"The West Tonight" and "Westcountry Live" to return?

The BBC Bristol website says "They said last February's merger of two ITV regional broadcast regions - which created one area from the Scilly Isles to Gloucestershire - would be reversed."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/8271002.stm

and the name of the consortium that's planning it.... Television SouthWest:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/sep/23/itv-regional-news-consultation-reponses

I certainly oppose ITN's idea. Their idea is so against what ITV is (or was) about. Of course ITV is a patchwork that's what the regions are there for: to provide for the individual regions.

ITN wants a single contract for England, not one bulletin covering the whole of England (as some have misinterpreted it).

Indeed, although that's kinda what exists at the moment and I don't think that's really the idea, Ofcom seem keen on plurality (which is a good thing).

It's going to be interesting if the plans for the independent regional news consortia go ahead. It'd be nice to think we could see a return to the days of each region having its own news programme with its own identity, set and titles.

I do wonder how it will work, especially as it's initially just a pilot.

Will the independent just take over the existing production facilities, rent them from ITV and take on ITV staff on TUPE? The only alternative is for the new providers to start from scratch and ITV close down what's left of their facilities... but then what happens if the pilot isn't continued?

Also there's archive and the like, the ITV newsrooms have access to (in some cases) 50 years of archive and stock footage, would an indie news provider have access to that?

Posted this is the South west England thread a few days ago ....

I was at an Ofcom event on Tuesday and Michael Jermey (ITV news/regions boss) was saying that ITV will still want to impose some kind of consistency of branding across the regions even if/when third parties are providing the content.

This didn't go down particularly well with some of the prospective bidders for the pilot services who were alongside him on the panel at the conference.

What part of the rules don't ITV understand, if they are abdicating from their responsibilities, albeit consensenually so, you cannot impose conditions on your successors.

I don't see why not, if you're producing a programme for a channel (your customer) then why shouldn't that channel be able oto have a say over the programme?

Look at ITN's productions for ITV and Channel 4 for example

The difference, though, is in that case it is ITV or C4 who are paying the bill.

Under the proposed arrangemnts ITV will just provide the airtime (valuable though that is).