BBC to move more roles outwith London

The one thing about this that makes absolutely no sense to me at all is moving the World Service Business Unit to Salford. Because London is the home of the LSE, and is the major business centre in the UK. Moving the Business Unit to Salford just seems dumb.

Also, moving Radio 3 to Salford seems a little weird. Why not do what they're doing with other radio stations and having parts of the output produced in other regions and nations.

The current plans for BBC Local Radio seem a little vague and undefined. I'm not sure what the BBC actually thinks it's local radio stations should do.

It's good that we're finally getting the regional news in HD, but I'm tempted to say it's late to the party.

If they wanted to make the BBC seem more relevant to the people, then I would suggest bringing back the regional current affairs slot on a weekly basis, and also doing something they used to do back along and have the regions have a slot in the schedule for regional factual entertainment. Keith Floyd would have never been on BBC nationally, if it wasn't for his original regional shows on BBC South West. Secret Nature was also a regional commission that got picked up nationally. Also, I would look to increase regional news output significantly, with maybe considering a 30 minute lunchtime programme, and a 30 minute late programme as well, but this might be a step too far at the moment.

I'm not sure anybody has said we're getting regional news in HD. I feel it's more about getting BBC One HD on LCN 1/101, the regional news may well be upscaled at least in the first instance.

Moving Newsnight around the country is the one I am most dubious about.

Surely the content is driven by the news agenda not whatever location they are scheduled to be in that week. If Boris announced big plans for England on a day they are live from Scotland, would they talk about it with interviews down the line, or ignore it and have a debate on Scottish issues?

And they always report on what people think up and down the country (the dreaded vox pops) without the actual programme coming from said location.

"BBC mandarins are bleating again, this time because their flagship current affairs programme Newsnight has just plummeted out of the ratings. A BBC spokesman said 'don't read too much into the fact that we are sending them out on tour to the regions on the back of a truck, it's not to drum up support, it's just standard policy for all programmes'."

There's only three regions and one sub region which are outputting in HD.

London
North West
South West (except Channel Islands)
Look East (West)

They don't output in HD at all - they are HD capable, but their studio output will be downscaled to SD.

Everything inside the building is high definition but they don't send that HD signal out to coding and mux or the transmitters, with the exception of Salford maybe?

I seem to recall noggin or Inspector Sands explaining it in depth when that was said before.

There's no chance the BBC will ever increase regional news lengths to 30 minutes at either lunchtime or evening.

I would like to see a four way programme presented from London/Cardiff/Belfast/Glasgow looking whats going on in each nation of the UK a bit like Katty & Christian

That's kind of been happening during the One, with a bounce around correspondents in each of the nations for an update on Covid

It’s plausible that, in practice, most of the programme will still originate in London and they’ll just have a presenter there for ‘we’re in Bletchley, talking to locals about what they think of the European Convention on Human Rights’ stuff. Similar to when Emily co-presented from the US during the elections. To do the whole programme from location regularly could be chaotic.

That would be awful and just underserve each nation. The two-way split screen with Katty & Christian is annoying enough, so a show based around 4 hosts in 4 studios would be even worse.

I do think one small positive of the last year though is how the national news has been forced to acknowledge rules in England often don't apply in Scotland, Wales and NI so have had to get the perspective from the nations and explain accordingly, and on the whole I feel they've done a good job and although the London based magazine shows still primarily focus on the English rules, the news itself gets the balance better and when Wales or Scotland make major announcements they get the cover they warrant. NI is probably still somewhat of an afterthought though.

Yes, if the studio isn't upgraded to output HD, up converting it from SD isn't a problem. They won't hold up the whole project just because one region isn't SD.... there'll be plenty of other things that will delay it