Next month, a new look BBC News at Six and Ten will arrive on screens, broadcast from a new studio. It will the first revamp of the BBC’s main news bulletins in almost ten years.
Over the past few months, the BBC has been working to revamp Studio B, the former home of Victoria Derbyshire, Newsnight and its Sunday morning politics show. The studio will become the home of the BBC’s flagship news programmes, replacing the newsroom-facing Studio E, which has been in use since 2013.
The new look is due to be unveiled soon as part of an overhaul of BBC News presentation. Reports suggest the new look is similar to the one unveiled by Wales Today as part of its recent revamp.
BBC bosses are concerned that BBC output has fallen behind what viewers expect of the broadcaster. Its Director General Tim Davie announced the forthcoming revamp in a speech to staff earlier on.
Remaining parts of the BBC News Channel’s output from studio E will evolve in line with plans to combine the channel with BBC World News to create a single BBC News TV service.
Breakfast and regional news
In addition, BBC Breakfast will also get a new look, over a decade since the programme moved to Salford. Details of the new studio are still under wraps, but the programme has been broadcast from space originally intended for office working with a relative low ceiling for TV studios.
The change to BBC Breakfast follows changes to its presenter team, after the departure of Dan Walker and Louise Minchin.
BBC Breakfast shares a studio with BBC North West Today/Tonight, which will also be given a new look.
Davie confirmed to staff that all regional news programmes will be revamped, in line with the announcement made in the BBC’s annual plan earlier this year.
But news output will no longer be judged solely on its performance on live TV channels. Instead, BBC bosses say they’ll be closely looking at how many viewers stream its output.
It’s a chance in metric already in place at other news organisations, who closely track social media impacts and streaming numbers, putting them ahead of traditional ratings measures.
[Image: BBC/ Huw Edwards in Studio E]