Unfortunately the regions don't generate the volume of premium pax to sustain long haul routes from the UK. To make some cash you have to be clever with cargo sales and other things, but BA management don't do that very well. Most of the succesful long haul services from regional airports feed into the operating airlines hubs overseas and get a lot of their business from transfer passengers.
I dont know why the BBC think BHX could get a second runway. They'd either have to demolish most of the NEC or take down the Land Rover factory!