OFCOM slash ITV's regional quota

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/broadcasting/a78991/ofcom-slashes-itvs-regional-output-quotas.html

Actually not as bad as I thought - they're cutting the minimum requirement from 4 hours a week to 3 hours a week from 2009.


However - there is no way the English regions have four hours a week of regional programming. At most they had an hour late on Thursday and an hour in the 7.30pm slot twice a week. And much of this content is now pan-regional.

Technically, then, it's not a 'quota', it's a 'requirement'. A quota is something you are obliged not to exceed . A requirement is something you are obliged to meet, if not exceed.

Another example of OFCON incompetence then...

I'm confused by this...

The quota is four hours a week for STV, UTV and ITV Wales... but 1 hour and 30 minutes a week in the English regions. That's been the case since 2005.

It was always the plan to cut the figure in 2009 to three hours in the nations and thirty minutes in the English regions.

How's your job at The Sun going Brekkie?

I would have though you'd know better not to just post stories from DS

The regional quota for non news programmes on ITV1 in England is 1 hour 30 mins, 30 mins of which must be current affairs

I'm sure STV has 6 or 7 hours a week, at least

From Next year STV News output will rise by another 3hours.

Its an average over the year though surely? Sometimes there are more than 1 hour 30 mins a week in the English regions - they have had 6pm on a Sunday, 2 x 7.30pm slots and 1 hour on a Thursday late in the past.

Wales also have a lot more than 3 hours a week - in addition to the same slots the English regions get they have 8pm on a Monday, at least 2 regional programmes late on a Monday when England get a film, and midnight on Thursday.

Inevitable. Maybe in the new 2008 schedules regional shows will be fewer but more prominent.

I didn't think it was right but couldn't find any other reports about it to contradict it - so threw it here.


So that's just a badly written article then - but what about the Channel Islands - surely they're just the same as the rest of England.


P.S. Do these pan-regional programmes count as local programming. Have OFCOM even covered the issues, say limiting the number of regions it's shown in - or could ITV just get away with showing something in all the regions and passing it off as a local programme.

I believe there is a rule that 10% of regional programmes are allowed to be shown in up to 3 franchise areas, all others must be unique to the region. This may not be exact but it's something like that

In all likelihood they'll be even less prominent. The old chestnut about 'quality over quantity' was bandied about by ITV when the drastic cutbacks started in 2003. It hasn't happened. Regional shows have just continued to become more and more drab along with continued graveyard scheduling in order to make sure they do badly so that ITV can justify ending them all together.

I don't understand why OFCOM and ITV are prolonging the agony on the issue of regional output. These cutbacks are no more likely to be a final solution any more than any of the others were. Regional programmes will continue to be cut and cut until only the news is left. Regional news itself will become increasingly merged and less and less relevant (I note that the absolutely preposterous idea of closing down Westcountry and creating one gigantic news region from Lands End right up into what used to be part of Central apparantly will happen) and eventually it will go alltogether - whilst all the while ITV will claim they are comitted to regional output and OFCOM will claim they are upholding ITV's commitment to it.

In my view ITV is allready a lost cause, it's been cut back to the bone over the last 10 years in order to make a few people a lot of money, and the final straw will come when it is eventually sold off. I can see no realistic chances of revival (either as a regional or a national broadcaster) with the current regulator and the current ownership. They'd be better off applying to OFCOM to dump all their regional output now and end it in a graceful way whilst it still has some semblence of credibility left as a regional network rather than continue to run it down year on year.

I'll say it again - I do not understand why OFCOM refuse to regulate and control ITV. Apart from their role as a regulator, they are also franchisor of a regional network. ITV plc and the few other companies left are franchisees which have entered into an agreement to trade within the framework that the franchisor has set to ensure the integrity of that trading style - regardless of whether or not they are minimising costs and maximising profits as much as they could do were they not operating under a franchise.

In no normal franchise agreement would a franchisor change the rulebook seemingly on demand in order to accomodate a franchisee's business. People often mention the dismantling of the PSB ethos of ITV and moving towards a wholey capitalist style of operating as being 'just business' as if it's perfectly normal. It's not - this is not franchising done in any normal way, and the relationship between OFCOM and ITV plc is about as unusual as any business relationship can get. There are hundreds of possible conspiracy theories that could be dredged up, but whether or not there's any truth in them, something very weird is happening.

Sadly, we'll never know quite what that is, and we're going to loose our once unmatched regional TV network as a result of it.

[/RANT]

Extremely well put. Although I wish I could say that I envisage a future for ITV where they really care about regionality, that would be lying.

I have to share the views of cwathen on this matter, and it really is a shame - depending on your outlook, either I have little faith, or I'm being realistic; time will tell.

This is not just an OFCOM thing.

The quality of ITV's regional output has been in a state of terminal decline since the mid-1990s -- accelerated since 2001.

ITV have followed a carefully-prepared plan to wind down regional television, and I agree with Chris that OFCOM, but also the ITC have done very little about it -- indeed they have been seemingly complicit on a number of occasions.

That the law was actually on the regulators' side, and at any point the brakes could have been put on the slide, is to the regulators' eternal discredit.

One cannot blame ITV for this -- they're a business, and if they could get away with showing wall-to-wall soaps and reality shows, that's exactly what they would do. The regulators, and by extension the government, are responsible for the state of affairs we find ourselves in.