When will OFCOM learn - ITV don't have a choice about regional news, it's a responsibility they have in their status as the nations main commercial channel.
They are still looking at it in complete isolation too - yes, regional news itself may not be profitable (and news as a whole has never been profitable), but other areas of ITV's business is and can more than cover the costs involved!
I know c4 doesn't have developed regions, But I think c4 would do a much better job of regional news. Their news hasn't fallen to sensationized news yet. I don't know how it would work, but I think it would be successful.
I know c4 doesn't have developed regions, But I think c4 would do a much better job of regional news. Their news hasn't fallen to sensationized news yet. I don't know how it would work, but I think it would be successful.
They've already said they won't be able to afford their current public service commitments much longer, they aren't going to suddenly start producing regional news.
Brekkie Boy posted:
OFCOM still doing ITV's work for them, basically justifying any future attempt by ITV to ditch the regional news:
When will OFCOM learn - ITV don't have a choice about regional news, it's a responsibility they have in their status as the nations main commercial channel.
They are still looking at it in complete isolation too - yes, regional news itself may not be profitable (and news as a whole has never been profitable), but other areas of ITV's business is and can more than cover the costs involved!
Post digital switchover, the whole market place will be opened up, the structure by which both C4 and ITV operated their licences will be no more and their 'privileged status' lost. This is a reaction to the changing landscape that OFCOM themselves have agreed to.
It is right in both cases that OFCOM should study the effects that this will have on the existing terrestrial broadcasters once the playing field is opened up. ITV have said they would continue to provide a regional service but highlighted where some regulatory measures could be relaxed in order for this to be sustained.
This is no different to the review instigated by C4 recently, when they raised the exact same concerns that they couldn't sustain public service programming under the current model without financial assistance.
The problem is of OFCOM's making, and they should look at ways to sustain these services post DSO, and if indeed they require the licencees of chanels 3 & 4 to continue to do so in a commercially competitive and fragmented landscape.
the structure by which both C4 and ITV operated their licences will be no more and their 'privileged status' lost.
being on channel number 3 on all platforms is quite a privilege
Yes, I grant you that, I should have said "reduced". The privilege of being one of only 4 (or 5) channels will be lost received in all homes. Maybe OFCOM should have an auction for the channel numbers.
However by virtue of that privileged status, ITV have other restrictions placed upon them (outside of the provision of regional content) that other commercial broadcasters do not and will not post DSO.
Why should C4 be a dumping ground for the things ITV don't want to do?
I was thinking last week with Blair going that now ITV aren't covering breaking news events in the way they used to, perhaps C4 could take it on to enforce their PSB credentials - but then I thought why the **** should they take on ITV's responsibilities?
All C4 taking on regional news would do it cut half an hour off C4 News each evening - and that would please no one.
ITV and C4 are designed to cater for very different PSB roles - ITV's generally the more mainstream PSB elements, with C4 the not so mainstream PSB responsibilities.
Why should C4 be a dumping ground for the things ITV don't want to do?
Sorry to turn this back on C4, but you are a bit blinkered sometimes in these respects. Who do you think will become the dumping ground for things C4 have said they can't afford to do ?
As far as I can see, neither Michael Grade or Andy Duncan have declared that they don't want to provide these services anymore, however that they require some form of regulatory change / relaxation (ITV) or financial support (C4) in order to continue to do so and to be sustainable post DSO.
It's not just the placement on the EPG that is in question, but the provision of whole DTT multiplexes to both ITV and C4.
If these two companies won't honour their PSB commitments, then BOTH should be thrown to the lions in this regard. Let's see how long they last when their channel 3/4 status is lost, and they don't have their own multiplexes to play with.
This is a question of principle -- they either have privileged status granted to them and honour their side of the bargain in turn, or they are treated like any other unregulated, commercial broadcaster.
If I were to set up a TV company and wanted to broadcast on channel 106 on Sky, I'd have to pay the company a bloomin' fortune for the rights. ITV and C4 get this effectively for free, and that can't be right if they are not a PSB.
All these people who are saying shove ITV down the EPG, You're forgetting that the EPG numbers are generally allocated with the oldest channels at the start and the new ones tagging on at the end. Hence why you've got the likes of Sky One, Living, UKTV Gold etc up on the first page too and these channels are hardly PSB broadcasters
Strangely enough, an absorption of the Bristol area into the Westward franchise was exactly what Peter Cadbury wanted. Peter was from Bristol and wanted to increase his franchise area to include his home town.
Peter Cadbury made no secret of the fact that he felt that Westward should cover the remainder of Somerset and Dorset and parts of Gloucesteshire aswell - indeed the sign on the building showed a larger transmission area than Westward actually had, but this doesn't necessarily mean he was right.
Logistically, there is no way that Westward could viably have provided a decent news service to such a large area in an age when all filmed footage would have to be sent pack to Plymouth (slap bang in the middle of the city centre of Plymouth too - no easily accessible shed on an industrial park like Westcountry has) for developing and editing prior to airing. Editorially, it would have been just as questionable then as it is today - with too many big places fighting for too little airtime, and smaller places not getting a look in. And financially, I very much doubt the company was strong enough to support a transmission area of this size.
Cadbury saw Westward as a super-brand which he ultimately wanted applied to all manner of things (not just TV) over a much larger patch than the ITA had given him. He might be remembered with rose tinted spectacles, but he's also arguably directly responsible for the demise of the station - the boardroom wrangling which was a large part of the IBA's decision not to grant Westward a renewal for 1982-1992 was largely his fault - he was pushing for the company to grow outside it's remit and outside it's area faster than it's means could support, and the result was Westward's death.
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but more because the government's whole switchoff plan would be hopeless if no-one actually knew what region they were in any more
Surely that's allready an issue - part of what was Central South is now HTV West, other parts of it are Meridian, others are Thames Valley. Thames Valley itself is also split partially between what used to be Meridian and what used to be Central South.
The original 3 stations all had different switchover dates, and the '4th' station is split between two of the original ones. Unless the switchover map is modified, then Central, Meridian, HTV West and Thames Valley will not switch cleanly - different parts of the region will switch at different times.
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Having said that, Bristol to Plymouth is not all that much further than Plymouth to Penzance.....
We can't agree on *everything*, Jason ... Penzance to Plymouth is 75 miles, Bristol to Plymouth is 120 miles - more than half as far on again.
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The Westcountry region is very long and sparse. To suggest merging it in with Bristol is a bit like merging Cumbria with Manchester -- fine in principle, but the viewers in the "sticks" would lose out greatly as all the murders and other nasties that inevitably swamp a big city push out the generally gentler stories from the rural area.
What people also don't consider is that HTV West is now bigger than it used to be because the Ridge Hill transmitter (and it's 15+ relays) which used to be part of Central South is now HTV West. Merging it with Westcountry is now more preposterous than ever before - if you travelled to the north eastern extremeties of an enlarged Westcountry, you'd find midlands accents and be less than an hour from Birmingham, but still be in the same TV region as those watching in Land's End!
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When will OFCOM learn - ITV don't have a choice about regional news, it's a responsibility they have in their status as the nations main commercial channel.
Indeed. And in fairness to ITV plc, they are only acting like an unrestricted capitalist company because they are being allowed to act like an unrestricted capitalist company. Prattle along the lines of 'this would never have happened if Thames was still here' is rubbish - ITV would have gone down this route in the 1960's if it was allowed to.
Also, sticking pins in voodoo dolls of the Carlton and Granada logos is similarly unfounded - they were simply the two big stations which made it to the endgame merger. Central and LWT would have done exactly the same thing given the chance, despite the pedestal they're put on now.
OFCOM needs to realise that they are not acting like a franchisor would in any normal franchise agreement. The whole point of a franchise is that a business is allowed to trade profitably but must do so within the framework that their franchisor lays down. If they can't do that then they break the agreement, are stripped of the franchise, and a company that can is appointed in it's place.
If OFCOM refuse to act like a franchisor then of course their franchisees will take advantage of this position and keep pushing for more and more - indeed ITV plc is now so complacent in their assertion that OFCOM will always back down that they no longer even bother to present their latest reforms as proposals, they just announce that they are going to and wait for OFCOM to tear up another card so that they can do it. Indeed, I have to admit that ITV's complacency is
justified
, because OFCOM (and the ITC before them) have a track record of doing exactly that, and a track record of getting slacker and slacker with each passing year.
As I've said before, OFCOM currently has no control over it's own franchisees. That is not a good position for a franchisor to be in. It is OFCOM which needs to change - there's no point in them holding all the cards if they're willing to tear them up to suit their franchisee's business - a situation made doubly worse when it can be taken for granted that OFCOM will
never
terminate an ITV station's franchise, no matter what they do.
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All these people who are saying shove ITV down the EPG, You're forgetting that the EPG numbers are generally allocated with the oldest channels at the start and the new ones tagging on at the end. Hence why you've got the likes of Sky One, Living, UKTV Gold etc up on the first page too and these channels are hardly PSB broadcasters
True, Sky did give the existing channels precedence, but it's only the original analogue terrestrial channels which have a right to 'due prominance' in any EPG; Sky does not have to guarantee that it will always keep UK Gold and Living on the first page, but it does have to keep BBC1 in the top slot.
And as I've said allready, on top of everything else, if all these regional cutbacks and future proposed regional cutbacks did genuinely result in us having a spankingly top notch national commercial broadcaster as a result, then I'd have an easier time accepting them. But they don't. What's often not discussed in these threads is that the quality of ITV's network output and of it's digital channels is diminishing just as fast as the quality of it's regional service. I don't really see where they're going to go other than down.
... Penzance to Plymouth is 75 miles, Bristol to Plymouth is 120 miles - more than half as far on again.