There has never been such a 'thing' as a 'province' of the United Kingdom. The UK is made up of constituent nations, of which there are four - England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. If any one of these does not qualify as a 'nation' then it is probably Wales which was absorbed into England as long ago as 1284. In BBC terms there are 3 nations and the English regions.
In BBC terms there are 3 nations and the English regions.
Oi, and the Channel Islands. If anyone should have their own six, it's us!
...six minutes, that is, since that's about as much news as happens here. We only get half a regional opt out, the rest being filled with the back end of Spotlight which is as relevant to us as Look East would be to someone in Scotland.
My brother once joked with some English friends that our local headlines were usually along the lines of "Bicycle stolen." I decided to check online, and it was, in fact, "Donkey goes missing."
In BBC terms there are 3 nations and the English regions.
Oi, and the Channel Islands. If anyone should have their own six, it's us!
...six minutes, that is, since that's about as much news as happens here. We only get half a regional opt out, the rest being filled with the back end of Spotlight which is as relevant to us as Look East would be to someone in Scotland.
My brother once joked with some English friends that our local headlines were usually along the lines of "Bicycle stolen." I decided to check online, and it was, in fact, "Donkey goes missing."
On Facebook the most popular post of the day seems to be dead pigeons.
In Australia, each state gets its own "national" news, on both the commercial channels and the ABC. Perhaps a future model for the UK?
the ABC does that, but most of the commercial stations are metro based (Sydney, Melbourne etc) with regional stations doing local news if they do it (Prime7 airs a rehashed 'national' bulletin with content from 7 News in some areas too)
It's worth noting that all of the newsrooms of BBC regions and nations TV operations are already doing the balancing act of local vs national stories for the radio stations that are part of the same multimedia newsroom.
So with a GNS style system of getting packages to the regions and nations why not have all regions do an hour of national and regional news with the existing six available on the news channel?
In BBC terms there are 3 nations and the English regions.
Oi, and the Channel Islands. If anyone should have their own six, it's us!
...six minutes, that is, since that's about as much news as happens here. We only get half a regional opt out, the rest being filled with the back end of Spotlight which is as relevant to us as Look East would be to someone in Scotland.
My brother once joked with some English friends that our local headlines were usually along the lines of "Bicycle stolen." I decided to check online, and it was, in fact, "Donkey goes missing."
To be fair most of the "home news" on The Six is London focused, so has as much to do with someone in Manchester as a national UK wide Scottish Six would be to Cornwall.
In BBC terms there are 3 nations and the English regions.
Oi, and the Channel Islands. If anyone should have their own six, it's us!
...six minutes, that is, since that's about as much news as happens here. We only get half a regional opt out, the rest being filled with the back end of Spotlight which is as relevant to us as Look East would be to someone in Scotland.
My brother once joked with some English friends that our local headlines were usually along the lines of "Bicycle stolen." I decided to check online, and it was, in fact, "Donkey goes missing."
To be fair most of the "home news" on The Six is London focused, so has as much to do with someone in Manchester as a national UK wide Scottish Six would be to Cornwall.
But at the same time, where I think the MPs and MSPs take issue is often the six focuses news on things like the NHS and Education which as it is devolved has no real-life implications for many individuals in Scotland, although it is of interest to see what the UK government is doing.
I guess a good example of this would be the junior doctors strike which frankly didn't happen in Scotland as Jeremy Hunt doesn't have control of the NHS in Scotland. I'm not saying that as Scottish people we didn't care but it wasn't exactly clear that it didn't directly affect NHS Scotland.
As England & Wales share many laws, it is perhaps more relevant for those in Manchester & Cornwall.
England & Wales do share many laws, but rather than people saying 'don't have a Scottish six because Newcastle doesn't have one', why are we not turning everything on its head and suggesting that ALL regions have their own six pm bulletin? It makes so much sense to me. It's what is done in Australia and Canada with ZERO issues! The network just needs to provide a rough running order of available national/international content to the regions and they then interweave this with their own content, deleting anything that isn't relevant. As a previous poster highlighted, the STV model in Scotland works well as a template for different shows 'opting in' to live reporter segments, etc. In this day and age, it's all very straight forward and easy. My personal view is that we should devolve broadcasting as much as possible. A 6pm news hour hosted by the regional presenters, mixing regional, national and international news, feels like a natural next step in mature, grown-up, federalised broadcasting. Of course, all of this will be shot down by someone making some dry remark about Nicola Sturgeon looking like Jimmy Krankie, or something equally clichéd.
England & Wales do share many laws, but rather than people saying 'don't have a Scottish six because Newcastle doesn't have one', why are we not turning everything on its head and suggesting that ALL regions have their own six pm bulletin? It makes so much sense to me. It's what is done in Australia and Canada with ZERO issues!
It wouldn't work because there isn't the money for it. The BBC needs to make cuts and they'd have no choice but to send multiple correspondents to a single story - costs would soar. STV might manage it with the live shots but that is three broadcasts not twelve (before sub-opts). The only way around it would be for them to file a report before 6pm, no live shot. Which means potentially broadcasting slightly out-of-date information and losing face against the competition who have reporters live on the scene.
The alternative Six for Scotland does make sense because of the bulletin's brief to cover home news stories in more depth, which does often mean a focus on issues such as education and health (which are devolved). I don't think there would be the same call for a Scottish Ten because of the bulletin's running order being more tailored towards the bigger political stories and international news.
[quote:0432252138="Bail" pid="1019758"]To be fair, Oz is a lot bigger than the islands of the UK, the distance makes news more or less relevant to certain areas. I'm really not sure how or why Reporting Scotland and Wales Today aren't "The Six" they in essence are, national news is the UK in its entirety as well as world affairs, the local 6:30 opts are just that the local news.[/quote:0432252138]
Australia's population is a helluva lot smaller at only around 24 million people compared to the 64 million (approximately) in the UK.
And let's face facts, if you check out the history, you find that England is an amalgam of many different kingdoms, and really, you can still tell that England isn't really a single country if you travel around, the differences in culture are very evident. It would be easy to justify creating "national" bulletins for the various English regions too.
Nobody seems to have mentioned the 'elephant in the room', which is if you have a Scottish/Welsh/NI 'Six', then you need one specifically for England, which means there is NO national bulletin for the UK at 6pm unless one is created and broadcast on the NC.
