during the interview, we noticed that he was carrying a large machete. we decided we couldn't press him for answers and kept our interview short. brave reporting, but was it wise reporting? blodwen jones got in touch after seeing that on the 1:00 news on bbc one. well, we put blodwen's comment to bbc news and received this reply. to matters of less importance now — at least according to angela, who called our voice mail recently to complain about celebrities featuring on the news. she'd heard about the reunion of the noughties band girls aloud several times that day. so by the time it came up again on the 6:00 news on bbc one, she'd had enough. and we're talking to girls aloud as they announce a reunion tour. i'm fed up with the amount of showbiz news that gets put on the bbc when it's supposed to be a news program. the fact that a pop group are getting back together is not news. if you want to have that sort of stuff to broadcast, have a special show so people who are interested in that can go and watch that show. but there's more important things going on, notjust in britain, but throughout the world. we asked bbc news why a forthcoming concert tour had been important enough to make news bulletins and received this reply for angela. last week, the bbc announced it was embarking on what it's calling the "digital transformation" of news. this has been prompted by the decline in traditional linear audiences for tv and radio, an increase in the proportion of people getting their news online and by a need to save millions of pounds to avoid a budget shortfall. some areas of news will be cut back — we mentioned newsnight last week — and others expanded. as promised, we'rejoined today to discuss the bbc�*s plans for the future of news byjonathan munro, the deputy chief executive of bbc news. viewers have been writing in. let's have a look at some of their comments, matthew thomas wrote in about the plans for newsnight. jr 0wen told us... well, jonathan, as i say, is with me now, jonathan munro. thank you for coming on newswatch. could you clarify first how many, if any, journalistjobs have been lost in this round of cuts and in the last year since you embarked on this whole process? well, actually, we were increasing the number of people working for bbc news as a result of these plans, the ones that we're talking about today, by about 20 people. so we are reducing newsnight. we're taking out the reporting team, for example, but we're opening up some reporting jobs elsewhere in bbc news, in investigations, in specialisms like housing, for example, which nobody at the bbc covers as a dedicated role at the moment. we're increasing our firepower on our digital services, particularly to strengthen our offer at weekends when we think there's more demand than we can currently supply. and we're opening up 20 morejobs in salford. so overall it's a net gain of 20 jobs. that's in this current round. what about previously? there was talk of 500 journalistsjobs going. is that what happened? there are quite a few hundred jobs across bbc news as a whole that are going at the moment. so about 400 or so, for example, in the world service. but each of those proposals is usually attached to some sort of investment somewhere else. so there are two things going on. we're trying to save money because the licence fee has been frozen and it's now, we know for the next year, going to be lower than some people had expected that we would get. and secondly, audiences are changing and they're changing the way they consume news and other programmes. so we need to move money around, move resources around, move firepower around to meet them where they are, not where they used to be. newsnight will be shorter with a focus on live discussion and not films. there are loads of discussion programmes. why do that to newsnight? well, there'll always be space for what one of your members of your audience described as a highbrow programme. it's a know what he means by that. it's a good word, intelligent, well moderated discussion about some of the issues that most news programmes are not getting to. that will be the heart of newsnight. last week, newsnight�*s former political editor, michael crick, told us that the centralised reporting is not going to work. you lose the editorial distinctiveness that drives investigations on a programme, and one might mention the hannah barnes story and the tavistock clinic, for example. which was brilliant. and indeed, on the day we announced the changes, there was a really good investigation on newsnight about the culture in the nhs and how it affects patient care. the thing is, we want that sort of investigation to be available to the millions of people who come to us all day, whether whether it's on radio, television or online. so if you look at investigations that we've done away from newsnight, like, for example, whether members of the establishment in the uae are profiting in the oil market from hosting cop or whether it's sexual abuse allegations in abercrombie and fitch, they're done from the middle of bbc news and they're spread through all of our outputs — our podcasts, our linear programmes, ourwebsite. they reach far more people. and in the end, ourjob is to get thatjournalism to the maximum range of audiences we can. former bbc news executive roger mosey was also on newsnight last week, and he said the bbc should be cutting some of the fluff from other parts of his output, like daytime, rather than making these cuts to the news content, which is the heart of the bbc�*s reputation. i think the bbc�*s reputation does rest a lot on what the public service bit that the bbc does, and news is at the forefront of that. i saw roger's interview and i saw michael couric�*s interview on the programme last week. i think if you had representatives of other parts of the bbc sitting with me today, whether it's daytime or entertainment or comedy or drama or sport or whatever, they would also... we've tightened our belts, too, over the years. there's very little original programming in parts of daytime, now, for example, on bbc two, and other parts of the bbc have taken some very difficult decisions. these decisions are not easy. the focus on the shift to digital, which the bbc is making a big thing of, there is a concern that you risk losing a very big core and a loyal audience who watch news on tv and they listen to the radio. what do you say to them who say, "look, we're not interested in digital." why do you risk throwing them away? you're totally right. that core audience is so important to us. if you look at the numbers of people who are watching, for example, the big programmes on bbc one live — so the figures are in real time — very often the top two programmes of the day are the regional news at 6:30 and the 6:00 news that precedes it. and the other programmes that come from news are right up there in terms of the, the big deliverers of audiences, in terms of live television. and i would say to those people, "stay with us." we've got linear what we call linear built programmes on on bbc one, bbc to all the radio networks that people will be familiar with, they're in there for the long haul. we're not taking any of those programmes out of the schedule. we're not taking newsnight out of the schedule. we're moving resources around so that we can keep those audiences satisfied, keep delivering investigations, foreign news, a really important range of stories across the day in short and long form, but also to strengthen our offer for the increasing audiences who are coming to us, for example, online. you'll know people will see the changes to things like newsnight as kind of eventual death by a thousand cuts. and a lot of people are asking, shouldn't the bbc be fighting harder to protect its news output, to challenge the licence fee settlement that's just been announced ? you know, journalism is the most important thing, they would argue that makes the bbc unique and valued as public they would argue, that makes the bbc unique and valued as public service broadcasters, you need to fight a bit harder for the money. well, i'll make two points on that. first of all, as you as you know, the level of the licence fee is a decision for the government. it's not a decision for the bbc. so we can make representations. we can make representations and we make our case in the normal way that you would expect. but ultimately, we respect the decision of a democratically elected government. that's the system for funding the bbc or at least the majority of funds that come into the bbc. on your broader point aboutjournalism being at the heart of what we do, we all agree with that. i couldn't agree with you more. it's why we need to keep modernising it, because even ifjournalism is the only thing we do, which of course it isn't, it will still be subject to new technologies coming along, new financial pressures, new dynamics in the news world, a war starting somewhere, other stories dying down. so we need to be very fleet of foot and dynamic in the decisions we take. jonathan munro, thank you. 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, email newswatch@bbc.co.uk, or you can find us on x — formerly known as twitter — at newswatchbbc. you can call us on 03700106 676. and do have a look at previous interviews on our website, bbc.co.uk/newswatch. that's all from us for now. thank you forjoining us. and do think about getting in touch and perhaps even coming on the program. we'll be back next week for our last programme of this year, with more of your thoughts about how the bbc covers the news. goodbye. this is london's barbican centre, a creation in concrete, designed to fill a void created by the blitz of london in world war ii. developed in the 1950s, the plan was to have a city within a city, with 2,000 flats, landscaped gardens, a lake, school and church right on the doorstep. and it's now home to the biggest art centre in europe. it's a prime example of brutalist architecture. and although it's not everyone�*s cup of tea, it's definitely iconic and has even attracted more modern icons to make their own art here. this is definitely a vision of a utopian community, as it was in the �*50s or �*60s. but the way we think about smart living hasn'tjust been heading in one direction. lights on. lights off. blinds up. blinds down. robo—vacuum, vacuum. robo—vacuum, go home. you may have seen home appliances like these that connect to your wi—fi router and even onto the internet itself, so they can be monitored and controlled remotely. i'm in sweden to see a glimpse of the next generation of connected living. samsung has partnered with swiss—swedish firm abb to show how any device can be made smart, not only to make it more controllable, but also to help the whole house, and maybe even the whole street, to be smarter in its energy use. in the past, it's been the early adopters that have really wanted to engage on the connected home, and they enjoy connecting individual components together and figuring out how to make things work. i think what we've seen in more recent years is a greater appreciation for energy, cost control and sustainability. whereas in the past, people weren't so, perhaps, cognizant of that and didn't value that. that's now ranking up in europe as the highest, most—considered factor in terms of smart home. and so it is that houses like this one will be able to use energy more intelligently. for example, you might set the dishwasher to come on at some point before you get home in the evening, and the system could delay it until the sun comes out — when it can be powered for free from solar panels on the roof rather than from fossil fuels from the national grid. now, all of that will rely on having a weather monitoring station outside the property, which can precisely alter the home's energy use depending on the conditions. now, this is actually a show home for a development which is going to be called brobyholm and which is currently being built about 100km west of stockholm, and which will have 500 homes by 2025 and, all being well, a further 1,500 by 2028. the vision for this smart community is for houses whose solar cells are capturing a lot of sunlight, but not using it, to share the electricity generated with their neighbours who do need it. thus reducing the load on the national grid. now, as nathan said earlier, one of the problems with smart