STV/Grampian News Review

[quote="Lewis c"]

Whatever

People happen to be interested in this - thats why there is comment here on the STV/Grampian news review.

If you are not bothered - why keep looking at this.

I entered this forum to discuss news presentation.

Oh, Isee Scotland today is ditching the 2 0'clock bulletin. HOORAH . I mean i am a ST fan, but the 2 0'clock bulletins are awful. Then theres more ST 30 mins later... . Good decision SMG, even though it was probably forced on you....

[quote="Anne MacKenzie Fan"]

Oh i am interested in the thread just bored with you slagging off Sarah Heaney .

No - I am not slagging her off - and I am sorry if it appears that way.

Thanks to everyone for sharing their thoughts on Scottish news threads.

I am leaving the forum now - as I did not want to offend people, and it seems that I have. I am also working more hours and it is becoming an effort to follow the latest threads.

It will be interesting to see what happens with news in Scotland. I really hope that it will get bigger and better.

Take care folks

Cheerio

I noticed that Scotland Today has adopted new astons today, now with red added. The 'live' bug has also changed.

http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/tn_scotaston.jpg

http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/tn_scotlivebug.jpg

However, all other astons/graphics have remained in the purple only style.

http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/tn_scotboost.jpg

http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/tn_scottoday.jpg

Looks pretty inconsistent now. I wonder if the addition of red is any signal for changes in the future. Anyone know if there have been similar changes at Grampian?

I believe there will be a new look for Scotland Today by the end of August. As for Grampian they have changed their caption design slightly, got a live bug (based on the Grampian blue boxes logo) and a new animated transition into their two way box.

The new astons looks like the template from BBC's Look East!

Thats where i have seen that design before!!!!

Grampian and STV are to split their weekday 6 p.m. bulletins in 18 months time, reports The Scotsman.
However, despite Ofcom approval, the prospect of a Scottish 10.30 bulletin looks bleak.
Meanwhile, all Nations will be allowed to drop some networked current affairs shows, and replace them with regional current affairs programming.

Excellent stuff - but isn't this what the BBC are meant to be there for? It shouldn't be up to SMG to provide proper local news for Scotland - what the hell are we paying our licence fee for? It's time the BBC realised Scotland is not a region - it's a country. While I don't believe it's justifiable for Scotland to have regions along the same lines as England, I fail to see why the BBC can't manage the same split as SMG.

Looking at the plans, this actually goes beyond what we were expecting. It's one main story, and then essentially a completely different programme for each sub-region. Absolutely brilliant, although we can only hope it means a reduction in the amount of Grampian stories shown in the central area, and vice versa, and more honest presentation (Scotland Today is not Scotland Today - it's central Scotland Today).

Inevitably this is probably a trade off for cutting back on proper local programming, but SMG are a private company - of course that's what they're after. And of course, having failed to get more subsidies for it, they're not going to bother with the 10.30pm Scottish bulletin. These aren't commerical priorities. Again, there's one company that doesn't need to worry about these matters, and they're doing sod all apart from throwing all their money at a crap soap.

Good news for Scotland in the short term - although OFCOM should be stricter on the public service remits for ITV companies, as the cutbacks are going to be a loss for the country eventually. They were given the advantage of their stations being the only commercial alternative for decades, they are the heritage brand, they have a clear advantage, and they should be paying for it, in the same way that heritage radio stations (Radio Clyde etc) have to put more into news. I can't blame SMG for cutting back - they're a private company - but it's for the regulators to force them into providing the programming that we deserve.

All in all though, a great example of why we should fight to keep SMG - ITV PLC would ditch all this instantly given the chance.

More info on the splitting of the Grampian news is here.

It does kind of piddle (it wouldn't allow me my first choice) on the BBC. I mean ITV already had and has had forever 3 news programmes covering Scotland. Now ITV have upped that to 5.

BBC Scotland are at 1 and holding. It's looked bad for ages and now looks ridiculous for such a large geographical area. And here we all thought that ITV was abandoning regionalisation to make more money and here SMG go and expand it. I guess it just must be ITV plc. They better move quick before ITV plc buy them and stop it.

Also, can STV regionalise East/West very effectively? I mean Craigkelly is East serving but Black Hill serves Glasgow and lots of aerials in Edinburgh seem to point to it too.