ITV wants to axe some regional news services

Oh dear you are getting hot under the collar!

Whilst I am not disputing the figures of people who watch local news (and I am one of them) what it doesn't state, the point I am making - that they may dip in for 5 or 10 minutes before moving on to another channel. Way back when you had 3 or 4 channels to watch ITV had a captive audience with these programmes - not any more.

A 10-15 min bulletin is more than adequate - if people want to know the really local stuff they get the local paper.

Unfortunately its progress whether we like it or not.

no, quite cool thanks very much; just wanted to know if your opinion was just from lack of information, or you were one of those who ignore the facts to persue a point. Its clear now.

All TV shows have a high degree of partial viewing. You cannot disaggregate the audinece.

Shall we cut corrie to 12 minutes or just run a film trailer and tag on the final scene instead of the demanding 120 minutes of content? After all, there is youtube now. Both follow your logic.

I am neither of those - nor am I one of those who live in the good old days and can't see that times change.

I'd be happy for 12 minutes to be cut from Corrie - however facts are that more people would moan about Coronation Street being cut than local news coverage

Anyway there are always those for and against change - the facts are that Ofcom have agreed the changes in principle so it's going to happen.

doesn't make it right though.

It’s a sorry state of affairs when the main commercial network is allowed to take a sledge hammer to the whole entire concept of ‘regional news’ and the government does less than nothing.

The BBC needs relevant competition. Audience ratings are a meaningless gauge for judging success, if a region is 3 times larger than the equivalent. The BBC needs a strong ITV – otherwise it’s like playing tennis on your own.

I can visualise that analogy , not long from now it'll be a load of balls on only one side.

So, given that the 6/6.30 national news gets very similar overall figures to the regional news on either side, do you also advocate a reduction in national news coverage?

The problem is not one of viewer apathy, it is one of duplication of resources, as has been explained to you over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

The fact that you choose to ignore the evidence in front of you shows you up for what you are really.

You see, I don't agree. It's not progress at all, it's taking a huge step backwards in terms of progress.

Global manage a successful regional news service in Canada, a country that has half the population of the UK, yet they manage a daily total of around 7 hours of regional news, plus the half hour Global National at 5.30pm.

If they can manage to produce a decent regional news service of 10 regions, how can ITV manage to completely destroy their service?

But I cannot understand why Ofcom are giving the green light for the Border/ Tyne Tees merger as 15,000 people signed cards to Ofcom saying they want to keep Border Television?? Why dont they listen?

TV Times - Whilst there has been some outcry from viewers the actual percentage is pretty low compared to total local audience/population.

The deal is done - it will happen -end of.

The days of sitting for 30 mins to watch local news each night are gone and this is not simply down to ITV reducing services but to the way people absorb news - with multi-channel TV and the general busy way we live people's habits have changed.

For me (and many others I presume) the national and local news headlines as BBC1 provide weekdays at 8pm tells me everything I need to know - stories of white tiger cubs born at the local zoo or a couple married for 70 years is of no interest to the majority.


You know it's funny but I thought I was the only beacon of common-sense on here.
All this talk of the general public being up in arms is total rubbish - most regional news viewers are so old they can't even raise their arms if they tried.
And the posts against this sensible commercial decision by Ofcom really should be sepia-tinged.
Have a flick round some regional ITV news next week and see how dreadful most of them really are.
I watched Granada news programme have a viewer phone-in competition which they flagged several times during the show - and the prize was a tour for two people around the Coronation Street set.
Purleeeeeeeeese.
[B]

But in reality it doesn't does it?

ISTR that last time I looked the ITV regional ratings were significantly lower than the other three slots.

The most popular slot was the BBC 1830-1900 regional news, followed by the BBC 1800-1830 Six O'Clock News, with the ITV 1830-1900 Early Evening news quite close behind, and the ITV 1800-1830 regional slot significantly lagging behind.

At one point ITV used to point out that although the ratings as a whole fo the ITV regional news were lower than for the BBC, there were noticable variations across the UK, with ITV being much more popular than the BBC in some regions. AIUI this is now no longer the case - and ITV are now behind the BBC in all regions...

So rather than try and improve the ratings of their regional news, by improving the quality of them, they admit defeat and try to make them cheaper, using low ratings to justify the changes... (Which I suspect suits them just fine - because even with high ratings, regional news isn't going to pay its way in an entirely market driven environment, where your competitors don't have to provide it)

The point I was making was a more general one though Noggin.

As you point out, the highest rated of the four blocks is the BBC local news.

Add the BBC and ITV local news audiences together, and the figures come out very similar to the BBC and ITV national news added together.

This says to me that the demand for local news is not spent. Far from it.

As I say, if you are going to argue to cancel the local news because of a lack of viewers, you may as well take out the national news while you're at it, because the figures compare.

If ITV's service is not watched, this is entirely a function of ITV sapping the life out of it -- nothing else.