with terry pearson e—mailing... and someone tweeting as patrickphotos posted this... well, let's put those concerns to the man in charge, interim executive news editor of bbc news channel paul royall. thank you for coming on newswatch. now, we've already seen some of the changes, like the loss of the paper review, the film review, dateline london. what differences will there be from next week? we're entering, i think,

a really exciting phase for bbc news with the news...with the new channel. we're gradually bringing in the changes during april and early may. as you've said at the beginning there, some of the output will be combined. and so the way to sort of understand the channel is there are two main feeds. there's a global feed, and there is a uk feed, and at some point they're combined, but at other times they're separate. so, for example, just to give you a sense of things between 6am—11am, every day, every weekday, uk viewers will see bbc breakfast and then the nicky campbell phone—in. and also then during the day, the one, six and ten o'clock news will also be on the uk feed. and also newsnight is going to be introduced onto the uk feed as well. so these are all programmes they could be consuming on other parts of the bbc output? absolutely, but as we know, people will consume in different ways and some people willjust consume bbc news through the news

channel, not necessarily through bbc one, for example, or radio 5 live or bbc two. so, for news nhannel viewers in the uk, that's 7.5 hours of premium uk—facing programming and content built in every weekday before you get to the combined feed. now, what happens, this is what a lot of viewers wonder, when you have a big global story like an election in a country, say, in south america or africa, and there's a big uk story, maybe a big political story that's breaking here, or a story like a major storm or floods that is really specific to the uk, and they're happening at the same time? what will uk viewers get? well, again, i can take you through that. if we had a big uk story that really didn't feel relevant to the combined global feed, we can go our separate way with the uk feed. also, we're going to be introducing single—story news streams into our coverage as well, and that's another layer of uk coverage that we'll be able to deliver... how does that work? so, you could see that,

for example, on the live page and the iplayer, for example, and see a specific story there as well. so, actually, the sort of...the end result of all of this is actually more choice and more flexibility as opposed to a reduction. so, you're talking about potentially having the iplayer as an outlet for a breaking uk story. you can't predict news, of course, when it will happen, so are you going to have a dedicated uk team on standby 2a hours for this kind of scenario? absolutely, yeah, and we've got a live and breaking team as part of the new structure for the channel team. and the newsroom is resourced in the same way... so it doesn't sound like you're going to save that much money, then. there is significant... i mean, this is... we're delivering value for licence fee—payers, this is a value for all projects. but also underpinning it is world—class journalism and our commitment to delivering for all audiences, world—class, impartialjournalism, which we know they value and they want from the bbc. now, we've already heard from some uk licence fee—payers

who are unhappy that they feel they're getting a worse service. essentially it's a takeover of the uk channel by world news, isn't it, with some opt—outs? it's not a takeover. i'll go back to what i said earlier in the sense that during the day there are two feeds, a global feed and the uk feed. sometimes they're combined. on any given weekday, there's 7.5 hours of uk—facing content built into the schedule for uk viewers before you even think about the combined feed. and it could be that a uk story might be the top story globally on a given day, and also obviously significant uk stories will be in that combined rundown anyway. and because we're using new technology and we're innovating, we are going to have other ways, and other flexible ways, where we can deliver uk stories for audiences when we need to. so, for example, we've been rehearsing that and piloting this over the last few weeks, and i already know sitting here today there are stories next

week where we will be breaking off to deliver them for uk audiences. so, actually it's really exciting, and i'm actually really confident that we can deliver for uk licence fee—payers. we're acutely aware of that. we're talking about that and thinking about that the whole time. and it's not the case that it's sort of as simple as to say it's a takeover. obviously as we begin and we establish ourselves, there may be the odd imperfection along the way, and we'll learn from that and we'll take lessons from that. now the world channel has been funded by advertising. that's going to continue, and the uk viewers won't see those adverts. so what will they see in those ad breaks? well, there's a number of things they'll see, and actually this is... i'm glad you brought this up because one of the things we're doing during those breaks is to bring in some stories from the uk nations and regions while the globalfeed is on those breaks. and that will help us get to lots of stories around the uk that might not necessarily find their way into a combined rundown, but they will be popping up a couple of times an hour

during the day. the thing about the world channel is it's got a commercial imperative at its heart, and that means for many viewers, they don't think you're going to be fulfilling your obligations to viewers whose licence fee money is going into this new merged channel. i think the answer to that, the commercial imperative and the way the bbc in news terms resonates around the world is through impartial, world—class journalism. that's what audiences around the world want. that's what we're going to deliver, and that's what uk audiences want as well. so there isn't really a conflict there because the way bbc news is sold around the world is because of its brilliant, impartial, world—class journalism. all right, paul royall, thank you very much. just time for a quick mention of what you've been contacting us about over the past few days, and coverage on monday of the latest school shooting in the united states, in which six people were killed in nashville, elicited

contrasting responses. colin wildman objected to the disturbing nature of some of the footage shown of the shooter, asking... but a viewer called john wrote... last week, there were complaints from those tuning into the news at ten who instead found themselves watching the apprentice: you're hired, the follow—up programme to the final of the reality show the apprentice, which had just finished on bbc one. the news bulletin went on air half an hour later than normal, and lucy berry declared herself...

finally, saturday's lunchtime news told us about a giant asteroid that was passing between the earth and the moon. the views of two astronomers, correctly described by the reporter, were quoted, but they were both labelled on screen as "astrologers" instead. jonathan green sighed. thank you for all your comments this week. if you want to share your opinions about what you see or hear on bbc news on tv, radio, online and social media, e—mail newswatch@bbc.co.uk, or you can find us on twitter @newswatchbbc. you can call us on 0370 010 6676, and do have a look at previous interviews

on our website, bbc.co.uk/newswatch. now we're off the air next weekend over easter, and when we return, our broadcast on the new news channel will be moved to a different, later slot at 11:30pm on friday nights. we'll still be on bbc one, too, though, at 7:1i5am on saturday mornings and available to watch on the iplayer. thanks for watching. goodbye. hello there. after a very dry february right across the country, march has more than made up for the lack of rainfall, certainly across england. in fact, in the south—east quadrant of england, some areas have seen more than three times the march average, and the latest met office stats for march suggest that england has been the wettest since 1981. that's all about to change, though,

as we lose low pressure, start to see higher pressure for the start of april. this weekend and into next week, we'll see more drier and brighter weather across the country. but in the short—term, we still have friday's low pressure system clearing off into the near continent. it left a legacy of cloud and some weather fronts, which will bring further rain throughout saturday, certainly for northern ireland, parts of south wales, south—west england. thicker cloud also affecting eastern scotland, eastern england, with some spots of rain on it, will continue to plague these areas throughout the whole day. and it'll be quite chilly as well here with the onshore easterly breeze, and further west, although that weather front will be fizzling out with a bit of brightness, it won't be as warm as it has been of late. and as we move through saturday night, it looks like those weather fronts will tend to fizzle out. we'll see variable amounts of cloud and clear spells, and the reason for those weather fronts being squeezed out is because high pressure will be building in across the country for sunday. so a dry start for most areas, and with us importing some slightly

drier air from the near continent, certainly the cloud should tend to break up. we'll see quite a bit of sunshine around. lighter winds, too. early on, we could see more of a breeze in the south—east, but those winds will fall lighter. a bit of cloud for northern scotland, northern ireland. despite the temperatures still on the low side, 9—12 degrees, when you factor in the strong early april sunshine, it'll feel quite pleasant. as we move out of sunday into monday, so the first working week of april, high pressure still dominates the scene for most areas. there will be variable amounts of cloud, i think, for scotland, northern ireland, closer to these weather fronts out in the atlantic, which will make inroads for tuesday and wednesday. but, again, much of england and wales will be dry, widespread sunshine. and i think temperatures will be creeping up a little bit with the abundance of sunshine. we could be close to the mid—teens. i'd say 11—13 celsius. then some subtle changes tuesday and also wednesday. high pressure starts to pull away, and we'll see low pressure and its weatherfronts pushing into northern and western areas. so scotland, northern ireland, northern and western england and wales will see some splashes of rain. a bit of cloud getting

in towards the south—east, but there'll still be some sunny spells here. ourairsource, though, coming in from the south—west, so a mild direction, temperatures range from around 12—14 celsius. wednesday, a similar story. northern and western areas plagued by some weather fronts. high pressure never too far away from the south and the east, but we will see further splashes of rain across northern and western areas on wednesday. but as the fronts push eastwards, they will be pushing into higher pressure, so they'll tend to weaken, fizzle out, to become no more than a band of cloud. but, again, another mild day on wednesday, around the mid—teens. 111—15 degrees. and then as we go beyond, the run—up to easter, looks like high pressure wants to build back in, trying to keep these weather fronts at bay, which will scrape into the north—west at times. but this is the easter weekend. it, at the moment, looks like it could be fine and dry. the run—up to the easter weekend will also be fairly fine, perhaps a bit of rain for the north and west of the uk, but for the easter weekend itself, at the moment, it's looking pretty

promising, with quite a bit of sunshine. take care.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. donald trump becomes the first former us president to face criminal charges — the charges are thought to relate to falsifying business records to hide hush money payments to a pawn star. to a porn star. the unprecedented indictment of a former president of the united states for a campaign finance issue is an outrage. the social media personality, andrew tate, is to be released from prison after winning an appeal. he will remain under house arrest ahead of further hearings. italy becomes the first western country to block the ai chatbot chatgpt, over privacy concerns.