Identity crisis

The petition to "Save the BBC News Channel from closure" is up to a healthy 4,300 signatures in just three days. 

Former channel presenter Simon McCoy is pretty clear that there's something to fight for, in conversation with the i. 

“This will be the end of a UK domestic news service on the BBC. People won’t realise until it’s gone. The BBC simply won’t be doing the news that people in this country are interested in.”

“It is handing over big stories to rivals. The idea is that BBC journalists will suddenly slide down a firefighters’ pole and jump into action from a cranked-up studio when there’s a breaking story. But by definition that story will already have broken elsewhere so the BBC will be behind from the start.”

The bosses, he says, "don’t understand that it generates a lot of material for other BBC radio and TV outlets. It’s always about the big BBC One bulletins. They don’t understand that people in Cornwall are interested in what’s happening in Newcastle and vice versa. Stories from the nations and regions unite the viewing nation.”

And he warns the programme fillers required to cover ads in BBC World programmes will drive the audience away to rivals. “The advert breaks are a switch-off. There are repeated weather forecasts, muzak and BBC promotions to fill in time. We know that viewers channel-hop when Sky and CNN go to adverts.”

“You watch BBC News presented from Singapore at 11pm and they say the ‘British Prime Minister. Viewers won’t wear it. They will switch off. The channel will lose its sense of UK identity.”