Jitters

Twitchy times for people in tv news. London Live's latest highest audience was 28,000 - for a comedy show that started on Youtube. If you can't make an impact with cash and a free newspaper with a print run of 900,000 and a readership of around 1.7m, what chance for the stations yet to launch around the UK ?

Meanwhile, the "newsier" Good Morning Britain dropped 60,000 viewers for Day 2, to an average of 740,000.

At the BBC News Festival, former BBC Director of News, Richard Sambrook, was there as his thesis, that 24 hour tv news channels have had their day, was put to the current Director of News, James Harding - tellingly, according to Ian Burrell of the Independent, he said he would “personally” like it to continue - but he needed to deliver a further £20 million of cuts to the BBC News budget. Asked if the News Channel would be merged with the international BBC World News service, Mr Harding said he would expect the two to get “much closer”.

The next day former Deputy Director of News, Richard Ayre, now a Trustee, was there, as Harding responded to the Trust's requirement to do more for less, with a budget set by a Director General who was also once Director of News (supported by Richard).  The Trust adjudged that, under previous management, News had made savings of £40m over three years "without causing significant damage to output"; that, if more widely-circulated, will ring to hollow laughter in Dr Evil's Volcano News Lair and in local radio stations around the UK. They know what those three years felt like, and can do the maths required to reach £20m over the next two years.

Meanwhile, at Sky News, redundancy conversations are underway with a dozen jobs to go.