Given that it's now regularly the most-watched slot on BBC1, you'd think the regional news shows at 6.30pm would get a bit of protection from the latest round of cuts.
Not so, if I've go this right. Each BBC region will reduce its current range of specialist correspondents by 1/3 with the gap to be filled by "two dedicated multi-platform correspondents" (a current favoured management trick - 'specialist generalists'.)
Specialist regional correspondents got a huge boost in numbers from around 1990, as Ron Neil rolled out the Birtian edict that the BBC must have its own experts in many areas of journalism traditionally left to large newspapers. In the regions, there were suddenly "Home Affairs Correspondents", "Business, Industry and Transport Correspondents", "Health Correspondents", "Enviroment Correspondents", "Education Correspondents" and massively increased numbers of "Political Correspondents".
This is not the first reversal on this front, and there's a lack of consistency around the English regions, but the process of reduction will be bloody.
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