Scotland Today lead tonight with the story about a Perth toddler who fell out of a top floor flat window and survived without a mark on him .On the lunchtime programme they lead with that story also and the reporter did a live piece.I watched North Tonight and Grampian had their own reporter on the same story but it was North Tonights and finally story although it was an important story i think Grampian got it right in the running order .
Perth is strictly speaking well in the Grampian region although it is possible to get STV in Perth itself but NOT surrounding areas i fail to see why yet again STV are running with stories out with their region.It was the same at the weekend when they were reporting on a spait of car crashes on Scotlands roads over the weekend five in total but they were in North Scotland. STV have lost the plot news wise they are always reporting from North Scotland .
I've always been under the impression that the overlap zones of Scotland's three ITV regions are much huger (is "huger" a real word?) than those of English regions.
The ambiguous title, "Scotland Today", sounds like it's trying to imply that they're covering all of Scotland, rather than just the central belt. Presumably this is intentional, to allow for the large overlaps.
So, I presume that they sometimes push their luck, in terms of how far they think they stretch into the Grampian/Border regions, to further this ambiguity.
I take the point Lewis has made, and it is also true that the overlap of regions is certainly more blurred. Grampian can be seen by Edinburgh viewers near the Pentland Hills.
The toddler story was quite remarkable and so certainly should have been featured, but top story? I'm not sure about that either, Lewis. It could have been because radio stations were running the story all day, and that they assumed Reporting Scotland were going to run the feature as their lead item. Of course the BBC get on air 30 minutes after Scottish TV.
Beyond that there must be other factors at play with the editorial decision making. Not only do SMG stations have a large amount of resources for ENG between them, but they are probably also responding to the fact that BBC Scotland has been banging on the "Scotland's
National
News Programme" drum for quite a few years now.
I take the point Lewis has made, and it is also true that the overlap of regions is certainly more blurred. Grampian can be seen by Edinburgh viewers near the Pentland Hills.
The toddler story was quite remarkable and so certainly should have been featured, but top story? I'm not sure about that either, Lewis. It could have been because radio stations were running the story all day, and that they assumed Reporting Scotland were going to run the feature as their lead item. Of course the BBC get on air 30 minutes after Scottish TV.
Beyond that there must be other factors at play with the editorial decision making. Not only do SMG stations have a large amount of resources for ENG between them, but they are probably also responding to the fact that BBC Scotland has been banging on the "Scotland's
National
News Programme" drum for quite a few years now.
Yes Grampian can be seen in Edinburgh and in North Berwick as STV can be seen in parts of Perth and Dundee but most viewers in Edinburgh would tune to STV for their local news as most viewers in Perth tune to Grampian for their local news.STV does not usually cover Perth unless it is a worth while story.STV is not a national broadcaster it is purely regional and i still think that they should not be covering stories from Shetland the Western Isles and Aberdeen which they are guilty of doing.
I take the point Lewis has made, and it is also true that the overlap of regions is certainly more blurred. Grampian can be seen by Edinburgh viewers near the Pentland Hills.
The toddler story was quite remarkable and so certainly should have been featured, but top story? I'm not sure about that either, Lewis. It could have been because radio stations were running the story all day, and that they assumed Reporting Scotland were going to run the feature as their lead item. Of course the BBC get on air 30 minutes after Scottish TV.
Beyond that there must be other factors at play with the editorial decision making. Not only do SMG stations have a large amount of resources for ENG between them, but they are probably also responding to the fact that BBC Scotland has been banging on the "Scotland's
National
News Programme" drum for quite a few years now.
Yes Grampian can be seen in Edinburgh and in North Berwick as STV can be seen in parts of Perth and Dundee but most viewers in Edinburgh would tune to STV for their local news as most viewers in Perth tune to Grampian for their local news.STV does not usually cover Perth unless it is a worth while story.STV is not a national broadcaster it is purely regional and i still think that they should not be covering stories from Shetland the Western Isles and Aberdeen which they are guilty of doing.
What does anoy me about this is that if a story is shared between grampian and scottish - STV never use the grampian reporter but in reverse grampian always use an STV one!!
Grampian have a habit or reporting on stories "involving" people from the Grampian region but are in actual fact based in different countries etc etc.
To be fair I don't want to be seeing what Bob McScotsbum's* Mum from Aberdeen says about her son over in Iraq but rather more the death of a young girl, or why a two buses managed to fly into 2 seperate houses in two seperate towns on the same day. (Although to be fair I never watch Grampian TV so I probably missed these stories... hence why I stick to the local paper.)
Grampian is often to focused on Edinburgh, Aberdeen or Bob McScotsbum's* relatives.
When SMG screened Scotland Today and North Tonight back to back in the early hours of this morning, the news agendas were absolutely identical. Somehow I think there might be more of an outcry by OFCOM if Meridian and London Tonight shared stories like this. Out of sight, out of mind.
I know it is a busy week with the G8 protests in Edinburgh .However tonight Scotland Today had reporters in Edinburgh and Auchterardar (Village next to Gleneagles) where there was a bomb scare at a local bank .
Michael Crow was live from Gleneagles and probably doing the live piece for Grampian and STV .The Gleneagles area is Perthshire and in the Grampian region why does STV need to move in on this story.Whilst some areas in Perth and Dundee pick up STV it's realy Grampian that provides the news for Tayside.
In Glasgow today at lunchtime there was a major accident on the M8 eastbound at Renfrew a lorry had shed it's load and was overturned on the motorway.The M8 was like a carpark a crane arrived later in the afternoon but still at 7pm tonight traffic was at a stand still and being diverted through the airport and through Renfrew and Paisley.It was just chaos and a big story for Glasgow.However the local ITV station never mentioned it on the lunchtime,teatime or late bulletin.I find this realy disgusting i know it's a big week in Scotland with the G8 but surely STV could have cut back on their sports coverage tonight on the main programme at least to mention the big story in Glasgow that caused absoloute chaos for hours.
STV is NOT a national broadcaster and they should be covering major stories like this in their transmission area .I have always said that they allocate to much time to sport on their 6pm programme a story such as this should have got a mention at least.
Shereen has done a few of those third world reports over the last decade .Not sure why or what it has to do with a local news provider for CENTRAL Scotland.
As much as I criticise Scottish TV for stealing stuff from Grampian on a regular basis, in this case I think it is justified. The Gleneagles event has major reprecussions from central Scotland, not least Edinburgh and Stirling, and to take it to an extreme the possiblity of protests in Glasgow. The best test for whether Scottish TV should cover a story outwith its region is Lockerbie - would you, as news editor, have ignored this story as it fell technically within the Border region.
My problem comes with stories such as the little boy who fell out a window, blatantly within the Grampian region, or slipping Aberdeen stories into a Scottish TV bulletin, or tedious Grampian stories leading Scotland Today. That's my main concern. Scotland Today is not a national news programme, and shouldn't be - it is there for the people of central Scotland. But if there is something massive happening which affects the whole country, and the network news is incapable of covering it properly because they're too interested in a farcical olympic bid, then Scottish TV should step in to fill the breach.