Channel or effectively make it a placeholder until there's a major breaking news story.

I'd like proper closing to all news programmes. I hate it when it just cuts off to a break without any sign off from the presenters. Sky is the worst.

What's wrong with the BBC bringing Britain to the world? I thought that was the whole point. Could we see the proceeds of BBC World effectively paying for the "UK BBC World/BBC News Channel" hybrid?

That's never been the point of either BBC World or The World Service

BBC: this option will be considered by executive Board in July along with 5 other options. Alongside this we are working on BBC News Mobile

— Rachel Kennedy (@rachelkennedy84) May 17, 2016

"BBC: this option will be considered by executive Board in July along with 5 other options.

That is clearly one of five options , so I wouldn't be to pessimistic!

So that's why some viewers watch AJE or even Putin's propaganda channel RT for a different insight which isn't very UK centric, although RT have token UK output on weekday evenings.



I prefer the WN feature based news presentation, it's like reading a broadsheet newspaper with deeper emphasis on the news, where as the NC reminds me of the Sky News era pre 2005. If anything, it'll make the domestic NC more distinctive in comparison to Sky. (Except when they schedule dirge like The Pledge).

Ideally, there would be still two distinctive news channels for the UK and the rest of the world, but one is revenue earning for the corporation and can be adapted to a domestic audience, while the ever decreasing rolling news format of the NC isn't.

BBC World News should be the last of the foreign services to be sacrificed - the non-English services should be axed firs.t. It's fine for the BBC to provide content in multiple languages when the cash it there - but when it isn't they should be the first to go.

As for this plan - merging the news channel and World News just won't work for either audience, but that's not to say something can't be done. I think though they would effectively need to close them both and relaunch a new leaner, meaner operation which ideally would still allow for significant opt outs at points in the schedule where required.