My Thoughts on the Future of BBC News and Sport
Boatman
Posts: 513 Forum Member
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I was listening Radio 5 Live recently and the thought occurred to me – why not convert BBC News into a Radio 5 Live style news and sports channel?
The advantages would be that it would give the BBC a dedicated sports channel at little additional cost and free up the other channels to continue with their usual diet of soaps and reality tv.
The format would be the rolling news as it is currently broadcast but this would stop when sport was shown. The news would of course take priority if there was a major news item but then if it was really big this would be carried over to BBC1.
The disadvantage would be that we would not have a 24 hour news channel but then do we need it? I think we survived perfectly well before rolling news channels were invented.
BBC Parliament could also be used for sport outside the hours when parliament was sitting.
Well those are my thoughts please discuss but no BBC bashing.
The advantages would be that it would give the BBC a dedicated sports channel at little additional cost and free up the other channels to continue with their usual diet of soaps and reality tv.
The format would be the rolling news as it is currently broadcast but this would stop when sport was shown. The news would of course take priority if there was a major news item but then if it was really big this would be carried over to BBC1.
The disadvantage would be that we would not have a 24 hour news channel but then do we need it? I think we survived perfectly well before rolling news channels were invented.
BBC Parliament could also be used for sport outside the hours when parliament was sitting.
Well those are my thoughts please discuss but no BBC bashing.
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Comments
Oh dear.
So what about when there's more than one event going on? And what about when there's some news that is definitely "breaking", but not big enough to break into BBC1? Would they lower the threshold to break into the main channel (annoying the fans of "soaps and reality tv", or cancel the broadcast of usually very expensive sport?
There's very little "regular" programming on a weekend because of this, so I don't see that it causes much disruption.
Government would have to agree to changes. Assuming they did...
Radio is very different from TV. People are often happy to just listen to something "sporty".
But TV sport is one area where more is better.
More TV channels for general entertainment has been a disaster, everything is spread thinly. But with sport it's a different matter, Wimbledon needs several "channels" really.
Much of the sport the BBC does have really needs several channels.
And for TV the better combination with sport is music.
A selection of BBC channels that provided music events and sporting events would be a very good use of a broadcast service. Maximising the airtime.
No live sport? They can always put on a small event ala "Later With Jools Holland" or replay something big from the music archives. Or a live concert featuring someone current.
BBC ARENA - The Event of the World Into Your Home
Sometimes that event would be wall-to-wall sport like Wimbledon, sometimes a lengthy music event like Glastonbury with different performances being covered simultaneously.
What a public service that would be. Keeping schedule destroying sport and music away from BBC1/2 schedules most of the time.
News and Parliament are for news and news related programming. BBC1, 2, 3 & 4 are for general entertainment; Sport is entertainment so thats the place for it.
There was a time when there was a news at 5:50pm for 10 minutes and another at 8:50pm for 15 minutes. That gave all the news anyone needed.
There was no continual repitition or people standing outside buildings at night.
Yes - my thoughts return to the ITV News Channel (a rolling news channel that ended up being a part-time news channel, and could not cover major news events because it was covering a football match)
Yes, another point that was overlooked (but mentioned quite a few times in similar "BBC Sports Channel" threads)
Only in the mind of Sky fan Mossy.
In fact there is quite a lot of sport on BBC.
Now that's a good idea.
I imagine there just isn't the spare staff capacity to essentially run two rolling news channels simultaneously. And if they did, wouldn't it be a waste 99% of the time?
So where's the sport today?
Yesterday?
Two days ago?
Three days ago?
What would comprise the sport next week (Mon-Fri)?
Yes, there's quite a lot of sport when events clash. But when they don't there is very little.
some of the coverage was very ropey -see this example
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB1KbpuM9P4
Michael Buerk sitting at a desk; Brian Hanrahan intervieing the weather man
That is recorded as only ever happening just the once, in 1954 IIRC.
I was referring to the 1920s and 30s:eek:
Yes, indeed.
But in those 5 minutes there was probably more actual news than you would get today - and less fancy music and less walking around big studios.
Of course we can look back on it now and it looks very outdated but the actual news was there.
Do we need mobile phones? We survived perfectly well before they were invented.
The thing is that we are now accustomed to all of the trappings of 21st century life, and now that the genie is out of the bottle, it is nigh on impossible to get it back in.
The concept of a rolling news channel is just that - rolling news coverage, a series of news reports repeated on a cycle (with opportunities for new items to be added and older items to be dropped), so that people can dip in and out of the coverage when it suits them rather than being tied to a broadcast schedule Coverage which is not meant to be watched for hours on end.
And with modern communications, modern technology, social media, the whole country (and world) has been opened up, with more opportunities for news that would not have been broadcast all those years ago (either due to lack of space/time, or lack of actual reports). And the appetite for information (and in some cases, instant information) has grown accordingly.
Yes but the story selection was very narrow. And the BBC didnt seem to be able to get beyond west London to cover a nationwide weather story!
I thought my comment made it clear that it is not recorded as happening in the 20s or 30s?