ITV wants to axe some regional news services

Don't think the maths on that add up. Freeview and analogue homes significantly outnumber satellite households, so ITV would almost certainly lose more than half of their potential audience. The satellite uplink costs are small change compared to this - and I suspect that even the one-off revenue generated from selling off their regional sites wouldn't really compensate for this loss in income...

Without a terrestrial slot, ITV would simply not be the same, and wouldn't be able to fund the same level of production - and the chances of their shareholders accepting such a move are pretty small.

IF STV had the money and the time slot ( but thank to ITV who have cut them ) there can;t!

smg are not obliged to take any itv plc originated material, or indeed follow a schedule laid down at network centre, however they are bound to pay towards the cost of producing material commissioned by itv network centre (which is independent of itv plc). it just makes financial sense to air programmes which they pay in part for itv plc (and others) to produce.

its not about time slots, it is about not being arsed to time-shift programmes and wanting to maximise their investment in the network programmes.

incidentally, i presume its still the case that itv licensees are only obliged to take live national news programmes from the nominated news provider (ITN) and of course to hand over their transmitters to GMTV between 06.00 and 09.24.59?

Interesting to see STV's Chief Exec announce that the 5 min local opts in Scotland Today and North Tonight dramatically increase the audience share whilst they are on - proving what all the reserach shows, people want local news.

Just a quick question; why does GMTV end at 9.25, not 9.30? I know it's part of the licence, it just seems a funny time to me.

STV was nearly bankrupt so there no chance of that!

It's a historic legacy...

Before breakfast tv started, ITV routinely opened at 9.30am on weekdays although programmes sometimes started around 9am on Saturdays in some regions..

When TV-am started it originally ended for the morning at about 9.10am, if I remember, and the channel went dead for a short time until each regional ITV station came on the air. However, within a few weeks the handover from TV-am to the other franchisees took place at 9.25am.

Before the 1991 franchise round, the IBA/ITC reviewed both the regional map and the breakfast franchise's hours but decided to keep them unchanged. That's why GMTV ends at 9.25am.

Of course, now that ITVplc owns 75% of GMTV, the idea of a separate company running the breakfast service is fast becoming a meaningless distinction.

Thanks for explaining!

Also - I can't remember - did ITV stations do the full IBA start-up after TV-am ? There was certainly a lovely non-sync switch as the circuits to the transmitters were switched between the ITV local station and TV-am in London.

It was more of a technical issue, to switch off TV-am and then let every ITV Region come back on air via British Telecom took about ten minutes to sort out, so this lasted for about three months, TV-am closed at 9.15am everyday.

When the process was automated in May 1983, it was agreed 9.25am would be the handover point, to allow the ITV Regions to have a Local News or a Start-up and then have everything back to normal for 9.30am. Local News moved to 9.55am in 1988, and disappeared in 1998, but the 9.25am handover has never changed.

There was a start up in the early days I think. ITV Schools programmes started at 09:30, with a one minute countdown. I think there was a start up from 09:25 to 09:29 in some, if not all, regions ?

Don't think there was ever a formal IBA start-up at 09:25.

In TVS land it was the one opportunity of the day for the announcer to name check themselves.

There was a long ident, then It went something like "Good morning, it's nine twenty-five on Wednesday the thirty-first of February and this is Bert Bloggs welcoming you to another day's programmes here on TVS".

Then they talked through the inevitable run-down caption, then a few promos, then to network at 09:29 for the schools minute.

Then you sat around amusing yourself until 12:00, just in case the schools feed from ATV fell over and you had to apologise.

Money for old rope, as some people would have said!