ITV HD Regions on Freeview

Advertising. The South East macro region is more lucrative than the South macro region. News/regionality don't count in the decision making process as it's not a profit centre for ITV. If a handful of viewers get the wrong news/weather but see the more expensive ads then that's a win for ITV.

That makes sense, thanks.

Though I'm sure the only limitation is what ITV want to pay for.

Though ITV shelling out for the extra infrastructure to have more PSB3 regions would presumably mean that it would be cheaper for the BBC to add theirs should they want to. Maybe that's why ITV haven't done it?

Maybe, I'm not suggesting the bottleneck is anything other than financial, and as you say if ITV want to pay up for the glue, the BBC will get on with it (They have to under the terms of the Ofcom PSB 3 licence !)

A technicality... Meridian South is a Micro not macro region.

ITV's official line is:


On Freeview, the region structure in England is based on the original Macro regions - Northern Macro (covering Granada, Yorkshire, Tyne Tees, Border with the Granada feed acting as the feed), MidWest macro (Central, West and Westcountry - the macro predates the merger of West and Westcountry to form 'West Country' with Central West acting as the main feed), South East macro (Anglia, Meridian, with Meridian SE acting as the main feed) and London (all on its own).

On satellite, additional test feeds, including Yorkshire East HD have recently materialised. Not seen or heard of any developments that indicate any regionalisation of BBC-B on Freeview - I suppose ITV might have hoped for the BBC to move along with regionalising BBC One HD and piggybacked on that for free!

So I think in summary what I saw this morning (Meridian South on Hannington ITV HD) was a cock up ?

Yes.

Watching Meridian (on Sky) a over the last couple of weeks, and there have been a few occasions where they have played South East weather on South and vice versa. (Inserted into the wrong news bulletin)

As I understand it there's been a lot of internal politics between the BBC and ITV regarding further regionalisation of the PSB 3 HD mux.

I gather ITV are keen to move as many regions (and sub regions) as possible to HD, hence the greater selection of regions in HD on satellite. They would like Freeview to be the same, but CCM isn't currently equiped to code and mux that many regions.

The trouble is from what I understand ITV don't want to bear the full cost of regionalising PSB 3 futher because it would also be of benefit to the BBC when the eventually decide to regionalise BBC One HD. It would therefore effectively result in the BBC getting the infrastructure to broadcast their regions for free at full cost to ITV. Likewise the BBC don't want to pay for something they can't currently use as many of their regions aren't equipped for HD, so there's a stalemate going on in which ITV want the BBC to share the cost but the BBC won't.

Reallly they need to sort it out and just to get on it, here in the Anglia region we currently get Meridian on Freeview which isn't even remotely relevent to us. I never understood why they chose to give us Meridian, I understand it's because they've created an ads macro region, but really London would have been a better compromise.


This might not neccessarily be the case.

Wrong inserts (e.g. weather) in the news bulletins are operational errors at the regional studios, or has been the case lately often intentional in order to simply the operation to reduce the staff required. Completely the wrong bulletin going out would suggest the "mistake" is at ITV Pres (Red Bee).

The SD services are downscaled from the HD services, so if the SD channel got the right bulletin that would suggest ITV/Red Bee have switched the feed to PSB 3 from South East to South. Which could be either intentional or a playout mistake.

As itv never opt they can go regionally HD without any of their regional studios being HD equipped
but the BBC who opt in the region (and seamlessly as well)
need to do more work ....
and ideally have carried out their now ( just) published intent to make the studios HD ....
There has always been this tension ....
and even the BBC seeing and rejecting never opting to be like itv

But a bit of the pump priming funding could be applied to make a new code and mux for PSB 3 (after all it has been wasted in putting broadcasting in the middle if the mobile band )
or mandate HD only PSB emission a la now ennobled Vaizey plan .. probably best opportunity wasted
It is not as simple as just itv or BBC regionalising.
But it is a by product of 13 years if BBC income being reduced ....

As a final thought
But what would be the situation if Siemens/Atos were still doing c&m ..?
And if you wait a year or two coding and mux could become a lot cheaper
As it virtualises .
.

As the early morning bulletins for one half of the Meridian region is pre-recorded a few minutes before transmission, it's possible that technical issues meant that the SE version either couldn't be recorded or it failed. In such circumstances, the normal procedure would be to run the 'live' Meridian bulletin (in this case from the South) to all.

There are two separate issues here. The upgrading of the BBC regional sites to HD doesn't mean that those regions shouldn't be seen on BBC 1 HD in their respective regions. Upscaling them to HD will improve their quality. They look frankly diabolical via SD (they actually look better on my telly via iplayer)

All ITV regional sites are native HD now, regardless whether they are viewable in HD.

I don't get this seamless opting thing you talk about? ITV regional news bulletins are opted in and out by router salvos at Chiswick and Leeds I think, and the very randomly timed ones in GMB are switched via commands from GMB's gallery? It works very well, and is far from clunky. I'd say it's less clunky than the Beeb's system?

It's 2020 now, and for the UK with its two primary PSBs to still be faffing around with their SD versions on the primary EPG positions, and giving folk in Cornwall news and ads about Birmingham is the stuff of tinpot countries. Oh.. hang on.....

I've always understood Technologist's descriptions as

On the BBC the regional news studios opt themselves.

On ITV, the network playout opts for them.

The BBC's opt appears seamless and like it was done automatically, despite the fact it was a actual person doing it.