spoilers at the baftas. welcome to newswatch with me, samira ahmed. coming up. and the winner is not the bbc news app which revealed winners of the bafta film awards before they were announced on television and the news programme on bbc scotland, criticised for its low audience ratings gets axed. the annual award season is upon us when showbiz aficionados can enjoy or deride the choices made by the judges, the stars, acceptance speeches or the outfits they wear on the red carpet. the oscars around the corner and last sunday saw britain's own film awards. the baftas preview pieces and reports afterwards were shown on bbc news, and bbc one showed

a two hour edited version of the ceremony full of many moments like this. and the winner of the bafta for best actor goes to... ..cillian murphy. the bafta. the bafta goes to... ..emma stone. and the bafta goes to... ..oh, i can read it, oppenheimer. we didn't feel the need to issue any spoiler alerts before showing those clips as they date from last weekend. but that was very much an issue for some newswatch viewers, including dave griffiths. watching the baftas last sunday, 25th february and waiting for the best actor, best actress to be announced when both my wife and is bbc app decided to ping.

so while waiting for the next award to be presented, i looked at mine only to find out that the best actor and best actress had been announced on the bbc app some 15 minutes before those who were watching the programme got to find out. well, another viewer who got in touch with us about this was paul kirkwood to let speak to him now. thank you so much, paul, for coming on newswatch. tell me, what was your experience of watching the bafta award ceremony on sunday? well, like every other year, i watch it religiously and then, you know, without any kind of interruption like that, my phone'sjust kind of left to the side. and then, you know, halfway through, ithink, you know, you get these alerts. obviously, the baftas have been kind of there's a delay. so, i wasn't expecting

for the bbc news to show who the winners were before that category was televised. well, let me read you what the bbc said. we asked them to respond to your concerns and that of other viewers like yourself. i guess the thing, paul, is you must have known lots of news organizations would be announcing the winners as they happened. and i was thinking a bit like match of the day, you know, highlights late at night or the news when the games are already over. you sort of would maybe think not to have your news alerts on. is that fair? i mean, yes. but i mean, i like to have my news alerts onjust in case there's

anything else happening, especially, you know, the way the political climate is at the moment. you know, i mean, as much as i am a film buff, you know, i'm a fanatic. all these awards ceremonies, you know, the oscars, the globes, the baftas, you know, the whole awards kind of season and an entity, they are just awards ceremony. you know, they don't affect generally the general public too much. you know, they're more just entertainment, you know, rather than, in my opinion, kind of newsworthy, so to speak, or especially, you know, alert worthy, i guess. but i understand where they're coming from because i know bbc likes to be the forefront of, you know, breaking news, but ijust don't think, you know, while they're holding a delayed televised event that would the results be newsworthy or worthy of an alert? yeah. so you like the news app? what key lessons do you hope the bbc will take away from this situation? i mean, all i was hoping that maybe they'll do is that because as soon as you look at your phone, you get the alert, you know, there and then, you know, without even accessing the phone,

you just need to lift your phone up. i mean, even if they put something like spoiler or or something like that, then that means that, you know, as soon as someone like myself sees it, then we canjust instantlyjust not look at it and put the phone down, for instance, whilst you know. and that takes that kind of differentiates away from the like a political news alert rather than bafta news alert. paul kirkwood, that was so helpful. thank you very much for coming on newswatch. thank you. five years ago, the bbc set up a new tv channel for viewers in scotland with its own flagship hour long news programme. but the nine, as it's called, and its sister programme, the seven, have faced mounting criticism for their low audiences, culminating in reports last month that one episode of the nine had been seen by only 1700 people, and an addition of the seven had just 200 viewers. questions were raised about value for money, including

by professor tim luckhurst on this programme at the time. the bbc faces intense competition on television. if it's going to spend money on its television output, i believe it should focus it entirely on reporting scotland, the main national television news bulletin on bbc one and recognise that the separate bbc scotland channel is really a very expensive white elephant. well, now tim luckhurst and other critics have their wish, or at least part of it. the bbc announced on wednesday that the nine was being axed and replaced by a 30 minute news programme at 7:00. other changes include a new current affairs podcast series and more investments in online news. not everyone was pleased with scotland's culture secretary, the snp's angus robertson, describing the decision as extremely disappointing and warning that there may be questions asked by the regulator.

bbc scotland are currently obliged by ofcom to deliver 250 yearly hours of news content. meanwhile, david mcdougall wrote... we asked bbc scotland if somebody could come on newswatch to discuss these changes but were told no one was available. however, the head of news and current affairs for bbc scotland, gary smith, did give an interview on tuesday about the ending of the nine on the nine. the audience for the nine has halved in five years, and we've got to take that seriously. audiences want to get their news in different ways, and linear tv news is suffering, notjust the nine other programmes too, but those figures have made us think

as we've seen them go down, that we we're going to have to look elsewhere for our news content or the package we've put together that we're putting to ofcom i think makes up a good deal for the channel. still it's different because we've got to do different things to attract audiences and to be able to do a podcast on the channel, but also on sands and on bbc one late at night. i think it's a really good offer which should increase our audience reach overall. do let us know your thoughts on the changes that have been proposed this week and on the provision of news in scotland more widely now, as well as appearing on bbc one. the news at ten also goes out on the news channel and viewers watching one edition of the programme there last week saw this. the ukrainian military says the drone attack on a large craft caused it to sink. there's been no confirmation from moscow. elsewhere, ukraine is struggling

on parts of the front line. tonight, the foreign secretary lord cameron, urged the us congress to back a new package of military support for ukraine. the remaining 27 minutes of the bulletin were broadcast squeezed into that box with much of the frame remaining empty. and that prompted mike halsey to ask... we put that question to bbc news and they told us during the news at ten there was a breaking news story after a shooting

finally, we know many of you newswatch viewers are quite rightly sticklers for accuracy and often eagle eyed. so no surprise that several of you spotted a couple of mistakes on the news channel on wednesday morning, reading the news ticker at the bottom of the screen. there's certainly movement behind the scenes, whether it will result in the kind of arrangements whereby some kind of temporary cease fire release of hostages can be brokered. and it really does at this stage remain to be seen. all right, jenny hill, thank you so much for that. that was our correspondent injerusalem. those two errors in quick succession prompted lucy knight to email. i cannot comprehend how so many glaring mistakes, typos and grammatical errors have been evident in your headlines

and banners on your news channel recently. and an aide, thompson had this request. 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 at bbc.co.uk or you can find us on x, formerly known as twitter at newswatch bbc. and do you have a look at previous interviews on our website, bbc.co.uk slash newswatch. that's all from us for now. thank you forjoining us. do you think about getting in touch and perhaps even coming on the programme? we'll be back to hear more

of your thoughts about how the bbc covers the news. next week, goodbye. mr president, with two years on from russia's expanded invasion of ukraine, afdika hasjust fallen. the ukrainian troops are rationing arms on the front line and there is a crisis of recruitment within the ukrainian army. do you think we're at a tipping point? a lot of turmoil when the war broke out two years ago on the eve of the outbreak, just a few hours before the russian invasion started. myself and the president of lithuania, gitanas nauseda, visited kyiv to give our support to president zelensky

to show our solidarity. on the 23rd of february and back then, everyone was saying that ukraine will fall and there was a great fear that it would happen within hours. then they said it would last a couple of days. now, two years have passed. ukraine is still defending itself. ukraine has persevered and stopped the russian aggression. and as i said on the front line, there are very difficult moments. there are better moments, but there are more difficult ones. but to me, one thing is the most important. we still have an independent, sovereign ukraine. we're sitting in a room with a portrait of the late president lech kaczynski. who, of course, died in a plane crash in russia back in 2008. he was in georgia on his way to the separatist south ossetia and came underfire from russian troops. in the company of president saakashvili. 15 years ago, it was georgia.

now, it's ukraine. how long before it is poland? estonia, lithuania ? since you made that reference to president lech kaczynski, i'm calling him my president because back then i served as minister in the president's office. i was his lawyer. we need to remind ourselves that before the russian aggression against georgia happened in august of 2008, there was a summit of nato's in bucharest. in april 2008, at that very summit of nato's in bucharest, president lech kaczynski supported president george bush, the president of the united states, and they fought together to make sure that ukraine would receive the so—called membership action plan. in other words, the plan

of being admitted to nato as a fully fledged member. back then, france and germany blocked that and it didn't happen. and the same applied to georgia, by the way, when the russian attack against georgia happened. and then, in 2014, we witnessed the russian attack against ukraine and the beginning of the occupation of crimea. and donetsk, luhansk, donetsk and luhansk. and then in 2022, a full scale aggression. from a historical perspective, it was the west that didn't pass the exam, as a matter of fact, because if they had listened to the words of brzezinski in 2008, which he said in tbilisi, that today russia is attacking georgia, it has to be stopped at all costs, because if it does not stop, perhaps soon ukraine will come as the next victim, then maybe the baltic states, and then perhaps my country, poland. if those words had been listened to back then, if back then it had been implemented what george bush had wanted from nato's supported by kaczynski.