New Radio Times regions?

I managed to pick up a Midlands edition this week. Normally I can only find the Yorshire/North East one unless I go into Morrisons. I wonder if they've altered the distribution too.

I wonder how long before they merge the North West and Yorkshire/Tyne Tees editions into a pan-North edition? Seems a bit strange if the North West still gets an edition to itself when everyone else has to share, especially when they're happy to have just one edition covering the South, West and South West.


This has been done in the past, first between 1986-89, which prompted complaints that programme detail had been sacrified to make way for 'waffle', then again for a few months in 1990-91 in which to they did away with the programme listings altogether, cue more complaints.

The problem is now that local radio listings have diminished so much - it looks like Radio Times now just have three local radio regions, South/West/East, Midlands and North. This means the London/Anglia and South/West/South West editions end up containing only basic listings for half of all the stations in England. It was a good idea to have local radio features when each edition only contained listings for three or four stations, but now they have listings for 19 stations across two pages, I just don't think it's very likely!

They haven't actually reduced the amount of editions have they, just relocated West from Wales to the South?

Re the radio issue, if they just covered radio stations that matched the tv listings they'd be able to get a decent level of description in for each station even with just the 2 pages.


A question for older viewers, did they have regional listings in the RT before listings deregulation in 1991, it just seems a bit of a waste of time to print regional BBC1 & BBC2 listings just for the name of the 6.30pm programme on Monday

From what I've seen on TV & Radio Bits' section I think there was just one pan-edition as the names of all Regional News programmes appeared in that slot.

Maybe they should change the title to Television Times. The Radio Times is also about radio and should have radio details. Should the magazine have 4 pages of local radio listings.

I've been colleting RT magazines since 1992 and most of them are from my area. In the days when Radio Scotland listings appeared on the National radio pages, There used to be a two page feature on Scottish programmes previews on the page the English local radio listings was at the time.

Yes they did.

This from Tuesday 2nd September 1969:-
http://www.uncleblink.fsnet.co.uk/Store/rt1.jpg

This from Monday 20th November 1978:-
http://www.uncleblink.fsnet.co.uk/Store/rt2.jpg

I think the reason the NI edition of the Radio Times shows Welsh listings is because the Wales & West editions of the Radio Times and the TV Times were circulated in the Republic of Ireland along with the NI/Ulster editions up until the 1980s.

The RoI can pick up the UK channels from Wales along the east coast south of Dublin. With the advent of cable and MMDS the numbers watching the UK channels from Wales have dropped as these services carry BBC NI and UTV. Plenty of people along the south east coast still pick up BBC Wales/HTV/S4C directly and many of these can pick up Freeview.

The Welsh listings are presumably there to facilitate those RoI readers who pick up the UK channels from Wales rather than NI.

Funny that the Scottish listings aren't included though given the easy reception of BBC Scotland, Scottish TV and Border in the Belfast area.

But 'TVTimes' has both Scotland and Wales variations in its Ulster edition, hasn't it?

I've got this weeks RT and its changed from Meridian&West and Wales to Central,Anglia,London,Wales&Channel! And they mention Puffin's
Pla[i]ce in the Channel part!

Don't think that's a Radio Times that you're talking about, there, Sir.

Look back in this thread and you'll see a list of the new RT regions, which DON'T include the seemingly enormous one you're mentioning.

Cor, Cartoon Time with Clement Freud. TV really was classier in those days. Unless of course he was very different back then and was the 1969 equivalent of Dick and Dom.

The NI edition of the Radio Times is de facto the ROI edition also, in that its the one that's distributed here. In fact, I think at one stage it just said "Ireland" on the front cover, though it says "N IRELAND" these days. As well as the Wales listings (which most Irish newspapers have, for the reasons outlined above, even though viewing of the Welsh versions is now limited mainly to those watching via deflectors in the south east), it also carries RTE1, RTE2, and TV3 listings (no TG4 last time I checked though).

The TV TImes Ulster edition is also distributed here, and does much the same from what I remember.

Incidently, the RTE Guide until recently (may still do) still carried a credit "BBC Programme Listings (C) BBC Enterprises Limited, ITV/C4 Programme Listings, (C) ITP Limited". Never changed to BBC Worldwide / IPC.