I don't think that there will be any big changes or noticeable changes in the Anglia News as most of the time it is pan regional news but with different presenters in the East and West. I say that as I am in the West of the Region. Our sporting news is always about Norwich City and Ipswich, both in the east. One of the big stories today is about a family returning from a holiday after someone stepped in for them when XL went bust. They live in Lowestoft which is in the East. Anglia News has always been like this.
I just hope that with the merging of the newsroom we get rid of the non stories used to program fill.
This is good news, well for me anyway. Living in Yeovil you know evrything that is going on to the north of you and nothing about what's going on to the south and the west. So at last, a full regional service for places like Yeovil (even if it is a rather large region!)
OFCOM seem to be doing this the wrong way round IMO. They talk about first slashing the number of regions / sub-regions, and then looking at cutting back the minutes on air. Surely it would make more sense from a PSB perspective to look at reducing costs in each region before reducing the number of regions.
Most of the issues have already been commented on, but I've no real issue with the amount of minutes being slashed on a daily basis in order to protect regional news. They could easily cut a couple of minutes off the lunchtime and late bulletins, and again at the weekend - or keep the evening bulletin at 15 mins and axe the lunchtime edition. I see no need to keep the mid-morning bulletin - indeed I'd rather see a longer national bulletin instead.
I can't really comment on GMTV as it's never been something I've watched, but I would imagine most viewers would like some regional news kept at that time - but again I'm sure a couple of minutes could be saved. Not sure how these plans affect the GMTV bulletins (as not all are produced by ITV regions), but considering they are losing the ratings war with Breakfast now, I don't think axing local news would benefit them at all.
Finally as for the main 6pm bulletins - I think OFCOM should enforce ITV to air one 3.5min block of ads within the regional news now (rather than holding it back for more lucrative slots), with money raised through that ring-fenced solely for regional news production.
far from Regional news being 'over' as showbizguru and, well showbizguru has been saying; many value regional news and it FAR outweighs newspapers and internet as the primary source of information.
The game is over for regional news on ITV I'm afraid.
Content drives ratings which drives advertising and there are simply not enough people interested in watching some of the risible output of some regional news programmes.
No one likes to see an old dog suffering and sometimes a bullet behind the ear is the kindest thing.
There's talk of ITV Wales being spun off into its own franchise with public funding for regional programmes. This seems a good idea considering the amount of public money spent on S4C (around £140million a year), it's only fair English speaking Welsh people get the same subsidy.
North Tonight had a feature on this saying that Ofcom has reported that STV will need more money by 2010 to maintain its regional news service. Not sure if this means to maintain their opt outs during NT and ST, or that STV North / Central will become one.
At least it would stop the smugness of Reporting Scotland saying " Scotland's only national bulletin ".
Interestingly at the Scottish Broadcast Commission meeting I attended, everyone was in favour of the optouts within NT and ST.
North Tonight had a feature on this saying that Ofcom has reported that STV will need more money by 2010 to maintain its regional news service. Not sure if this means to maintain their opt outs during NT and ST, or that STV North / Central will become one.
At least it would stop the smugness of Reporting Scotland saying " Scotland's only national bulletin ".
Interestingly at the Scottish Broadcast Commission meeting I attended, everyone was in favour of the optouts within NT and ST.
Reporting Scotland
still
would be Scotland's only national bulletin though, as south Scotland is to be covered by the merged Border-Tyne Tees regional news programme.
North Tonight had a feature on this saying that Ofcom has reported that STV will need more money by 2010 to maintain its regional news service. Not sure if this means to maintain their opt outs during NT and ST, or that STV North / Central will become one.
At least it would stop the smugness of Reporting Scotland saying " Scotland's only national bulletin ".
Interestingly at the Scottish Broadcast Commission meeting I attended, everyone was in favour of the optouts within NT and ST.
Reporting Scotland
still
would be Scotland's only national bulletin though, as south Scotland is to be covered by the merged Border-Tyne Tees regional news programme.
I believe there's still to be discussion over who " takes over " the South of Scotland...
There's talk of ITV Wales being spun off into its own franchise with public funding for regional programmes. This seems a good idea considering the amount of public money spent on S4C (around £140million a year), it's only fair English speaking Welsh people get the same subsidy.
yes, it would be fair, as long as it is funded by the welsh tax payers.
There's talk of ITV Wales being spun off into its own franchise with public funding for regional programmes. This seems a good idea considering the amount of public money spent on S4C (around £140million a year), it's only fair English speaking Welsh people get the same subsidy.
yes, it would be fair, as long as it is funded by the welsh tax payers.
Unlike in Scotland, the Welsh Assembly executive don't have tax raising powers (at present) so any contribution towards ITV Wales for regional programming would come out of the allocation provided by the UK Parliament. Essentialy, all UK taxpayers would be providing the subsidy.
:-(
A former member
StuartPlymouth posted:
tvmercia posted:
Whataday posted:
There's talk of ITV Wales being spun off into its own franchise with public funding for regional programmes. This seems a good idea considering the amount of public money spent on S4C (around £140million a year), it's only fair English speaking Welsh people get the same subsidy.
yes, it would be fair, as long as it is funded by the welsh tax payers.
Unlike in Scotland, the Welsh Assembly executive don't have tax raising powers (at present) so any contribution towards ITV Wales for regional programming would come out of the allocation provided by the UK Parliament. Essentialy, all UK taxpayers would be providing the subsidy.
Very Doubtful! the welsh can just use the money which there get every year and spend some of that on ITV instead