Journalists ask BBC director-general to reconsider News At Ten cuts
The move to shorten the news was announced earlier this week.
BBC journalists have written to the broadcaster’s director-general to oppose the decision to shorten News At Ten.
The late evening national and local news and weather will be reduced by 10 minutes to make way for youth programming and Question Time.
Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen and other foreign correspondents have asked Lord Tony Hall to reconsider.
Bowen did not comment on the message to the director-general but told The Guardian: “We all want the BBC to be the best it can be”
He added: “To that end we have plenty of internal debates about what’s happening.”
Regional and local news and weather is being reduced from 11 minutes to seven minutes and UK weather, shown in England only, will shorten by one minute.
The news bulletin was extended in 2015 to finish later.
A BBC spokeswoman said: “We believe the return to our original schedule will better suit all our audiences.
“The award-winning News At Ten will continue to bring high-quality reporting of the day’s news to our audiences, who will be able to switch immediately afterwards to our other flagship evening news programme, Newsnight, avoiding the current scheduling clash.
“Audiences can also access BBC news on our 24-hour news channel, our news app, online, and on radio.”
