BBC News 24 (PatrZDZ's vision)

**BBC News 24** is a British free-to-air public broadcast television news channel owned and operated by the BBC. The channel is based at and broadcasts from Broadcasting House in the West End of London. It was launched on 9 November 1997 at 5:30 pm as part of the BBC's foray into digital domestic television channels.

On 22 February 2006, the channel was named News Channel of the Year at the Royal Television Society Television Journalism Awards for the first time in its history. The judges remarked that this was the year that the channel had "really come into its own." The channel won the accolade for a second time in 2017. From May 2007, viewers in the UK could watch the channel via the BBC News website.

The channel's international counterpart, known as BBC World, operates as a counterpart carrying international news, as well as selected programmes from the domestic service. Unlike BBC News 24 in the UK, which is a free-to-air channel funded by the licence fee, BBC World is a pay television service distributed by BBC Studios and funded by advertising. Some of its programmes are simulcast by the channel.

The channel's journalistic output has been overseen since 27 January 2022 by the Jonathan Munro in his capacity as the Senior Controller, News content and Deputy Director of News.

## History

The BBC had run the international news channel BBC World for two and a half years prior to the launch of the channel. BBC News 24 went on air on 9 November 1997, nearly a year before digital television was launched in the UK and due to a lack of space on Astra satellite, the channel was only available on cable and BSB, with an overnight shop window on BBC One when that channel was not on air. However, Sky News had complained about the costs associated with running a channel that only a minority could view from the licence fee. News Corporation-owned Sky News claimed that a number of British cable operators had been incentivised to carry News 24 (which, as a licence-fee funded channel was made available to such operators for free) in preference to the commercial Sky News.

The advent of digital television in the United Kingdom in autumn 1998 saw the channel launch on Sky's new digital satellite service and a month later it started to broadcast via digital terrestrial television. Initially it was difficult to obtain a digital satellite or terrestrial receiver without a subscription to Sky or ONdigital respectively, but by 2002, the channel started to become much more widely available and the BBC Governors' annual report for 2005/2006 reported that average audience figures for fifteen-minute periods had reached 8.6% in multichannel homes. The 2004 report also claimed that the channel outperformed Now, ITN News Channel and Sky News in both weekly and monthly reach in multichannel homes for the January 2004 period, and for the first time in two years moved ahead of Sky News in being perceived as the channel best for news.

The BBC Governors' annual report for 2005/2006 reported that average audience figures for fifteen-minute periods had reached 8.6% in multichannel homes, up from 7.8% in 2004/2005. The 2004 report claimed that the channel outperformed Sky News in both weekly and monthly reach in multichannel homes for the January 2004 period, and for the first time in two years moved ahead of Sky News in being perceived as the channel best for news.

### Move to Broadcasting House

The channel relocated, along with the remaining BBC News services at Television Centre, to the newly refurbished Broadcasting House on 18 March 2013 at 13:00 GMT. Presentation and on-screen graphics were refreshed, with new full HD studios and a live newsroom backdrop. Moving cameras in the newsroom form part of the top of the hour title sequence and are used at the start of weather bulletins.

## BBC News 24 HD

On 16 July 2013, the BBC announced that a high-definition (HD) simulcast of BBC News 24 would be launched by early 2014. The channel broadcasts on the BBC's new HD multiplex on Freeview. HD output from BBC News has been simulcast on BBC One HD and BBC Two HD since the move to Broadcasting House in March 2013. The channel launched on 10 December 2013 (at an early date) and rolled-out nationwide up to June 2014 (as did BBC Knowledge HD and CBeebies HD).

## Programming

#### News

Each hour consists of headlines on each quarter hour, extended at the top of the hour to form the main part of the daily schedule though these are interspaced with other programmes, generally at weekends. This will be often be displaced by rolling news coverage including reports and live interviews. Weather summaries are provided every half hour by forecasters from the BBC Weather Centre while business updates are also presented generally from within the main studio.

#### Breaking news

The BBC maintains guidelines for procedures to be taken for breaking news. With domestic news, the correspondent first records a "generic minute" summary (for use by all stations and channels) and then priority is to report on BBC Radio 5 Live, then on the BBC News 24 and any other programmes that are on air. For foreign news, first a "generic minute" is recorded, then reports are to World Service radio, then the reporter talks to any other programmes that are on air.

#### Overnight and special simulcasts

The BBC began simulcasting the channel overnight on terrestrial channels BBC One and BBC Two with the launch of the channel, ending the tradition of a closedown of both channels but at the same time effectively making the service available to many more viewers. During major breaking news events BBC News 24 has been broadcast on BBC One. Coverage of major events has also been simulcast on BBC World.

#### Exclusive programmes

Other programming produced solely by BBC News 24 includes the Sportsday (every day at 19:30) and Zero 30 (weeknights at 00:30).

Programmes including Click, Dateline London, HARDtalk, Europe Direct, USA Direct, Reporters, Seven Days, Chronicles, Simpson's World and Straight Talk appear regularly in the weekend schedules. Many of these programmes also appear throughout the week on the international version.

#### Sport coverage

In 1990, new broadcaster British Satellite Broadcasting launched its new satellite television service. During the news programmes on Galaxy and Now and during the sports news programme on The Sports Channel clips from other broadcaster's sports output would be used to illustrate the sports headlines. The BBC took BSB to court to sue them for copyright violation for showing highlights of the BBC's live broadcasts of the 1990 FIFA World Cup football matches. The High Court of Justice decided that the rebroadcasts were for the purposes of reporting the news and were legal, even if the highlights were also entertaining, the BBC lost the case but set a legal precedent.

This has allowed all UK television broadcasters to legally package highlights from their own and other broadcasters' output into news programmes without payment or permission, as only a caption indicating the originating broadcaster is required.

This has allowed the BBC to benefit from the action it took against BSB, to provide a cut-price sport news service since the BBC News 24 launched.

Sports headlines are usually provided at 15 minutes past the hour with a full bulletin at 35 minutes past the hour. There is also an extended sports bulletin, entitled 'Sportsday' broadcast at 19:30. Each bulletin is read by a single sports presenter, with the exception of Saturday Sportsday, which is double headed. From 5 March 2012, sports bulletins come from the BBC Sport Centre in MediaCityUK in Salford Quays.

#### Business

An hourly business update is included during the weekday schedule from the BBC Business Unit. These updates are usually broadcast after the quarter-to-the-hour headlines from 6.46am until 8.46pm.