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BBC News in crisis or transition?

This April The BBC launched a new TV news channel.

It replaced both the current BBC News channel, which was available in the UK, and the BBC Global World News channel, which was available internationally.

Why two BBC news channels?

BBC News is the trusted UK channel we Brits rely on to to lean more about what’s happening and how it affects us.
We pay for news service this via our licence fee. Being the “The world’s best news service” claim is central to the BBC’s formal obligation to the UK viewers who own it.

BBC World News  is the advertising-funded  channel we see in hotels everywhere. The content is less focussed on the UK and cycles through summaries of the world's top stories. It is owned by BBC Global News Limited. Not the TV licence payer.

Crisis - what crisis? 

The change will deliver savings for the cash-strapped BBC which lost 30% of their public funding between 2010 and 2020 and is suffering a further two-year licence-fee freeze. (This was imposed by the last DCMS minister Nadine Dorries last year.)

The changes to BBC News will mean job losses both in front and behind the cameras and familiar UK News presenters will go.

Furthermore, critics of the the cost cuts say will mean  the BBC’s UK news – part of the BBC’s key ‘public purposes’ -- will be thin on coverage and detail.  Local news outpour will be decimated.

Media industry commentators say the new changes are all part of the defunding and demoralising of the BBC.
And it’s come at a time when the BBC Chairman Richard Sharp is facing calls to resign as a Conservative ‘crony’ appointment.  Interesting times?

Watch our expert panel debate the issues. 

Ask them your questions on the future of BBC News.

Our Panel

• Paul Royall -  Executive News Editor  - BBC. 
  Paul was editor of BBC News at Ten.  After joining the BBC in 1997 as part of the original News 24 team, he worked on BBC Breakfast before becoming editor of the distinctly different Six and Ten in 2012
  
  
  
  

• Dr Tom Mills -  Senior Lecturer, Sociology, Co-Programme Director: Sociology and Policy, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Aston University. 

• He is the author of The BBC: Myth of a Public Service
  
  
  

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• Roger Mosey – Master, Selwyn College and former Head of BBC News
  

  Roger Mosey is a British author, broadcaster, and current Master of Selwyn College, Cambridge. He was previously the Head of BBC Television News and Director of the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympic Games coverage.

  
  
  
  
• Claire Enders - Founder of Enders Analysis
  Claire is the founder of Enders Analysis, which is the leading British independent research company covering the creative industries, the broadcast economy and digital exploitation models.
  
  
  

• Paul Siegert - NUJ as our Broadcasting Organiser
  Paul works for the NUJ as their National Broadcasting Organiser. Before joining the NUJ he spent 20 years working for the BBC as Political and Transport Correspondent.
  
  
  

Our Chair for the evening

• Matthew Stadlen -journalist, author, presenter
  He was a weekend presenter on LBC between October 2016 and September 2020, hosting more than 400 shows.