Battle for ITV Border Scotland services

I do believe ITV should be providing some local programmes for the regional areas in England, Towards the end of the 90s a lot of regional shows were pan aired, Nothing really wrong with that as someone in Essex might have the some interest as kent..

I don't buy the ITV reason, ITV PBS is only worth £40m Im sure that has gone up...

The problem is that with the plethora of largely low quality non-PSB channels that the digital era has brought, PSB commitments are seen to ITV as a shackle, whereas before, it was just a fact of life. Add to that when you own several different regional licenses, providing different programmes is a pain compared to just showing the same programme across all of them. Several separate TV companies don't see the same burden. I'm sure if ITV consolidated from 1983 onwards, instead of 1993 onwards, we'd have been getting the same arguments by 1991 that separate regional programmes don't make any commercial sense, even though in reality, they were actually happily going about doing it.

I still believe in network television and have always been a fan of the US 'bottom up' approach rather than the conventional 'top down' one, even if the US system isn't exactly perfect. Network television allows local content and a degree of local independence whilst still having mainstream nationwide programmes to offer and allow the channel to be viable. As much as I didn't think Liverpool was served particularly well under Granada, I feel it's a shame that we moved away from the fundamentals of that system in this country. Indeed, I feel it was as long ago as the launch of Channel 4 that set us on the path the nationwide commercial TV channels. And as much as I want them to succeed, I feel the local TV licenses may not fly for the most part. There is demand for local TV but not so much that it will support standalone TV channels, especially considering how tiny some of these license areas are. If they do fail, it'll be seen as proof that there is no demand for local TV and ITV will argue that if people don't want proper local TV, then there's no point them providing it over a wider area.

I've always believed the money should have been spent on creating local companies or better still local Inde to produce locals programmes to be slotted in on Fixed time on the ITV, Ch4 networked. Ie 2pm or 8pm Mondays etc. That way the daft cost of providing new studio or tranmisstion are cut out etc and ITV keeps some localness.

What money?
There's nothing to stop what you describe happening today - ITV could if they wanted, commission programmes from regional indie producers and broadcast them at any time they wanted to in any part of the country. But they don't because they don't bring in any money and that's how a commercial TV company works.

The money which is being spent on these new Local channels

But there in lies the issue with PSB commitments. I'm not sure about not bringing in any money, otherwise, such regional programmes would've been extinct even when all the ITV companies were independent, out of necessity. Still, they probably bring in less money due to the cost of making several programmes for different areas rather than just one. But then something not being as financial viable as alternatives doesn't mean there isn't demand for it and if we didn't have PSB, I'm sure a lot of successful programmes on ITV (and Channel 4, of course) over the years, both regional and networked, wouldn't have existed.

If you believe TV should be purely commercial, then obviously, regional TV should go the way of the dinosaur, but then so should minority programming and anything else that doesn't make a quick buck. Of course, this has already happened to some extent but if you're not one for X Factor and a lot of similar mainstream programming, then there isn't a lot out there for you these days.

But that would never happen, the only reason it exists in the first place is for that concept. BBC and tax payer money going to subsidise programmes on ITV would be a very difficult proposition

But they only did regional programming and other public service genres in the past because they had to. And that was quite right then that they were forced to as there was a limit to the number of TV stations and ITV had 100% of the TV advertising market.


Of course I don't believe TV should be purely commercial, but that doesn't mean that every channel should be PSB. The point is how to justify imposing loss making PSB commitments on ITV and Channel 5 when they sit on the EPG with services that don't. The numerical positions themselves don't really.

There is a probably more 'non-mainstream' telly than ever before, because there are lots of niche channels. They can make money because they have a niche and can deliver niche advertisers to particular viewers.... ITV as a general mainstream broadcaster can never do that

All I can say is I don't agree. I rarely find anything to watch at any one time. I just don't see the multi-channel paradise that you and some others seem to. I know it's almost cliché to say now but there definitely did seem to be a lot more on when there were less channels.

I don't get why it was okay to force ITV to do regional programming because there were less channels. I don't think less channels mean a higher demand for regional programmes. Also, I'm pretty sure all ITV companies went well above their quota on regional programmes, as any stipulation for providing them outside of news was never really that high to begin with. It's not even as if I think regional programmes should even make anywhere near the majority of the schedule but a bit other than just news would be nice.

Today, if I want to watch a film.... there's film channels. If I want to watch sport there's sport channels, comedy... yep and so on and so on. Yep certainly you have to hunt around at times to find the good stuff and there's a lot of repeated content but it's a lot better than the 4 channel days.


Because in the duopoly days ITV companies had a very privileged position - they had a small amount of very scarce bandwidth and the rights to 100% of TV advertising... the famous 'license to print money' Therefore they had to act as a public service and broadcast PSB content. The likes of Lew Grade weren't interested in regional documentaries. Incidently of course, regional programmes on ITV were just a by-product of the system of different companies. If it had been designed as a national network when of course they'd still have had the other PSB commitments


No of course not, it means less choice so more people to watch the regional programmes. You assume that there was a big demand for regional programmes and people didn't just watch them because of the lack of other options.

I thought there was talk of more Local franchises in Scotland...maybe I imagined it. I'm wondering could STV take over the whole 'local' network if they sold their C3 franchises....it might make the whole thing a bit more viable. Unlikely though...

I think assuming people watched regional programmes purely out of lack of choice (rather than doing something else with their time instead) is a bigger assumption. What about network programmes in those days? People surely watched them because of a lack of choice too then. Let's ditch them as well. Regional programmes isn't a genre. It wasn't back then and people made little distinction and indeed had little awareness or care about which programmes were just in their ITV region or shown nationwide. If it's a good regional programme, people will watch it. If it isn't, they won't. It works no differently. I think a lot of the people who seem to oppose regional programmes on principle generally loathe the idea of provincial sheep making twee programmes for themselves, when they could be watching civilized "metropolitan" TV from the UK's only worthwhile city, London. That may or may not be you, but I see it for certain in a lot of other people.

And I still maintain I rarely find anything to watch. I'll bring up the EPG, go through all the channels and either find nothing at all, or something I've seen again and again. This is nearly always Family Guy reruns on BBC Three. I think just because digital broadcasting allowed tons of channels as opposed to analogue didn't necessarily mean we had to have tons of channels. The irony is that digital TV was on the horizon in the 90s, when TV was still king. Even I thought it was a fantastic vision as a kid, when we were told the future was even more TV, tons of channels and loads more choice. However, it happened just as the internet took off and what we've ended up with is more and more channels with less and less of an audience. And there is less on for those of us who care less about reality and celebrity-orientated TV shows (which are relatively cheap to make) as there's less money about to make the shows, thanks both to the internet and tons of channels splitting the viewership and therfore, the advertising revenue. TV nowadays is seriously overweight and out of shape, in my humble opinion.