BBC News TV showing radio phone in

[clockworks]

Now that BBC News TV channel has " merged" with BBC World, why are they broadcasting a radio phone in programme for 2 hours every weekday morning?

I have the News channel on while I'm in the workshop. This week they have been showing Nicky Campbell's 5 Live phone in from 9am. Apparently they are also showing this on BBC2.

Combining the UK and World news channels might make sense to save money, but why broadcast a UK radio phone in, rather than the World News that goes out elsewhere?

Another annoying thing is how they are handling the ad breaks during times when the UK channel is showing the World feed. They slot in random stuff from the regional news programmes, often cutting off the end of the item to make it fit the slot. Very amateur.

BBC News is the only thing I watch live these days. Paying the licence fee just to watch what they are broadcasting now seems like a rip-off.

[Eric Mc]

Enforced cost-cutting I expect.

[AlexRS2782]

Eric Mc said:

Enforced cost-cutting I expect.

Yep - exactly this. It's the same reason that The Paper Review was cancelled just before Christmas last year (from the 10:30pm & 11:30pm slots) and the late night Sportsday roundup (from the 10:45pm & 11.45pm slots) were dropped a month or two back. Until the Easter break that slot had been filled with various 15 - 30 minute regional or investigative pieces but after Easter it's now a stream of Newsnight on BBC2.