Interior design

The news of forthcoming changes to the BBC News channel schedules should be viewed through two lenses. The first, nicely rose-tinted, is at least, during Charter renewal negotiations, it isn't closing as a broadcast network.

The second is that more or less anything sanctioned by James Harding's money minders outside Today and News at Huw has to save money. Thus the apparently chivalrous decision to re-broadcast Newsnight at 2315 actually ends a number of shifts earlier, saving dosh on unsocial hours payments and taxis home. The BBC Trust veto-ed BBC1 +1 last year as not a good way to use bandwidth, yet here BBC News is offering a BBC2+1 service. In Scotland, proper Newsnight is already delayed until 2300, to allow for Scotland 2016 (anyone watching ?).

In the new timetable, the 15-minute review of the next day's papers gets only one outing, at 1030. The second edition, currently at 1130, when more front pages are available, is dropped. Twitter is already upset - will our celebs face a 50% pay cut ?

Earlier in the evening, there'll be a return for a show with the best of the Nations and Regions stories. This has been tried before, with UK Today in 1998, and News 24 Tonight which ran for three years from 2005. Both faded away - the first, because the mechanics of gathering the bits was too cumbersome and the product was too dull, the second because the mechanics of gathering the bits was too cumbersome and the product was too dull.

Maybe the BBC's digital pipes have got wider and faster, and the process may not be cumbersome. And dull features, perhaps including more backbench MPs in peaktime, may help with Charter Renewal.