Bizarre BBC Regions

In the topic entitled 'Which do you prefer: Your BBC Regional News or UK Today?', I pondered what the Cambridge opt-out of Look East would be called if it became a fully-fledged separate region. I thought of:

'BBC Western half of the East' (very silly)

'BBC South East Midlands' (slightly more credible, but not beyond dispute - after all, where does 'Midlands' end and NW/N/NE/E/SE/S/SW/W begin? It's a matter of personal opinion. Well, up to a point at least)

'BBC West Anglia' (Unusual but about the most accurate your likely to find)

So now it's down to you lot... what names do you think would have to be used for any such Hypothetical region splits?

(Edited by SittingOvation at 1:30 am on Aug. 8, 2001)

It has to be BBC Look East West!

When the Hull opt out starts they could call it Look North East. Then again it would be pretty sensible.

Of course instead of London Live, you could have Newsroom South East London.

You could also call the South Today oxford opt out - South Today North.

When the second Severn crossing opened, viewers in Wales and the West of England were treated to a special 'BBC 1 Wales & West' ident, and a joint programme, presented by Sara 'Wales Today' Edwards and Chris 'News West' Vacher.

It's a pity that at that time the West's programme was called 'News West', otherwise it would have been easy to make a good clever title:

'Wales Today Points West' has a certain ring to it.

This raises another point (no pun intended), it ought to be POINT West (no 's' on 'point'). This is because the 's' implies that a word or words should preceed 'points'. Examples: My finger points west; the needle of this compass points west (etc etc).

What poor use of the English language!

(Edited by SittingOvation at 2:36 am on Aug. 8, 2001)

Or how about 'Wales Points West Today'?

Thats a good one!

They could have called East Midlands Today - the Eastern side of the Midlands Today.

Rolls right off the tongue.

umm, dont think so. surely it means 'A news programme covering all points west of such and such'

donchathink?

I think 'Points West' does not use the word points as in the act of pointing towards something, it means points in the sense of places. So 'Points West' could really be read as 'Places West'. I suspect it was changed to News West as a result of that sort of English not really being used much now.

Loyal viewers don't like their programmes changing names - and carry on calling them by their old names when they do change! Bristol decided to change the show back to the name everyone was calling it anyway.

10 years after About Anglia became Anglia News most people in Norwich still call it About Anglia!

As for BBC East (Cambridge) I always hoped that they would use a globe/balloon announcement before a split programme :
'This is BBC One for the Eastern Shire Counties'

Look East actually recorded an announcement for Norwich which went :
'From the shores to the shires, here's all your local news in Look East'

Suggestions for Cambridge names :

Look East West
West Anglia today/tonight (not that West Anglia means anything to many people)

I suspect if the programmes did split it would be like Leeds and Newcastle and both would be called Look East.

Points West, I'm sure, is correct - if you imagine it in the sense of BBC Points West, as in 'the BBC points west'. It was changed to News West in the early 90s as a result of increased investment in local news at BBC West but was changed back to Points West in 2000 as most viewers hated the name News West and a lot of people still referred to it as being Points West anyway!

BBC East (Cambridge) could quite easily now be its own region and be called BBC Fenland (as Cambridge is in the fens) with a news programme Fenland Today. Meanwhile, BBC North (Hull)'s opt out could be called Look North Humber & Lincolnshire, or, if it was its own region it could be BBC Humber & Lincolnshire with its news programme Humber & Lincolnshire Today.

BBC 20 Miles around London
BBC My Backyard

Hmm... Not sure about using the fens as a description.

BBC Cambridge broadcasts to bits of Beds, Bucks, Herts, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire. These are not all 'fenland' - I think Luton and Milton Keynes might feel a bit left out being described as such - and there are fenland areas in Norfolk, Suffolk and Lincolnshire, which are outside the Cambridge patch. As the BBC regions and sub-regions become smaller, it is becoming increasingly difficult to think of original names for the areas. I notice BBC London is being used, even though it will also broadcast to areas of Essex, Surrey, Berkshire, Kent etc. (At least the old London Plus name implied there was more to cover - though the patch was much bigger)

Oh, and sorry to add to the nit-picking discussion about Points West, but listening to an old recording of the BBC One globe announcement before a (pre-News West) Points West it was 'Now on BBC One, the News from Points West' - which sort of reads as Now the News from Points in the West Country.

I still think the Points in the title of the programme is meant to refer to the points as a noun, rather than a verb, as in 'He went to points West' rather than 'He points West'. The old titles also used to have a three pointed triangle as well, where the 'points' appeared first. (The titles will be on TV Ark I think)

Oh, I hadn't thought of like that... well done! (bit obscure though)