Border Scotland gone

ITV Border Scotland has disappeared from Sky. Viewers in the South of Scotland now get "ITV Border." That means the opt-out facility, which allowed Scottish-interest programming to be screened to part of the Border region, has gone. It hasn't been used since the news operations merged with Tyne-Tees anyway and ITV recently refused to take STV's rugby programme for screening on "Border Scotland" . The opt was regularly used in the past for programmes like Scotsport, when it existed, Scottish clubs in chasmpions league action, Scottish rugby coverage, Hogmanay programmes and Scottish party election broadcasts. It will be interesting to see what happens at the next election. The SNP may well complain if ITV doesn't screen its broadcasts to southern Scotland.

THIS WELL lead to complaints, STV and ITV are in talks about borders

BorderSco is still available on Add Channels.

But that fed by the same service as what was Border England. As mentioned above, there have been no splits since the news merged.

Indeed... but it still would have been theoretically possible to splt transmission in the former Border area.

The issue about Party Political Broadcasts is an interesting one, albeit one which will only catch the imagination of the political classes. The SNP will not be happy if their PPBs cannot be shown on ITV in southern Scotland. I can imagine a court case as the party is very judicious on these matters...

Can anyone confirm exactly which regions are now coming up on 103 as default options and where there have been significant changes in the boundaries? Have, say, Tyne Tees South, Yorkshire East and some of the Central and Meridian variations gone too. I know these variations are still available on Add Channels but I dare say, like Border Scotland, they won't actually go completely for a few weeks.

Kinda, the transmission chain doesn't exist in it's entirety anymore and has been paralleled at the encoder for months.

The laughable thing about it is that Sky sent out mailshots last week to their subscribers in the Border region saying that "ITV1 is changing"...!

In the early days the opt out was ok, not great though .The only things I remember were Scotsport ,High RD and the A Capital New Year and it was a realy poor pre recorded announcement ...Your With Border....there was also a realy naff Scotsport one they even kept the same ones initially after the continuity was moved to London from Leeds.

I don't know why they bothered because it was a waste of time I think that Border did provide a pre recorded news bulletin for Scotland .I think Border Scotland was long gone before the change to Lookaround though they didn't opt out that often.

It does amuse what happened to Border in the end though.The staion pretty much ignored South Scotland throughout the years and they are the first to complain about how badly the region had been treated by ITV when Lookaround was moved to Tyne Tees. I do think that Lookaround is much more polished now i like Pam Royale.

It's sad really, after a lot of trouble to ensure that both countries versions of the PSB DTT muxes would be available from the re-built Caldbeck mast. I suppose the only difference on Digital3/4 between the two will now be Channel4's adverts?

It's more than sad. It meabns that we have now re-entered the "dark ages" as far as access to Scottish-interest programming for viewers in the south of the country is concerned. The Border Scotland opt was created to allow better local news coverage but also to allow wider Scottish-interest programmes to be screened. It didn't totally work because it still appeared a bit half-hearted. Now we have a "local" news service which, in the mornings, at lunchtimes and at weekends, almost totally ignores the South of Scotland. People in the Western Isles can watch a rugby programme screening matches featuring the Edinburgh and Glasgow pro teams, the former side contains many players from the Borders. If it's good enough for Stornoway it should be equally good for Selkirk. People in Peebles, less than 30 minutes drive from Scotland's capital, get more news about Newcastle and York than they do about their own area, and virtually nothing from Edinburgh, even though ITV promised to have a dedicated reporter at the Scottish Parliament. Border was tolerated for decades, partly because of the local news coverage but also because it did make good local documentaries and other programming across the region. And, latterly, because the Border Scotland opt helped people in the Scottish Borders and Dumfries and Galloway feel they were only semi-deatched from their own country. Remember Scotland has its own parliament, legal system, education system, national church etc. With ITV Border as it currently operates we are effectively exiled by our "local" ITV station.

No. I'm told both the English and Scottish D3/4 muxes from Caldbeck are identical, which as you say makes a non sense of having two services from the transmitter in the first place !

Still got Meridain North here in North Hampshire on Sky 103, (and because it's on Astra 2B it's encrypted).

However although the news is the same as Meridian South, the ads are still different.