BBC Regional News ratings

Here are the ratings for the ITV regional news for the same day

UTV Live 267,000 37.60%
STV News (Scottish & Grampian) 647,000 30.00%
North East Tonight & Lookaround 406,000 28.60%
Central Tonight (West region) 512,000 22.80%
Meridian Tonight (South East region) 229,000 22.50%
Meridian Tonight (South region) 435,000 22.40%
Calendar 556,000 21.90%
The Westcountry Tonight (South West) 135,000 18.40%
Anglia Tonight 253,000 15.80%
Wales Tonight 160,000 15.00%
Granada Reports 324,000 14.60%
The Westcountry Tonight (West) 99,000 13.90%
London Tonight 486,000 13.30%
Central Tonight (East region) 106,000 13.00%

They are based on the BBC regions shown in the original post though, so the scotland part of Lookaround is possibly included in the STV News figure. Channel Report is presumably included in The Westcountry Tonight (South West). There will be other complications around the old Central South/Meridian/West area where BBC & ITV regions don't match.

And here are the shares for BBC & ITV regional news combined (although as they are not on at the same time, some people may watch both). The Nations are unsurprisingly at the top.

Northern Ireland 67.70%
Scotland 61.90%
South West 61.70%
South East 59.50%
Yorkshire & Lincolnshire 59.00%
East Midlands 51.80%
South 51.40%
North East & Cumbria 51.00%
East 50.70%
Midlands 50.60%
West 48.40%
Wales 42.90%
London 41.60%
North West 40.10%

Well, two out of three nations, Wales seems as uninterested in local news as Londoners are

Except that Wales has S4C too...

Because as we all know S4C gets thousands upon thousands of viewers!

And, as is the regular fashion, only UTV and Tyne Tees/Border get higher ratings than their BBC counterparts half an hour later.

I'm surprised at how low the ratings are for "West Country Tonight".

The UTV and Tyne Tees goes back several years, for ITV's and UTV's sake it's good that those programmes are still BBC beaters in their Regions.

I admit I don't really find it surprising for West Country Tonight to have low ratings, especially in the ex-Westcountry area. Didn't HTV/ITV West News used to get comprehensively beaten by Points West in the ratings anyway?

I'm not.

BBC Spotlight was more popular even before they created the 'mega-region' of ITV South West, which stretches from Penzance to Gloucestershire.

The fact that the ITV1 HD region is Central for news doesn't help either.

Unbelivable Central West has 500,000+ while Central East only has 100,000+, despite the programme leaning towards the East and borders of the region since the merger.

Only third from bottom now, I see.

And to think people used to critisise me for extracting the urine.

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As I mentioned before, regional news has always had the disadvantage in London of longer commuting times meaning fewer people being home in time to watch it. Plus large and diverse nature of the region means that it's less relevant. I'm surprised by the figure for the North West

I'm sure many more people live in the West Midlands urban area than Derby, Nottingham, Leicester etc combined.

Plus regardless of the content, when you've got Bob Warman sat in Birmingham, that'll be a turn off for folks in Nottinghamshire from the word go.