The merged BBC News channel
 

BBC News Channel and BBC World News officially merged yesterday with UK-based rolling news replaced in its entirety by BBC World News with the only UK scheduled news programmes being Breakfast and the weekday BBC One bulletins along with Newsnight and shortly a television simulcast of Nicky Campbell's BBC Radio 5 Live show.

What do people think of this idea and now that it has happened what will be the consequences for rolling news television in the UK? How much will this benefit Sky News and might we see ITV return to the television rolling news market and/or might another broadcaster launch a rolling news service for the UK?

Re: The merged BBC News channel
 

Speaking for myself, I would rather be watching news from around the world as well as the UK, which is what this new arrangement will achieve.

The BBC News channel was concentrating too much on UK news before, which made viewing it a bit boring and repetitious. There’s plenty of news from around the world to make it more interesting.

The flagship news programmes are still there.

Re: The merged BBC News channel
 

Unless there’s a major event unfolding the BBC News Channel really didn’t have enough material to justify its continuous presence. It has badly needed to get material from somewhere and tapping into BBC World was an obvious choice. I’m surprised they’ve gone for a full-on merger, but I suspect they will already have worked out a plan for how to use the service when there is a UK event requiring rolling coverage.

Having said all that, I used to travel overseas a lot and I liked having access to BBC World wherever I was. I often used to wish I could still see it once I was back home in the UK but the BBC has been very good until now at keeping it off British screens.

Re: The merged BBC News channel
 

I get all my news from the internet now, much easier.

Re: The merged BBC News channel
 

Yes I noticed you weren't commenting on how great the UK govt were doing lately. Much better news from other countries.. ;)

Re: The merged BBC News channel
 

When it became clear that the BBC News channel would become a global service akin to CNN (which of course VM customers can no longer access) and Al Jazeera, I decided to move to Sky News for television news coverage. However I never previously felt that there wasn't enough UK news to justify a UK-based news channel from the BBC.

So far on air from what people have seen has there been an obvious shift to it being a global news channel and not a UK news channel?

Re: The merged BBC News channel
 

You can spot the ad breaks even though we don’t see the ads in the UK because the news reader now says ‘we’re going to take a short break’ before you get the weather or a preview reel or whatever.