The Newsroom

BBC regional politics refresh

Split from Changes to BBC Parliament & Political Programming (December 2019)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
MA
Meridian AM
Lou Scannon posted:
Meridian AM posted:
Markymark posted:

Up until 1969 their local BBC News came from Manchester!


Wow!

Well, I have that kind of situation now in Southampton.
On my regional news I am likely to hear news about anywhere from Weymouth to Banbury!
Just watching the Meridian South and BBC South weather forecast maps shows how not local the services are!
The huge size of this region is even more noticeable at weekends when there is no Oxford opt out.


Don't the pan-regional Southampton bulletins tend to include maybe only a single token story from north of the Ridgeway at best (and probably tending to be an Oxford city story?), with news from around Oxon/Bucks/Swindon only really featuring in the sub-opt?


I guess it depends if it is a busy or slow news day.
Here in Southampton, I've certainly seen quite a bit of Oxfordshire news on BBC South
It's a waste of time when the regions are so big, as places they cover don't have anything in common with each other and are miles apart.
Luckily for me living here, there tends to be a lot of Southampton news on BBC South - presumably because they are based here.

Meridian's favourite city to report on is Brighton. It is always on the South edition and presumably South East too.
Apparently some people there receive Meridian South and some get Meridian South East, so they can just show the same reports on both editions!
LS
Lou Scannon
Steve in Pudsey posted:
Interesting that it's Politics North rather than Politics Yorkshire and Lincolnshire


It's consistent with the news bulletins being called Look North, though! The "region name(s)" may have long-since changed to Yorks / Yorks & Lincs (with Hull trying things like Lincs & E Yorks (and vice-versa!) along the way...), but the news service (sensibly) never has.

"Look Yorkshire & Lincolnshire" / "Yorkshire & Lincolnshire Today", anyone?! Thumbs down

Besides, "Politics Yorkshire & Lincolnshire" sounds too long and clunky. As would "Politics North East & Cumbria". Given that Newcastle also uses "Look North" for their news, I've every confidence they'll go with "Politics North" too.
BA
Ballyboy
take it they'll use the same titles as politics live? though i'll look to see some regional scenery for all of them
LL
London Lite Founding member
Meridian AM posted:


Meridian's favourite city to report on is Brighton. It is always on the South edition and presumably South East too.
Apparently some people there receive Meridian South and some get Meridian South East, so they can just show the same reports on both editions!


Brighton is a special case. They have regional news from the West opt, but adverts from the East, in effect it's another micro region, however you are correct that Brighton is served by both bulletins editorially.

Since Whitehawk Hill switched from South to SET, it makes more sense for ITV to accommodate viewers who want news from west of Brighton while SET concentrates on the east.
RI
Richard
Steve in Pudsey posted:
The Lincolnshire situation is why YTV like the phrase "the Calendar region" so much.

Interesting that it's Politics North rather than Politics Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, given that they haven't used BBC North as a region name for years, I wonder if they will make a BBC One North ident for it?


Doubt it. The BBC News at 6 has a Y&L (or Yorkshire) ident and Look North had the same when it used to have its own ident. Note the The Super League show which is pan regional has a generic BBC One ident but a different voiceover - presumably it’s recorded in Leeds or Salford.
IS
Inspector Sands
Lou Scannon posted:

I'd have thought they'd go for a blanket name (e.g. "Politics Weekly") with the region name as a suffix in smaller text beneath the main logo (just as with the current Sunday Politics branding).

But then it's a generic enough name to be able to be used if a region ever wanted to do a special edition of it in the week too
IS
Inspector Sands
London Lite posted:

The joys of carving up the old BBC South East region which used to be from Banbury to Dover with London in the middle which led to places like Silverstone getting London-centric news while Banbury had news from Southampton.

Back in the days when the regional news programme was called 'F**k Off Kent' Very Happy
LS
Lou Scannon
Inspector Sands posted:
London Lite posted:

The joys of carving up the old BBC South East region which used to be from Banbury to Dover with London in the middle which led to places like Silverstone getting London-centric news while Banbury had news from Southampton.

Back in the days when the regional news programme was called 'F**k Off Kent ' Very Happy


Is that how a cockney pronounces a certain other word?

13 days later

LS
Lou Scannon
The websites for each regional version of Sunday Politics currently list there being a Next Episode on 12/01/2020, seemingly confirming that the "new" (i.e. renamed) programmes will indeed be treated as a straight continuation of what went before. Sensibly.

I wonder when they'll get around to rebranding the websites with the new look & names? (Probably no earlier than Mon 6th Jan, I expect)

Although the red & white look will be a world away from what it is replacing, literally the only change to the actual programme names (in most regions) is the dropping of "Sunday..." as a prefix. We already know that Y&L are going with the simplified "Politics North", and I'd be surprised if NE&C don't do likewise.

8 days later

LS
Lou Scannon
Lou Scannon posted:
The websites for each regional version of Sunday Politics currently list there being a Next Episode on 12/01/2020, seemingly confirming that the "new" (i.e. renamed) programmes will indeed be treated as a straight continuation of what went before. Sensibly.

I wonder when they'll get around to rebranding the websites with the new look & names? (Probably no earlier than Mon 6th Jan, I expect)


Okay... the existing regional Sunday Politics websites have since been changed to "On TV: No upcoming broadcasts". So, it seems that there'll be new sites for the "new" (rebranded) programmes after all. These don't appear to be online yet, mind.

The bbc.co.uk TV guide pages give the programme names entirely in lower case, as per the on-screen logos (rather ignoring correct grammar for proper nouns, in the cases of "politics wales" and "politics scotland". But the NI listings say "Sunday Politics Northern Ireland"!)
RW
Robert Williams Founding member
Lou Scannon posted:
Okay... the existing regional Sunday Politics websites have since been changed to "On TV: No upcoming broadcasts". So, it seems that there'll be new sites for the "new" (rebranded) programmes after all. These don't appear to be online yet, mind.


They are: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dk0q for example.

I've never seen anything in /programmes with an entirely lower case title before, and it doesn't look good.
LS
Lou Scannon
Robert Williams posted:
I've never seen anything in /programmes with an entirely lower case title before, and it doesn't look good.


Agreed.

It reminds me of when listings magazines were seemingly obliged to put Channel 5's names as the all-lower-case "five", during the RTL-owned era.

EDIT: And yet the /programmes page for the national weekday lunchtime sibling show displays the title (sensibly) as Politics Live, rather than imitating the all-lower-case of the logo. (That was my first - and, most likely, last - ever visit to the Politics Live programme site)
Last edited by Lou Scannon on 5 January 2020 5:41pm

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