Viewers in the South of England are due to receive a shared bulletin with the South East region on Saturday 9th September.
- The BBC says maintenance work in the Southampton studio is to blame for the downtime.
- The Tunbridge Wells-based South East Today will present a combined bulletin for the two regions.
- Normal service is expected to resume on Sunday.
South Today’s Saturday bulletin won’t be broadcast due to maintenance work, which has been scheduled at a time to reduce impact on viewers.
The bulletin, due to air at 17:40 on Saturday 9th September will be replaced by a combined bulletin from BBC South East, which will welcome viewers across the South and South East.
The BBC says South Today “should” be fully restored in time for Sunday’s 18:50 bulletin.
It’s the latest in series of regional news cancellations this year as the BBC upgrades and maintains its network of regional studios. Look East and Look North (Newcastle) have both been affected by cancellations due to maintenance this year.
Previously, many regions had the ability to switch to a back-up option when the studio was unavailable, such as a static set up in the newsroom. Cuts to BBC services and the nature of some of the ongoing maintenance work mean falling back to a neighbouring region have become more common.
South Today is one of a few regions actually broadcasting in native HD (many others are upscaled), but it still broadcasts from an old style studio set.
A BBC spokesperson said:
“We are installing new sets as part of the BBC’s commitment to modernise the delivery of its news output and better serve audiences.”
Marc Thornham
Updated 07/09/23 14:25 with a comment from a BBC spokesperson