BBC Nations and regions

Whos not surprised by Cam the Sham sticking his nose in?

In theory any Mp can do that then!

Initially the 6.30 had a sub-opt from Hull presented by Clare Frisby. This was pretty much a single camera working into a gallery in Leeds.

Then they managed to squeeze a small set into the old Radio Humberside building and a small gallery that could cut between the cameras and feed things to the in-set plasma, with everything else being done from Leeds, and this set up did the full 6.30 programme, and possibly the 10.28.

Once they had settled in at Queen's Court with full gallery facilities, they gradually started to do other bulletins such as Breakfast and the lunchtime, and then weekends. Nowadays it's only Inside Out/Sunday Politics/Late Kick Off that are pan-regional.

All the more reason to axe it - the cheek of it. It's his fault in the first place it's under threat.

Oh yeah, I remember hearing something about that at the time. What year was that tabled, and why was the idea shelved?

I can't imagine what they would have called the region! "BBC Oxford & Cambridge" maybe? (Not sure how viewers in, say, Peterborough or Swindon would have felt about that...) I can't think of any non-cumbersome way of accurately describing the region: "BBC northern half of the Thames Valley & western half of East Anglia", anyone?

And, presumably, the news programme itself would have needed a non-geographic title à la YTV's Calendar ? I always thought that Compass (and/or Compass News ) would have been a nice choice.

And, IIRC, the non-news regional programmes were still in their pre- Inside Out / Politics Show forms at the time when the MK region was being mooted. So, something like Compass (or similar) would've also had the same "extendible brand" quality that YTV's Calendar brand has (e.g. Compass on Westminster and Compass Report or similar). But it's all just a "What If..." now, of course...

EDIT: An afterthought... Maybe resurrecting the MK region idea could be a DQF-friendly move? After all, it replaces two TV news studio operations (Oxford and Cambridge, obv) with just one, and that region would be geographically large enough to be editorially justifiable as a fully stand-alone region. Just a though.... (Also, viewers in very landlocked places like Banbury or Daventry wouldn't have to hear about irrelevant south-coast or east-coast news stories any more - which can only be a good thing, right?)

Two things. Would it mean more buildings? The BBC would still require a building for Radio Cambridgeshire and for news gathering in Cambridgeshire. (the same presumably applies to Oxford). In addition would those on the edges of the Cambridgeshire region really wish to here about the edges of the existing Oxford opt? I guess the reality is that no regions are perfect in who they serve.

With regards to name there really is nothing obvious. If the Cambridge opt ever became a full region the Look East title might be pushing it - though perhaps woud be accepted because of history.

Well, I believe there is already a BBC building in Milton Keynes, for Three Counties radio (albeit that the station's main HQ is in Luton).



Oh yes, I realise there'd still be those two *buildings* (e.g. for radio, online, and newsgathering). But the unified MK region would presumably mean employing just *one* set of TV studio crew, rather than the two sets of such people (i.e. Oxford TV studio crew + Cambridge TV studio crew, as currently), which presumably would suit the kinds of "streamlining" that DQF may necessitate(?).



Fair point! Yeah, I guess, unless TV regions were able to be every bit as *local* as their radio station counterparts (i.e. a single county or city/conurbation, in many cases), then there's always gonna be a degree of "viewers living in X won't give a damn about a news story happening in Y" syndrome.



Indeed, I can't imagine that they could come up with anything better than "Look East" for the *programme* in a stand-alone BBC Cambridge TV region. But what the actual *region name* would be, is perhaps more difficult? Would something involving the word "Fens" do for at least *part* of the region? "BBC Fens & <something snappy to describe the rest of the area, if anything>", kind of thing?

just to add from scoting around the likes of wikipedia;- the start years of the bbc nations and regionstv services as they currently are , are Scotland =1958 , Wales = 1954, Northern Ireland = 1954 , North West England = 1957, North East Ebgland = 1959, Yorkshire (Leeds) = 1968 , Yorkshire and Lincolnshire (Hull) =2002 , East of England = 1959, Cambridge opt out = 1997, (West) Midlands = 1927 , East Midlands = 1991 ( had previously been opt out from midlands region but cant find start date for that.) Oxford opt out = 2000, West of England = 1957, South of England = 1961, South West of England = 1961, Channel Islands opt out = 2000, South East of England = 1969 - London split in 2001 to become separate region - news moving from elstree to marylebourne and tunbridge wells soon after. In comparison looking at the year when itv first started in similar areas = Scotland = North 1961, Central = 1959, Borders = 1961 , Wales = 1962, Northern Ireland = 1959 , North West of England = 1956, North East of England = 1959, Yorkshire (split from start ) =1968, East of England = 1959, -cambridge area split =1990, Midlands = 1956 - East Midlands split = 1982, oxford split =1983, West of England= 1958, South of England = 1958 - South east split = 1958 , Channel Islands = 1962, London bot hweekends and weekdays = 1955. The thames valley amalgamation of central south and meridian north started in 2006. So we can see in some areas the bbc was first by a long distance and in others itv and some both at a similar time. One question also remains why in both set ups no stand alone for the isle of man -transmitter issues but any other reason why other than this.

BBC Local TV was piloted between November 2005 and December 2006 in the West Midlands.

BBC Birmingham TV, BBC Coventry and Warks TV, BBC Staffordshire TV and so on - it was done over the internet, on trains and over Sky's red button. So BBC TV can't go super local with ease.

BBC Oxbridgeshire?

I guess the savings depend on how efficient both operations are already. I'd imagine there would be no reduction in OB crews as the area would probably require a crew at each end. In addition an Oxbridgeshire region would require a sports presenter and weather forecaster which I imagine currently are not required as they utilise the host regions.

Would the Politics Show regions had to remain as present considering BBC Look East almost entirely covers the eastern region for the European Parliament?

Shortly after Hull became a standalone region (as far as news is concerned), they had some complaints about the Look North name - must have been from Lincolnshire which isn't in the north of England at all. They ran a vote for viewers to select the name, and the most popular choice was to retain Look North. So 'heritage' names must have some connection with the audience, even if they aren't geographically accurate

BBC Television was conceived as a national service, and until 1952 the three transmitters (Alexandra Palace in London, Sutton Coldfield in the Midlands and Holme Moss in the North of England) all carried the same programmes. When Kirk o'Shotts opened in Central Scotland in March 1952, and because the permanent circuit from the south wasn't ready, Scottish viewers were treated to the test card in the mornings while viewers down south enjoyed the Demonstration Film and - on Saturdays - the newsreel.

But the first local programme was "By Special Request", a Midlands magazine shown on 7th July 1952 at 9.15pm while network viewers saw a programme of the music of Liszt. First northern local programme was Rugby League shown on 5th September 1952. Scotland's first local programme was The McFlannels at 7.30pm on 23th September 1952; shown before network programmes began at 8. But on 2nd November 1952, BBC Scotland showed their own programmes after 10.25pm including a locally-originated late news.

Northern Ireland had its own magazine programme "Ulster Mirror" from 1953 but that had to be shown in Scotland as well, because the Belfast transmitter was temporarily housed in a caravan and the signals fed from Glasgow!

Regional News began in Scotland and BBC Scotland opted out with Scottish News after the early evening national news starting just a few days before STV launched on 31st August 1957. From September 1957, there was an early evening bulletin described in "Radio Times" as:

News for Scotland, Northern Ireland and the English Regions

This provided bulletins from Glasgow, Belfast, Bristol, London, Birmingham and Manchester. Because the Wenvoe transmitter had to cover both the West of England and South Wales, it split local news with five minutes of west of England news and five minutes of News from Wales.