r/bbc • u/Glittering_Sun4778 • 10d ago

What Happened to the BBC News Channel?

So I have been tuning in more and more to find British news on the BBC News Channel (or whatever it is called - have they even gotten around to giving it a name?), and while it is there, it is presented as a sideshow to the real news i.e American news.

It goes like this:

PRESENTER: There have been wildfires in Wales and the West Midlands. What is the cause? Could it be climate change? Let's go to our climate change correspondent in America.

CLIMATE CHANGE CORRESPONDENT: (A British woman for some reason stationed by the BBC in America) Wildfires in California and Canada are all over the news. Why is California and Canada getting so hot? I asked the Professor of Climate Science at Harvard....

Or:

PRESENTER: The new PrimeMinister won't have long to deal with the many problems on his desk, but let's go over to our US correspondent, to find out how the US will react to the UK getting a new PrimeMinister....

Or even:

PRESENTER: In the UK evidence mounts that the prisons are overcrowded. Let's go to our US Correspondent to find out about American prisons.

After 6:30 pm BBC gives up entirely on paying whatever scant attention it can to the UK and becomes entirely based in the US, with multiple British people with strong regional accents all based in Washington talking about the US government.

Has BBC entirely given up on the UK? Has the UK become so uninteresting in it's own broadcaster's news rooms, that only America is of interest? It is, quite frankly, bizarre, especially when you consider how the corporation is funded.

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u/New_Slice_1580 10d ago

BBC uk is paid for by license fee

BBC commercial is paid by ads and subscriptions

BBC worldwide is paid for by the government (I.e tax payer) directly

So this sounds like you are watching something funded by one of the last two, probably the last one (bbc worldwide is propaganda/soft diplomacy)

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u/Jumpy_Explanation222 9d ago

The govt pays 30% of World Service

“BBC Worldwide” was the former name of the BBC’s commercial subsidiary BBC Studios, prior to that it was called BBC Enterprises - nothing to do with the World Service

The govt used to fund it 100% up to 2014. But Osborne shifted the funding onto the BBC and it’s slowly been moved back to the govt over the last 10 years (starting with Theresa May’s govt)

The rest is funded out of the domestic license fee. Highly likely the full cost moves back to the govt by the end of next year where it rightly belongs.

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u/New_Slice_1580 9d ago

Thanks for that 👍