West Television Thread

That's a new one, I've always known him as Chris Fascist.

Actually, the sad thing is that he's a really nice guy.

Complete rubbish at presentation and always given complete garbage to feed to the viewers, but still a really nice guy.

He is actually, I met him last Summer, very much the English gent. Also spoke to Mr Angwin who was equally down to earth. We missed Ms Lovell, so it was good day all round really LOL!

I prefer to use Google maps - much less fiddly than tape.

But surely the point of the HTV sub-region system, unlike the later Central and TVS versions, was that it was effectively two separate regional services linked only by control by one company and sharing only part-time off-peak continuity.

Surely in effect the Wales and West sub-regions were separate entities rather than the West/Westcountry service that seems to be evolving, as seen by recent local shared programming in which only the ads and news remain separate?

Were there any programmes that tried to cover that Sherborne-Anglesey axis? There certainly are programmes trying to serve a Gloucester-Land's End axis which in regional terms is an enormous distance.

It's all probably academic on the ITV side since the regional programmes are clearly out of place on the ITV 1 network these days. For starters they are the only programmes I find worth watching on the wretched network.

On the BBC side I really cannot see a Bristol/Plymouth merger unless the licence fee was cut to 50p.

Yes, there were, on HTV, but to be fair, only a very few.

The main problem was with the "feel" of the station(s) through the whole period. TWW was Television Wales (FIRST to be mentioned) and West (SECOND). Then we had a period of that most English of names, Harlech Television. Only after quite a long period did they realise that they were alienating the viewers in the west and they shortened it to HTV, in order to disguise the word "Harlech". However, the damage was done by then as we'd all been through the endless publicity that TWW had gone and Harlech had arrived.

It was the commercials that gave the station(s) the worst of their feel. Because there was more square mileage to Wales, there were far more Welsh (geography, not language) commercials and they were endlessly played on both sides of the Bristol Channel. Hence my comment, earlier in the thread, about being sick to death with the advert for the garage in Llangollen, which it would have taken me the best part of a day to drive to.

Personally I miss the 'cheap' commercials - you know, the stills with dry voiceover - usually recorded by one of the continuity team. My favourite was "Frank Voisey Cars of Fishponds, Bristol". Frank was an early pioneer of selling Skoda cars, in the days before they became fashionable... and before they moved the engines to the front

Question:

Regarding the minimum required hours-per-week for ITV non-news regional programming (in England, at least):

Wasn't the above reduced by Ofcom during 2006 or something? I'm sure there used to be a bit more than at present? (e.g. regional "Newsweeks" on Sunday lunchtimes, etc)

As far as I'm aware, there's only 2 hours per week of non-news ITV regional programmes in England now (7:30pm 30-minute documentaries and/or debates on Tues & Thurs; One or two programmes (sport and/or political) on Thursdays, between 11pm-12midnight)???? Is that right? Or is there anything at the weekend still?

I bet that Ofcom will gradually reduce ITV's non-news regional committments even further over the next few years, until eventually (by no later than the 2012 completion of DSO) ITV will have no non-news regional committments whatsoever!

And, of course, rumour has it that perhaps even ITV regional news itself will cease too...

Oh yes, dear old Frank Voisey. He could almost be described as the Horace Batchelor of television, couldn't he?

What was it, I wonder, about the districts of Bristol that attracted the advertisers? First K E Y N S H A M and then Fishponds.

I wonder if the people of Anglesey got fed up with Frank, like we got sick of Llangollen?

Watch out, Nick, 90% of the kids here won't know why you have spelt Keynsham out. (cue rush of children heading to Google to investigate. Free can of pop to the first who can tell.)

As far as I know ITV London viewers get exactly the same programme-- I'm not certain about that though... !

Probably 90% of the residents of K E Y N S H A M wouldn't know now either! There is a statue in Cardiff of an old Mayor - John Batchelor. Perhaps Keynsham needs something similar

The requirement is 1.5 hours per week of non-news regional programming in England.
I'm not sure how the programmes that broadcast to more than one region count in that.


Those are the plans. Ofcom want to set up some sort of public service publisher using licence fee money after digital switchover

Somehow doubt it, Reg.

Cue rush of kids starting brand new threads here to ask, because the concept of using Google is just far too dificult.