Newstalk

The rhythm of annual cuts at BBC News requires management to unveil their plans to the unions in October/November, if they require redundancies from the start of the 2024/25 financial year. 

So we are now in shroud-waving time. The Times believes there's an option to make Newsnight a completely live discussion programme, without specialist reporters, which might reduce its annual budget from £8m to £3m. For perspective, the whole BBC has reduced total content spend by £117m this year compared to 2022/23, taking it to below £3bn. 

The man in charge of 'programmes', John McAndrew, knows all about the current costs of cheap, live discussion programmes, having spent a year launching GB News. But he has long enough experience to recognise that Newsnight is totemic, to thousands of people who never watch it. Average audiences are down to around 365,000 a night. 

The BBC might take a look at French discussion programmes - some editions of C à vous, on France 5, at 'dinner-time', take on meaty topics with style and insight, and the audience is growing. Their 'home team' of 'columnists' patrol the waterfront, introducing topics for discussion with short live packages. Newsnight still boasts a UK Editor, a Political Editor, a Diplomatic Editor, an Economics Editor and a number of 'dedicated' correspondents. 

Another way to 'save' money, is to add minutes. Start Newsnight at 10.30, on one topic; take a summary of the news at 11.00, then have a live panel, 11.30 news summary, then paper review/preview panel til midnight, all carried simultaneously on BBC2 and the UK News stream.   Makes more sense than rebroadcasting Five Live phone-ins.