BBC News (Domestic) May Go Online Only

[rkolsen 1675]

Because of the recent news that BBC Three will become an online only channel in 2015 there are fears within the organization that the corporations next victim will be the domestic BBC News Channel per a report in The Independent. The Independent reports that at a company meeting on Monday, BBC News will have to cut £20 Million from their budget resulting in the license fee based domestic channel and their commercially funded sister channel, BBC World News, to grow much closer. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/fears-grow-that-the-bbc-news-channel-could-become-online-only-9298510.html

 

The article states at the end that if the channel were to become online only the BBC would save money from transmission costs.

 

Could someone explain to me how the organization would save money in transmission costs given that the BBC currently operates three 40Mbps multiplexes? Two multiplex currently broadcasts about three or four channels each in HD and the third broadcasts the same seven in SD plus their interactive Red Button. Wouldn't it be impossible for them to actually save any money in transmission costs because one channel goes off air or am I wrong? The only thing I could see them saving is bandwidth allowing them to increase the picture quality of the remaining HD channels.

 

I was going to cross post my latter point on Hearst Magazines UK's Digital Spy message board but my account has yet to be activated.

 

Update: It appears in the UK, the primary BBC HD Multiplex carries: BBC One HD, BBC Two HD, BBC Three HD/CBeebies (Timeshared channel), ITV HD and Channel 4 HD (Not to be confused with BBC Four).

 

The secondary BBC HD Multiplex isn't exactly operated by the BBC but rather Arqiva which is the main transmitter company in the UK but currently carries: BBC Four HD/CBBC (Timeshared channel), BBC News, Al Jazeera English HD, Al Jazeera Arabic SD and something called Community Channel HD.

 

The BBC SD Multiplex Carries: BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three/CBeebies, BBC Four/CBBC, BBC News, BBC Parliament and BBC Red Button 1.

 

So now I see how they could save money in transmission costs by streamlining the multiplexes if they do get rid of BBC News and BBC Three. Arqiva operates all the transmitter sites and hardware for all eight multiplexes in the UK but the BBC operates/manages and feeds the SD and primary HD mux to Arqiva as it should be received at home (do you get what I'm saying?).