EXCLUSIVE: Central News South to Close

Welcome aboard, Mr Boy.

This answer is speculation, rather than knowledge.

I'd guess that all the relays south of Ridge Hill will be re-allocated to take ITV West, while all those north of Ridge Hill will go to Central West.

As to BBC Points West, I'd say very unlikely, as there'll need to be an additional frequency for the south pointing ITV West transmitter and I doubt there's frequency space for yet another one for BBC West as well.

Not without a further separate new frequency.
The BBC 'reserve feed' at Ridge Hill that you mention is simply a rebroadcast (RBR) of the Mendip signal should the incoming feed be lost.

Thanks Messrs Harvey & Cross. We'll have to wait and see re: those relays, then. I feel a letter to BBC West coming on....

Rest assured that senior management at BBC Bristol are aware of the argument to switch Ridge Hill to BBC West.

While cable and satellite compensate for the regional anomaly here in north Gloucestershire DTT doesn't. In fact under these new arrangements we will be left with a Central West service that surely will not even have the limited coverage of this patch that BBC Midlands are able to provide.

I'll miss Wes on Central South but not the melodrama of Christopher Peacock. I thought I'd escaped him after leaving London behind five years ago.

Rob Mc

But most of North Gloucestershire receives DTT from Ridge Hill, which will allow you to get ITV West rather than Central West (if I've understood correctly)... or are you just talking Cotswold areas rather than the Severn Vale?

Also am I right in thinking that after Digital Switchover, the Churchdown Hill transmitter will broadcast DTT (currently it only broadcasts radio and C5) to most of the Severn Vale? Presumably this will carry ITV West.

As far as I know, only the existing 1154 Ch1-4 analogue sites are under consideration for DTT after DSO (to avoid the need for viewers to reposition their existing aerials, and because of international frequency and site clearance issues) (The Chester 1997 agreement etc)

To that very question - why not keep the Abingdon Studio instead of Whiteley? This is the answer I got ;

The Abingdon studio is currently equipped with old technology whereas the studio at Whiteley is already fully digital. The model of split newsrooms and studios is one we have used successfully elsewhere.

As I understand it Ridge Hill will switch to Central West, with a separate, analogue-only signal directed to the south carrying ITV West.

If there isn't a future plan to replicate this additional service on DTT after digital switchover either Gloucestershire gets Central West with no local coverage or Hereford & Worcester get ITV West.

Churchdown Hill is the obvious solution but then there should have been a West relay there for years. Mind you the inadequate radio & five tv mast there would need re-engineering since it was built rather too short, as anyone trying to get local radio on FM or five in far too many parts of the county will be very familiar.

Incidentally it was Churchdown Hill's inadequacies that proved the case for reinstating BBC Radio Gloucestershire's AM service after 603 AM was lost to the commercial sector (and ironically subsequentky abandoned).

That's nuts way to do it and has many problems.

Remotely operating a studio from 100 odd miles away is just asking for trouble, I can't see how it would be totally reliable. Also there are more links between a gallery and a studio floor than just lights and cameras - what about sound, talkback, plasma feeds and everything else.

It doesn't solve the staffing problem as they'd still need technical studio staff in Abingdon. Abingdon would still need a refit as it's technology is old and they'd have a brand new empty studio in Whitely



Yes, see Noggins reply earlier - it's far better to have several studios in the same place than have 2 in one and 1 by itself in another. As the 3rd studio in Whitely is brand new and the one in Abindon is due a refit it makes perfect sense that Whitely should be the one to be kept.

How well is it working with Newbury, Nottingham and Maidstoen being run like that?

Anglia News West has come from outside its region since launch (it is based in a studio in Norwich, just as Anglia News East is) - around 15 years now.

With regional newsgathering bureaux and proper lines infrastructure you can do a reasonable job.

To answer an earlier post that suggested you could remotely run a multi-camera studio in one location into a gallery in another location using multiple MPEG2 links - the problem with that is the nightmare of delay. MPEG2 only delivers high quality pictures at low data rates with a long GOP - which means long delays. Not a good idea at all - and you still need engineering support and lighting support on site at the studio location (cameras break, mics fail, bulbs blow etc.) Much easier to have one team serving three studios than two teams on different sites etc.

Correct.

That's all that's in the plan as at today.

Anything extra, like dealing with DTT for instance, hasn't yet been even thought about.

(It was a lovely, sunny day at Ridge Hill today!)