Emily Thornberry MP crept up on the BBC's Jonathan Munro at yesterday's joint select committee hearing on the future of the World Service, asking about the decision to end the half-hour interview programme, HardTalk, which runs on the BBC News Channel and the World Service.
Mr Munro first indicated 'they' had done it; "The News Channel had some tough decisions to make". Mr Munro is BBC News Global Director, and Director of the BBC World Service. He is also Deputy CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs. He then revealed that people turn away from rolling news channels at busy news periods when recorded programmes appear; this is a very late discovery. The News Channel has been on air since 1997. Let's hope the coming weekend is not 'busy'; there are 32 half hour recorded programmes over 48 hours in the published schedule for BBC News in North America. Emily Thornberry said often, HardTalk was scheduled overnight; Mr Munro said it was simulcast globally (BBC News has different schedules for Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, North America, South Asia).
Mr Munro turned to 'we' when he said 'we cleared peak-time schedules on BBC2 for interviews'. This referred to an interview with Angela Merkel on the publication of her memoir, Freedom, shown at 7pm.
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