The BBC is considering the extension of its flagship 10pm news programme as part of a shakeup of BBC1’s evening schedule.
Senior management are understood to be looking to extend the programme, presented by Huw Edwards, by at least 10 minutes to 10.45pm. The proposals, first mooted months ago by BBC news executives, comes after the regional news element of the flagship news programme was extended during May’s general election.
A more radical move, to run a full “news hour” until 11pm, is also said to have been considered, according to BBC sources.
One said the proposals pre-dated comments made by culture secretary John Whittingdale, who questioned last week whether the BBC should continue to run a 10pm bulletin at the same time as ITV’s News at Ten.
Following Whittingdale’s intervention, BBC director general, Tony Hall, ruled out moving the main news bulletin from 10pm. His chief creative director called moving it away from the 10pm to avoid competing with its largest commercial rival “ridiculous”.
Any extension of the News at Ten would also mean an increased overlap with BBC2’s flagship news programme, Newsnight, which begins at 10.30pm.
BBC1 experimented with a longer 10pm news programme in the five months up to the general election, when the regional news was doubled to 15 minutes, running until 10.45pm.
Hall, who was previously in charge of BBC News, said at the time that the extension was a “vital contribution to the national debate and I am delighted that we have been able to respond in this way”.
Currently, the BBC News programme, followed by regional news and the weather, ends at 10.35pm.
The 10pm BBC News programme has between 4 million and 5 million viewers a night, more than twice the audience of ITV’s News at Ten, which is typically watched by around 2 million viewers.
John Whittingdale raised the prospect of the BBC being forced to move its main 10pm news programme in a speech at the Royal Television Society convention in Cambridge last Wednesday.
“It is important to look at the impact the BBC has on commercial rivals,” Whittingdale told TV executives. “To give one example, is it sensible that its main evening news bulletin goes out at the same time as ITV’s?”
The BBC News was pushed back an hour in 2000 by Greg Dyke as ITV moved its own main bulletin in a saga that became known as “news at when”.
The discussions about extending the news were mentioned by the BBC’s Media Show presented by Steve Hewlett on Wednesday afternoon. A spokesman for the BBC declined to comment on “speculation” before adding, “We are proud that more than 4 million people tune into the 10 o’clock news bulletin every night and we are always looking at how to make the show better.”
