BBC News (British TV channel)
The BBC News channel 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 from which it is anchored during British daytime, with overnight broadcasts anchored from Washington, D.C. and Singapore. It was launched as BBC News 24 on 9 November 1997 at 17:30, as part of the BBC's foray into digital domestic television channels, becoming the first competitor to Sky News, which had been running since 1989.
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. In April 2008, the channel was renamed BBC News as part of a £550,000 rebranding of the BBC's news output, complete with a new studio and presentation.
The channel's international counterpart, formerly known as BBC World News, initially operated as a counterpart carrying international news, as well as selected programmes from the domestic service. Unlike BBC News in the UK, which is a free-to-air channel funded by the licence fee, the world feed is a pay television service distributed by BBC Studios and funded by advertising. Some of its programmes had been simulcast by the domestic BBC News channel, especially in the overnight hours.
In 2022, the BBC announced that it would further consolidate the programming and talent of the BBC News and World News channels as a cost-cutting move; these changes took place on 3 April 2023, with BBC World News being renamed "BBC News", and both channels restructured to use a common schedule with domestic opt-outs for UK-specific news coverage and programmes.
History
Rolling news began in the UK on 5 February 1989 when Sky News was launched and on 16 January 1995, the BBC launched an international news channel BBC World. However it was meant for global audiences and was not normally available to viewers in the UK. In May 1996, the BBC announced that it was to launch a UK rolling news service as part of its move into digital broadcasting.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 satellite, the channel was only available on cable, 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 of the UK's licence fee could view. Sky News claimed that a number of British cable operators had been incentivised to carry News 24 in preference to the commercial Sky News. However, in September 1999 the European Commission ruled against a complaint made by Sky News that the publicly funded channel was unfair and illegal under EU law. The Commission ruled that the licence fee should be considered state aid but that such aid was justified due to the public service remit of the BBC and that it did not exceed actual costs.
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 following the demise of ITV Digital in 2002 and the subsequent launch of Freeview, 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 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.
In 2005, the Head of television news Peter Horrocks outlined plans to provide more funding and resources for the channel and shift the corporation's emphasis regarding news away from the traditional BBC One bulletins and across to the rolling news channel. The introduction of simulcasts of the main bulletins on the channel was to allow the news bulletins to pool resources rather than work against each other at key times in the face of competition, particularly from Sky News.
2008 rebranding
On 21 April 2008, BBC News 24 was renamed "BBC News" on the channel itself, and referred to as the "BBC News Channel" on other BBC services. This was part of the Creative Futures plan, launched in 2006, to bring all BBC News output under the single brand name.The BBC News Channel moved from the Studio N8 set, which became home to BBC World News, to what was the home of the national news in Studio N6, allowing the channel to share its set with the BBC News at One and the BBC News at Ten – with other bulletins moving to Studio TC7.
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.Consolidation with BBC World News
On 26 May 2022, as part of planned cuts and streamlining across the broadcaster, the BBC announced plans for consolidation of the domestic BBC News channel in the UK with BBC World News. The domestic and international versions would share content, while maintaining the ability to opt out from the shared feed for domestic coverage if warranted. The BBC promoted that the service would offer "new flagship programmes built around high-profile journalists, and programmes commissioned for multiple platforms".The BBC announced a new presenter line-up for the merged service in February 2023, led by Matthew Amroliwala, Christian Fraser, Yalda Hakim, Lucy Hockings, and Maryam Moshiri. On 3 April 2023, the BBC World News channel rebranded as BBC News, formally marking the implementation of the unified service with the UK feed opting out for UK-specific programming, such as BBC television newscasts and Newsnight, and coverage of UK-specific news not judged to be significant enough to warrant rolling coverage globally. Overall, the changes resulted in the layoffs of about 50 employees, including presenters David Eades, Joanna Gosling, and Tim Willcox.
Yalda Hakim left the channel to join Sky News in September 2023, meaning that Maryam Moshiri could have her own programme in the slot of Hakim's former Daily Global programme.
In February 2024, Ben Brown, Geeta Guru-Murthy, and Anita McVeigh rejoined the news channel after a year off air as chief presenters.
During the 2024 general election campaign, BBC News temporarily unwound the unified service, and reverted to broadcasting a domestic feed of rolling coverage from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, as well as an additional UK-specific bulletin at 11 p.m. following Newsnight. This continued through the State Opening of Parliament, after which the prior schedule was reinstated beginning 18 July. The 11 p.m. bulletin remained until October 2024, when it was replaced with World News America.
In January 2025, the UK feed dropped its simulcast of BBC Breakfast as a pilot, with world feed programming now carried in its timeslot; executive news editor Paul Royall considered the simulcast redundant, citing that the majority of its viewership came from BBC One and iPlayer. The pilot ended in the spring but was reinstated again on 29 October 2025, seemingly now on a permanent basis.
BBC News HD
On 16 July 2013, the BBC announced that a high-definition simulcast of BBC News would be launched by early 2014. 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 10December 2013 and rolled out nationwide over the next six months.BBC News HD was removed from Freeview on 30 June 2022 due to the closure of the COM7 multiplex.
There are HD versions of BBC News on BBC iPlayer, Freesat channel 200, Sky channel 503, and Virgin Media channel 601.
Programming
Breaking news
The BBC maintains guidelines for procedures to be taken for breaking news. With domestic news, the correspondent first recorded a "generic minute" summary and then priority was to report on BBC Radio 5 Live, then on the BBC News channel and any other programmes that are on air. Since 5 Live's move to Manchester, this has been reversed. 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.A key claim made by Lord Lambert in his report had been that the channel was slower to react to breaking news compared with its main rival Sky News. To counteract this, a new feature introduced with the 2003 relaunch was a "breaking news sting": a globe shown briefly onscreen to direct a viewer's attention to the breaking news.
The graphics relaunch in January 2007 saw the globe sting replaced by a red strapline to highlight the breaking story immediately.
To complement this, a permanent live news ticker had earlier been introduced in 2006: this had previously been in use only sporadically. News statements are shown as continuously scrolling upper-case text located at the bottom of the screen; some past ambiguities noted have included spelling the plural of MPs as "MPS", together with other occasional spelling and grammatical errors. The design of this ticker was slightly altered with the 2007 graphics redesign and from June turned red to indicate breaking news, as Newswatch reported viewers' confusion. The ticker was removed during trails and weather forecasts.
File:BBC News channel, new look 7 October 2023.jpg|right|thumb|Lucy Hockings presenting News Now at Broadcasting House, 7 October 2023
A new set of graphics, including a change to font style, was officially launched in July 2019 although it was broadcast in error up to a couple of months before. The news ticker, which had been a long-running feature of the Channel, was replaced by a flipper as stories no longer scroll across the screen. The headlines now have a limited length and appear in full in turn. The word "BREAKING" may appear on screen and flash to indicate breaking news. Occasionally a breaking news sting may appear on the Channel to call attention to breaking news. This sting gained some notoriety in June 2017 when a technical error caused it to appear several times in a row, delaying the start of the BBC News at Ten. Usually the BBC News Channel crosses over to live events, such as press conferences, without using the sting and the presenter on air introduces what viewers are seeing.