BBC & ITV sign Memorandum of Understanding

At a time when the broadcasting sector is under real financial pressure, the BBC has a special responsibility to consider the greater good of the industry and provide real value to licence payers. With this in mind, I am pleased to announce that today the BBC and ITV have signed an historic memorandum of understanding that would, subject to final agreement and negotiation, lead to a partnership in which the BBC would provide infrastructure and technology to ITV to help them to continue providing regional TV news across England and in Wales.


A partnership of this nature would be truly ground-breaking and would mean ITV sharing our regional news infrastructure and facilities - such as access to studios and IT, as well as some picture material from diary events like press conferences. Crucially, editorial teams, reporters and editing functions would remain separate and independent from each other. We would fully retain our independence and ability to develop and pursue our own agenda, original journalism and exclusives. This is vital to the BBC.



This partnership would not only transform how the two broadcasters have traditionally worked together, but also, within the BBC’s newsrooms, it would signal significant cultural change. While any change may appear challenging it would be necessary if we are to safeguard and sustain plurality in regional news. By working together with ITV, I am confident that we could deliver a partnership that is beneficial for all our audiences.



The BBC and ITV are both public service broadcasters committed to offering the best possible value to audiences. All the evidence shows that regional TV news is one of the services most valued by our audiences, and the vast majority of that audience agree that maintaining plurality and a range of voices is important for local democracy and identity.



Both the Government and Ofcom appreciate that measures are required to sustain Regional News, and, in our role as a PSB, the BBC believes that this partnership could make an important contribution to the provision of regional television news beyond the BBC.



Indeed, I believe that under such a proposed partnership, both the BBC and ITV would preserve the quality, choice, and distinctiveness of news content for our audiences.



Now that the memorandum of understanding has been agreed, teams from both the BBC and ITV will continue to come together in the coming weeks to work on the detail of such a partnership plan.

As part of the agreement, the BBC would provide dedicated areas for ITV operations, including edit suites and graphics facilities, for which it would charge. Both parties would also share a single studio and a second live facility and share picture systems.

The Guardian article says that one studio will be shared between the BBC and ITV. As the studios in most regional centres are so small, we could well see a shared set for both programmes, and I guess where there are clashes in broadcast times, one bulletin could end up recorded.

For the main bulletins, there will be no clashes. Literally as one comes off air the other goes on air.

But for the late bulletin one could either be pre recorded or one done in front of a green screen.

Does seem to be putting a lot of eggs in the one basket though, an accidental failure (JCB through a cable, power failure) or a deliberate act (eg terrorism) could take both of the regional news programmes for an area off the air rather than just one, which is a considerable PSB issue in times of emergency.

However, with an ITV corporate look across regional news I don't think we'll be seeing shared sets but its referring to the studio as a building rather than the studios themselves.