The BBC is lopping bits of itself off again. On the amputation list this time around, according to the Gurdian, are the linear versions of channels BBC Three and BBC Scotland.

We’ve been here before. BBC Three spent the years between 2016 and 2022 as an internet-only streaming treat. Its return to full TV channel status always seemed a little odd, particularly considering its supposed youth remit. The Guardian reports that its most-watched programme last Tuesday had a grand total of 74,000 viewers. Television is a mass medium; when your show hits figures as low as that, you might as well start hiring a few church halls and scout huts and putting it on there. Similarly, BBC Scotland, which launched in 2019, attracts very few Scots to its live offering. These cuts will doubtlessly save the Beeb a few pence. But they still feel terribly small beer.

The creation of BBC Three and BBC Four, like many things that happened with the encouragement of the Blair government, seemed like a good idea at the time but led incrementally to terrible outcomes. The two main functions of BBC Two – to innovate cheekily and to be highbrow – were farmed out to the newbies. This left BBC Two without much of a reason to exist, and it duly filled up with either the bland and forgettable, or things that should have been on BBC One anyway. 

These........

© The Spectator