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?
Yes, there was a short piece on ITV West about the proposed changes (putting emphasis on the "proposed" bit!)
I travel the country quite a bit and,without exception,I find regional news programmes about as interesting as a kick in the nads.
The female presenters are uniformly ugly,the male presenters all look like child-molesters and the reporters speak like bingo-callers.
I've had sexually-transmitted diseases that have been more interesting the most of the news stories I see.
No,I'm sorry - if I want to see news items about doltish people killing other cretins in arguments over whose wife is more common I'd spend my day watching HTV Wales News.
And to think ITV pay £120million a year employing people not good enough to produce news no one is watching.
No wonder it was the easiest commercial decision Michael Grade will ever have to take.
I travel the country quite a bit and,without exception,I find regional news programmes about as interesting as a kick in the nads.
The female presenters are uniformly ugly,the male presenters all look like child-molesters and the reporters speak like bingo-callers.
With respect, if you judge the quality of news programmes on the looks of the presenters you may not be the best-placed person to comment really!!
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And to think ITV pay £120million a year employing people not good enough to produce news no one is watching.
But as I have said already, the irony of all this is that Grade is closing the areas that are actually doing rather well.
If "no-one" is watching in the Border area, I suggest they switch the transmitters off completely during the day and save on the electricity bills as well, as Lookaround gets viewing figures in excess of just about every other non-primetime programme going in its patch -- nearly 50% of all viewers in the 6-7pm slot.
I must admit I prefer watching Spotlight to Westcountry Live, but do see it every so often if there is an important news story (it's interesting to see the different treatment by the two broadcasters).
However, if this proposal goes ahead I will be reluctant to watch a programme from Bristol. The area is simply too large to cover effectively. I'll just stick with BBC who seem to have a greater commitment to regional news.
That's because the only thing to do in Carlisle - apart from trying to impregnate a close relative - is watch a local news programme reporting on a discarded milk carton on the Settle by-pass.
Christ,why would anyone in their right mind other than some provincial dullard be interested in Derek Batey clones misreading autocues.
Surely to goodness they'd want to be part of a more interesting regional area - even if it is the North-East with all their unemployed alcoholics proud of their rich heritage ( " Whyeye man,they based the Two Fat Slags on my mum and her mate " )
Michale Grade - old Captain Red Sox himself - should have gone the whole hog and shunted all regional news onto ITV 5 ,replacing them with old repeats of The Simpsons.
You watch the audience figures shoot up faster than Pete Doherty.
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.
I do wonder what the point of creating additional editions of Calendar and North East Tonight was for earlier this year. If Regional News is too expensive to continue in it's current way, why create extra bulletins
the 17 to 9 announcement wouldn't have sounded as bad at 15 to 9 either
I expect (hope) OFCOM will stop the mergers of Tyne Tees/Border, West/Westcountry and Central. But I expect the loss of sub-regional editions of Calendar, North East Tonight and Anglia News will go ahead. (The former 2 will hardly be missed)