ITV Sunday lunchtime regional politics programmes

Broadcast reports that the Sunday lunchtime ITV regional politics programmes (The Week, Off the Record, etc etc) are to be given a new 11.30pm Thursday night slot from the start of next year.

Each region will screen at least two 8 x 30-minute series each year, scheduled to coincide with the key parliamentary sessions.

ITV director of regional production Ian Squires also announced that for the remainder of the year 6 x 30-minute Sunday editions will air to tie in with the Party conferences this autumn.

MPs had been concerned that ITV would be dropping Sunday regional politics from the start of the parliamentary recess in July. Leigh MP Andy Burnham tabled an early day motion on Thursday (10 March) criticising any such move. But Squires insisted that had never been ITV’s plan.

He will now ask in-house programme-makers to present ideas for the new 11.30pm programmes, some of which are expected to remain similar to the existing Sunday shows.

Squires added that he hoped the changes would improve ratings: "We should attract twice as many viewers in that slot."

if squires *spit* has moved on to become director of regional television, who has replaced him as MD of central, or is there no local management left?

and with central using the sunday lunchtime slot for central newsweek, does this spell the end of "the round up of all the weeks news in your particular patch of paradise".

I was going to point out that they'll now clash with "This Week" on BBC1 - but I guess they already clash with The Politics Show.

I'd rather see these programmes axed and get the lightweight items and competitions taken out of the main regional news programmes to form a weekly regional "feature" show instead.

So this could be the end of regional programmes on a Sunday then, remember when the whole afternoon on a Sunday had regional programmes or at least most regions followed a different schedule. The 12.15pm slot is the only one left.

Most regions show Soccer Night at 11pm on a Thursday I think (ITV Wales shows a different local programme so we get Soccer Night at 11.30pm) so this would mean 1 hour of regional on a Thursday.

I think I'll probably be the only person who actually backs the move, as Granada provides a good programme called 'The Sunday Supplement', but I can never watch it as I'm usually in work, Thursday night is also a good slot as you also have Question Time, where as This Week I'm not as keen on, paticulary because it is always Diane Abbott and Michael Portillo.

I presume the Regional cuts have affected the Regional programmes (that aren't Sport) in that slot, as they seem to have disappeared, as Granada had a great debate programme called 'The Last Word' which went out from 11.30pm-12.30am, it hasn't been on for some time now, so I presume it's been axed in the Ofcom cuts.