ITV wants to axe some regional news services

Yes, I'd expect the merging of whole regions (ala TT/Border) is most likely to be blocked for now, whilst the subregions would be allowed through, and as has been mentioned earlier it'll be why ITV have proposed something bigger just so it seems like they're compromising later. It's not that Ofcom are bothered about the regions, just that they'd not want to end up in a situation where they'd be trying to get the public to understand that 'half of this region will be switched over to digital in this year, but not the other half'. The publicity campaign on switchoff is hard enough already.

I used to live in Onchan. We had a choice of three ITVs, Border, Granada and HTV. When Channel 5 began broadcasting from Winter Hill, Border from the Douglas transmitter was unwatchable from my house. They're both on channel 48.

Onchan's on a hill. Closer to sea level, you are more likely to have Border and nothing else.

People in the west of the island get UTV as well as Border.

In terms of news, Border is the only station that really covers the island. However, Granada used to do big stories from it.

Caldbeck is relayed normally. So we have BBC NE and C teletext normally. But the signal switches to Winter Hill for regional news.

As an aside, when Cumbria was added to BBC North West in the eighties, there was uproar, led by the News and Star in Carlisle. The BBC eventually gave Cumbria back to the North East. I think ITV might have taken that into account in redrawing the map. More empathy in Carlisle with Gateshead than Manchester.

As was pointed out by an MP on the news last night, expecting people in Penzance to watch regional news covering Tewkesbury is pretty much equivalent to asking Londoners to be interested in 'regional' coverage of Sunderland! If this is their proposal, ITV may as well give up regional broadcasting altogether - which is quite transparently their eventual intent anyway.

To be honest i really don't see why ITV should provide regional services anyway. Fair enough years ago when there was no cable or Sky or whatever they had an obligation to provide regional services, but now with independent setups from the likes of Channel M who can provide a very decent regional service, why should ITV Regional be needed? I think it's fair they would want to get rid of their regional services, especially considering Channel 4 don't have to provide such things also. Of course we've already got BBC Regional services, so it's not as if all the big broadcasters would be gone.

I think the fairer thing would be to give dominant independent regional setups higher places in the Sky and Freeview EPG in their region and then ITV can shut down regional services altogether and no one would batter an eyelid! Especially considering independent setups would actually be 'local' as opposed to covering mass amounts of space which is what ITV will eventually do. When ITV do that of course, regional news will be mostly pointless, as 90% of the time the people watching won't have a clue where the place they are talking about actually is!

Um no,

I believe it will work like the STV model, main buttilen, with a 7 min opt-out for more local news

So it seems quite a few BBC regional news programmes carried news of the proposed changes and resulting job losses. Did any ITV regions dare to cover the story last night?

http://www.itvlocal.com/border/news/

This is Good news! If the Scottish Borders got to STV ! ( its the only way that could work! )

No, it's very bad news. For all the criticism of Border, if you actually examine the programme content you'll find a fair split between Southern Scotland, Cumbria and Isle of Man stories. If Border Scotland goes to STV, you will find very few stories from the South making it in to the news. The beauty of Border was it's lack of a very big city, allowing stories from across the region to be given coverage. If Southern Scotland goes to STV, then it'll get at best a couple of minutes in an opt - something it already gets from Border in addition to more coverage elsewhere in Lookaround. By a large percentage of viewers in the region it's a much loved programme.

> To be honest i really don't see why ITV should provide regional services anyway.

It comes under the general category of public service broadcasting. ITV has a privileged position in the system of commercial TV in this country -- if the PSB requirement is removed, so should the privilege position be.

This is the ultimatum that should have been presented to ITV years ago -- continue providing a public service, with all the loss of revenue that that entails, or lose your position on terrestrial and go it alone on multichannel.

I'm absolutely convinced that if ITV had been given that stark choice years ago, they'd have pulled into line. We're only talking fairly peripheral money here, and if ITV had expended a quarter as much effort in its commitments as it has with political in-fighting and jostling for power, it might not have found itself in the position it is in now.

I have very little sympathy for them quite honestly.

from what I've heard ITVplc have no plans to hand over Southern Scotland to STV (a different company after all) and that the whole of the Lookaround region will go in with Tyne Tees.

Yes, there was a short piece on ITV West about the proposed changes (putting emphasis on the "proposed" bit!)

Lookaround had the story as its main headline last night: www.itvlocal.com/border/news