BBC One English Regions opt outs

That wasn't possible (officially) during the analogue and digital dual running period when the mixer cutting away from network triggered the digital opt switch. There were workarounds but they put the PAL 14:9 version out on digital platforms.

Rejected because they wanted to drop Panorama I think?

I suspect the fact that ITV regions wouldn't do it either now is a large factor in why BBC regions wouldn't.

Especially for something like a football victory parade, you can bet fans of the other clubs on the patch would prefer whatever was billed and will be vocal in complaining!

Look North did a special when the Tour de France was here but that was scheduled well in advance and replaced a network repeat.

That certainly rings a bell.

Partly, though I doubt any ITV 'region' today has the resources to produce such a thing anyway. They'd probably have to have an OB provider on 'a retainer' and one that is reasonably local. The BBC would struggle for the same reasons, the only exception might be to have one of the BBC 'nations' OBs on standby for them, but I bet these days it's different cost centres and all that.....?

I know in the Grandstand days, the nations often opted out, and showed their own versions, such as during the five nations, when both games each weekend were played almost simultaneously. So, while England v Wales was networked, us in Scotland got Scotland v France, and then highlights afterwards, with our own pres. Did the English regions ever opt out on Grandstand, if there was a major sporting event in their region that they wished to cover?

One of the reasons it may have happened at the time was Pebble Mill was a Network Production Centre, and therefore had its own OB crews. Possibly as we were all paid with a weekly timesheet, the rest of that week was quiet (likely with the OB action at Wembley for the weekend staffed by London Tel OBs) - and so it was cheap to do?

Facilities were owned by the BBC, crew wouldn't be into overtime, so the cost was just the diesel to Coventry (and Bardon Hill for the midpoint!).
Facilities in the Midlands are now sadly very much diminished for broadcasting, whether BBC, ITV or ILR.

That continued well into the 00s, as I remember the London newsroom making separate, bespoke, teatime national news bulletins for Scotland, when their schedules didn't accommodate the main teatime news.

I can't think of any occasions when an English region opted out of Grandstand - maybe Rugby League in the Leeds area may have been the one exception, although the staffing would have had to have come from Manchester OBs.

That was kind of my point. Before all of the mergers each ITV company had its own OB facilities so could mount this kind of thing easily enough. If the competition aren't doing it there is less of a "keeping up with Central/Granada/Yorkshire" reason to do it.

Grandstand used to have a regional opt spot for local results at one time I believe. That got spun off into a standalone news and support bulletin.

There was a regional opt for Rugby Union in the West, South West and Midlands regions in 2005

https://tvforum.uk/tvhome/bbc-west-opt-grandstand-14007/

Though to be fair only the BBC English network centres in Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester had OB facilities based on-site, Southampton, Norwich, Plymouth, Newcastle and Leeds were all just equipped for news studios, with minimal terrestrial microwave links facilities (short-notice, multicamera OBs would have been a stretch until the 90s)

Bristol and Birmingham then lost their OB facilities - leaving just Manchester - though the English regions gained SNG facilities which often included basic 2-3 ENG camera OB facilities (but not triax/SMPTE system cameras)