ITV wants to axe some regional news services

Early Day Motion re. Border TV:
http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=34245&SESSION=891

Interesting how that paragraph only references Cumbria. Do parliament not know that the Isle of Man and southern Scotland are also part of ITV Border?

I think there might hope that southern Scotland will go to STV,

It's not that *Parliament* doesn't know - it's just that the MP who tabled the EDM represents Westmorland and Lonsdale - and will have done so for local consumption back home.

Interestingly, Border TV's managing director Paddy Merrall is on record as saying he has no worries about the reshaping of the news areas. I don't suppose he has any other option...Border didn't protest when Berwick was removed from their coverage area. The fly in the ointment is the South of Scotland. Border has always treated Scots as a minority in their own country. And, although some STV sports programmes are screened on Border Scotland, but only after literally decades of campaigning, a lot of other more general programming of interest right across Scotland is denied to viewers in the Borders and Dumfries and Galloway. Will an increasingly centralised ITV in England be remotely interested in less than 500,000 people in the South of Scotland? I think not.

Also bear in mind that Man has its own independent parliament too (Tynwald).

Some interesting stuff on the regional cuts about 10 minutes into this video of Grade giving evidence to the House of Lords communications committee
http://www.twofourdigital.net/UKParliament/Archive/0000001103.wmv.asx
Grade is quizzed by the Bishop of Manchester about the Border cuts.

Grade says ITV plc is in discussion with SMG about the Border Scottish region.

It should be a condition of any lessening of regional programming that ITV PLC must hand over Border Scotland to STV. And I mean hand over, as SMG would be very unlikely to actually buy it.

If the argument is that the old set-up is out of date and irrelevant, then the current ownership of it is also out of date. And Border Scotland is very small change to ITV PLC in the bigger scheme of having massive cutbacks, whereas the impact on viewers in Dumfries of getting their news from Newcastle will be huge.

STV already has the setup for split news - they could just opt to the current Border Scotland region at the part of the programme where they normally split Glasgow/Edinburgh.

Plus it would give the viewer more Scottish Programmes!

Do you reckon that STV would actually do the decent thing, and give the area its own sub-opt? (e.g. based in Dumfries or something)

Or do you reckon that the E and W halves of the area would just be lumped in with the existing Edinburgh and Glasgow sub-opts, respectively? :

If Dumfries gets an opt out then Inverness should have an opt out for the Highlands and Islands on stv north.

The only people in the north who have benefited from the opt outs from Tullos is the Tayside based audience. Those in the Highlands get the same 'tiny' mention as before.

This could be trickier than just letting stv take on Border Scotland and then we all walk into the sunset.

I think that if stv do acquire Border Scotland they should make the South of Scotland an opt out and the Highlands and Islands an opt out as well.

Highlanders were not best pleased when the current set up was announced they will mighty p***ed off if the Border area gets an opt out and they get sod all!!

Well that's what they get for living in an area with no population...

Nah, seriously. Dealing with Border first, I know that ITV PLC own the area. However the regulator should stipulate that, if they wish to merge the Border and Tyne Tees area, that the Border Scotland area should be handed to SMG as this new programme will be utterly irrelevant to this audience.

SMG should then be told they can have the area if they provide certain requirements - the sub-opt being the obvious minimum requirement. It would still be less than ideal and result in Borderland seeing a lot of central Scotland news, but it would be better than the alternative.

STV would be very unlikely to say no as I suspect it has been STV's dream to make 'altogether Scotland' a reality, along with the additional advertising revenue. ITV would probably be happy if it was part of a bigger settlement allowing them to merge a few regions as it would make up for it in the savings.

What I think ITV has to watch is that, with the dawn of increasing localness - with newspapers and other publications becoming more and more local - and newspapers producing their own video bulletins, that local viewers and advertisers don't just abandon them for the atlernatives. But I understand things have never been more competitive, and the financial problems of producing a regional programme watched by thousands. Very difficult time for them.

ITV need to decide whether localness is part of their USP and heritage, and connection with the audience, and whether it's worth paying out that extra money; or whether they want to be a higher budget Sky One.