I THINK the plan is to use footage of a flapping flag, like they use after Her Maj's gig at three o'clock on Christmas Day.
Anyone in the know care to confirm?
A proper BBC1 shutdown would have to involve a regional opt-out, some of the best Brian Baines moments were at shutdown!
As the SABRE has apparently been de-comissioned, there's no chance of an analogue RBS into Fremont Point. It would be intersting to see what is broadcast in the Channel Islands during the test. Specualting that no specific provision is made for RBS, then you'd expect to see cropped 16:9 into a 14:9/12:9 Letterbox of whatever the DSAT is showing at the time, Widescreen Test Card ?
Or will Plymouth opt the CI out and insert a TC-F?
Or.... will a TCF simply be up-linked for TV Centre?
Or... pergaops the States will be allowed to do their own emmergency tests?
This time last year I dared to post some wild and drunken ramblings on the next stages of consolidation within the UK and Irish broadcast industries. Naturally, much of it never happened although some of the predictions were not so wild and may still be on someone’s agenda.
Mr_Strawsons_Sheep posted:
(a) NTL and Telewest merge shareholding and operations.
Still ongoing – perhaps one day they’ll achieve the holy grail. Not much of a prediction as it had already started!
Mr_Strawsons_Sheep posted:
(b) Flextech sold to RTL for RTL stock and cash. Merged into C5 diluting UBM's shareholding. /(c) Capital merges with RTL.
Thy didn’t – not at all! I’ve got to say however that this sill stands as a prediction, RTL seems positive even if Lord Hollick is not. Perhaps what has slowed this up was the prolonged, and absurd, love match between C4 and five.
Mr_Strawsons_Sheep posted:
(d) NTL broadcast sold (cheaply) for shares and cash to ITV.plc. ITV southern playout moved to Crawley Court.
.
No – it got sold to the Australians instead! Ah well, what would ITV do wasting its cash on real estate and metal towers, when it could be buying back shares from US stockholders to avoid the cost of SEC regulation.
Mr_Strawsons_Sheep posted:
(e) DMGT swap stakes in Teletext and ITN for ITV paper, other minority shareholders get half-decent offer of shares and cash. C4 offered buy-into ITN/TTL for cash, but on reasonable terms.
Still quite keen on this, but it didn’t happen in 2004, perhaps 2006?
Mr_Strawsons_Sheep posted:
(f) CanWest sell stake in TV3 to ITV for cash. /(h) UTV and RTL merge, announcing plan to compete against TV3 using a basis of Channel 5 and additional content, including Irish sport. ---- ITV try to deny network programming to UTV, using a new 1M watt analogue transmitter near Dundalk to get ITV network into Belfast via TV3. CanWest try to sit on fence, but have to decide where their interest lies when the whole thing goes horribly (and entertainingly) litigious in the UK and Eire.
Didn’t happen. No entertainment here, except prolonged waiting for RTE (and TV3) to be available legitimately via sky in Northern Ireland. CanWest did sell out of UTV, but to speculators rather than SMG.
The Good Friday agreement has yet to fling its final punch at the independence of Northern Ireland broadcasting, when it does they’ll be no place in the ITV network for both UTV and TV3.
It ought to appeal to both the Irish Government and the OfCommunists that broadcasting consolidation can be made to produce more, not less, competition if appropriate regulation is applied. Perhaps I’ll still be waiting in 2008.
Mr_Strawsons_Sheep posted:
(g) ITV uses shareholding in GMTV to force operational consolidation, moving production to ITN. Disney Corp swap GMTV stake for ITV paper.
They did – but for Disney and SMG took cash rather than stock. GMTV remains at the South Bank. I’ve got to fess-up to being biased and opinionated, wishing bad things to Kent House, with all its production transferred to Liverpool Docks and Anglia House. Alas, this time next year its Anglia House that will be in the hands of the developers.
Not sure how old the map is, but like I said, according to the current transmitter database nothing exists called Crosspool. It may have been known as that in the past, but no longer.
Got to say that Steve and Katherine are right. My recollections are that for TV it was always "Sheffield", BBC Radio Sheffield knew it as "Tapton Hill".
As all the locals knew the place as Crospool, friendly Radio Hallam referred to the mast as such - as in "this is where to point your VHF radio aerial towards if you want stereo reception". In those opening days of ILR, promoting good stereo reception was IBA mandated, and tended to produce more descriptive local names for TV transmission sites with generic names. Bearing in mind that much of Sheffield was Holme Moss FM territory for everything else, including Radio Sheffield, getting directional areials pointed at Crosspool will have been a high technical priority for them.
I distinctly recall having a conversation with some Sheffield friends in the mid-70's, the subject being are "Tapton Hill" and "Sheffield" one and the same, the only broadcast related site that they knew about was "up at Crosspool", mind you most everything else they knew about was pubs.
If you need a definitive historical answer on this, then why not email Keith Skues, and just tune in to Radio Norfolk between 2200 and 0100.
Another point... If regional programmes are considered so important by these MPs, why don't they put some pressure on the BBC to provide some more non-news local output? Surely this is exactly the kind of thing a public-service broadcaster should be providing.
You're very right. Yes they could, and should. Infact, we're probably so close to losing this permanantly that anyone who cares should shout. Sorry to bat on, but I have to say that IMHO this is not an ITV Corporate issue, it is a failure of regulation.
MPs are actually seem vey limited in the ways in which they bring influence on Goverment or others. An EDM usually works quite well, providing it picks up wider support thn just the "usual suspects" who would normally be associated with on eissue or another. This one seems to be picking cross-party support and signatures from MPs don't normally get involved in media or regional issues.
The best solution IMO would be for Southern Scotland to be in the STV or ITV1 Scotland region, and for Cumbria and the Isle of Man to be in the Granada region, with North Northumberland and Berwick in the Tyne Tees region
Half of Cumbria already is in Granada-land!!! So why not cover the whole county?
Naw - its fine the way it is. Really - isn't Border effectivly a dual micro-region existing accross the boundary of two macro regions.
Strikes me that that would be the inevitable outcome of a closer relationship between SMG and ITV. It would make sense for Border Scotland to have all the main Scottish shows, and adverts, but to retain the distinctivness of the Southern Lowlands.
John Grogan (Lab, Selby) has started and EDM aimed at suggesting that OFCOM shoulld display a modicum of common sense over the regulation of ITV's regional licences. The EDM, which is politically neutral and makes buisness as well as political sense, is attracting cross-party support.
It's just a suggestion, but if your MP is not on the list, perhaps you'd consider e-mailing, writing (House of Commons, SW1A 1AA) or ringing (020 7219 3000), to propose that they join in. Normally only back-benchers sign EDM's, but its still worth writing to front benchers.
John Grogan, MP in EDM 235
That this House views with dismay proposals by Ofcom to reduce the public service obligation of ITV regional companies to produce high quality regional programming in the regions for viewers in those regions; believes that ITV has a strong tradition for producing regional political, current affairs, sport and documentary programmes specifically for each region; notes that the Ofcom review acknowledges that these regional programmes gain higher audiences on a slot-by-slot basis than general ITV output; expresses surprise that Ofcom is not linking discussion about reductions in ITV's licence payments with the maintenance of regional public service obligations at least until digital switchover; and calls on Ofcom to rethink its strategy.
Good idea, but Andover and Reading are already classed as the South.
geographically they are more akin to the South, Andover is in Hampshire, and Reading has been served by South Today for years.
Kathrine's idea re Bildsale is excellent. ISTR that the IBA did actually consider Bilsdale as a potential site where two disperate regions could be served directionally from the same site.
An other good example is Hannington. Hoerver where frequency allocation
might
have been availble for Bilsdale, it certainly
would not
have been available in the South-East.
Mind you, the potential capacity available in DTT after analogue has gone cold, does offer this sort of possibility accross theUK, even the potential of new regions hitheto thought technically impossible.
A two-way Hannington serving the Thames Valley region to the north, and a Hampshire/Solent region to the south seems a good idea.
My favoroite has always been to implement a Merseyside region based on a DTT directional Winter Hill, Storton, and a North-East facing directional Moel-y-Park.
Happy as it would make me to have OfCom (or equivilent) march into Network centre all guns blazing and say "Oi, You, Allen! NO!" I don't think it's going to happena .............
Pity - would make a great movie.
Other than that I've got to say that IMHO your comments are spot on. ITV is a commercial undertaking, using a publically owned asset. The pay back to the public (or the Crown if you prefer) is made in cash, public service obligations, or a combination of the two.
Firstly, imagine that a continuity announcer is (I know that this is difficult) :- an actual real and live person, that is one who does actually genuinely exist. Probably a member of EQUITY, but human none the less, not a server.
All five main channels still use live announcers. In Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, the BBC announcers/directors self-op.
But, I can't see them. How do I know that they're real?
