Well the main argument is because of the new Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish parliaments. People in Wales won't want to hear about the latest legislation passed in the Scottish parliament because it won't affect them, and vice versa. Also there is the danger that with so much happening in the new parliaments there simply won't be enough time in a thirty minute programme to cover everything. Most television news reports in the UK have a duration of five minutes, perhaps more if a story is deemed big enough to have both a reporter piece followed by the anchor interviewing a specialist on the subject. Important decisions may be sidelined due to a lack of time. London has enough difficulties covering Welsh stories at the moment, the main criticism being over mispronunciation of Welsh place names. The BBC does have a pronunciation department but many feel that it doesn't consult it very often.

While the campaign for a "Scottish Six" has been building for months the Welsh were slow to jump on the bandwagon. In fact we only started calling for a "Welsh Six" last month. This is just another example of the Welsh lethargy leaving everything to the last minute. Personally, I'm not in favour of a Welsh version of the BBC 6 o'clock news. We already have a long Welsh news bulletin at 6.30pm - this should be enough to cover the latest events in the Welsh Assembly and the rest of Welsh current affairs. Not many people will want to sit through an hour long programme anyway, particularly if the bulk of it is devoted to politics. There would be a danger of people switching off after say half an hour through boredom. The news is criticised often enough for placing too big an emphasis on politics anyway. Is the ordinary Welsh person that bothered about the Assembly? The assembly vote was only won by a very narrow margin thus proving that the majority of Welsh people were against it because it wouldn't have any legislative powers.

The BBC slightly softened the defeat of the national Six's by giving an extra 21 million pounds (35 million dollars) to the regions to pay for extra coverage of the new parliaments. BBC Wales' share was six million pounds. There will also be an extra nightly regional news bulletin at 11pm which of course provoked the roar that such a late timeslot adds to the continuing sidelining of local news. Twice weekly afternoon coverage of the Assembly will be shown on BBC2 with continuous live coverage available on the BBC's lowly subscribed digital channels.

While a national news programme would have been prestigious for those involved in its production it may very well have alienated the ordinary viewer. It is more important to ensure that those working in national news gathering lose their English bias and present a more accurate picture when covering the regions. It's not that long ago that London referred to the position of Secretary of State for Wales as a little known cabinet seat. They are promising to send journalists on special training courses to educate them about Wales and the sooner the better if national news coverage of the Welsh and Scottish Six's is anything to go by - Wales was hardly mentioned at all. But the BBC's changes could be in vain because their rivals ITV are moving their main evening news from 10pm to 6.30pm after thirty years. Their newsreader Trevor McDonald is the nearest Britain has to an American style anchorman and is the most popular news reader in the country. So whatever the BBC decides to do about Scottish and Welsh news it could well prove to be pointless if everyone switches over.