UK News 25-08-2000 BBC Axe Nine O`Clock News who: Greg Dyke, BBC director general what: Says BBC news will move to 10pm where: EDINBURGH when: Today snippet: "The BBC is axing the Nine O`Clock News after 30 years and switching its flagship bulletin to 10pm," reports Sarah Shannon, Media Correspondent to The Express. "The move will be confirmed tonight by BBC director general Greg Dyke when he gives the MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival," says The Independent`s David Lister. "Mr Dyke will also shock his audience by admitting that he has `toyed with the idea` of turning the BBC into a subscription service." "Mr Dyke will outline a vision of the BBC in which its Reithian public service tradition is merged with the realities of the digital age," says Matt Wells in The Guardian. "The corporation must continue to be available free to everyone, to avoid the emergence of a `digital underclass`, he will argue". ITV, which controversially moved the News At Ten to 11pm a year ago, is currently fighting a legal battle with the Independent Television Commission for its right to set the news schedule. Mr Dyke`s move is widely regarded as an attempt to fill the gap left by ITV, but some critics believe that it is part of a gradual "dumbing-down" of the BBC. "BBC1 is trying to move the news away from prime time in the same way that ITV has," says the Liberal Democrat broadcasting spokesman Norman Baker in The Times today. "It will mean fewer people watching news. We are moving towards a BBC1 that is downmarket and a BBC2 that is a ghetto of intelligent programmes". [... more]

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