I know that Londonners think that the world revolves around them and their city, so this is perhaps a thread for everyone who lives outside our esteemed capital.
On last night's BBC News at Six (Monday), main headline and top story was that Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, has been defeated in his attempt to stop privitisation of the London underground.
This is a very important story.
For everyone living in London.
This really has no relevance to people living north of Bedford (except those who travel to London, of course). It's tentative that this story should appear on national news at all, let alone be FIRST story!!
Of course, many London events do have relevance to the country as a whole; the Jeffrey Archer trial is a recent one which comes to mind. People across the country have read his books, and he is a major public figure. But how does the underground in London affect people living in Walsall?
When, in the Midlands, the 'Midland Metro' (a tram-like network, supposedly one of the most advanced in Europe) launched, was it top story on national news? I think not. And what's the difference? They're both regional transport systems.
Perhaps it's just me who doesn't think that London is the centre of the universe. What are your views?
BP
Big Phil
I was thinking exactly the same thing the other day!
Calm down! Point appeciated. But surely the emphasis was on the fact the Government was taken to court by one of its former MPs, and they won. Its not every day that happens.
Totally agree. It was given a lot of air time in Newsroom South-East on the lunchtime edition, which is fair enough, but main national headline is going a bit far.
This London/Kent split can't come quick enough for me....
to broaden the discussion somewhat; as a scottish viewer, in the last 10 years i have noticed there has been a slight improvement in the bbc's more general 'middle england-centric' reporting.
there was a time, for example, when the bbc referred to the national curriccullum as if it were relevant to all schoolchildren in britain. i remember my mum telling me that the newsreader was
wrong
because Scotland didnt have the same schooling system. throughout my early tv viewing years this was the case. how often, now, do you hear the phrase 'England and Wales' included into a headline or sentence in a news story? more than you ever used to. this is necessary for a television network which spans countires with different legal, education and many other systems.
it seems though that they still cant get over the self-absorption that comes from living in london too long.
I can see everyone's point on this and I agree with you whole heartidly. But the other thing you have to consider in the argument whether it is National or Regional headline news, is that a hell of a lot of tax payers money goes into the Underground, which arguably is being wasted because of mismanagement.
You're money is going down the pan with the Underground, not just Londoners. Which is why the court case was happening, to hopefully get it all re-organised in a sensible way instead of having too many cooks & burocracy.
MG
MikeG
I have to agree with you all but I don't think anything will change!
Yes! I didn't see any national bulletins that day but I did see the news channels.
News 24 had that awful breaking news aston up for ages and I couldn't understand why!
So what - the presenters and the newsroom staff are affected but it's a national service for god's sake.
I didn't see anything about the fact that there were firefighters on strike in Merseyside, yet if that was London they'd all be banging on about it for ages!
To quote Jasper Carrot : 'Why don't you just make the M25 into a moat and declare independence?'.
Further to Gavin's point, is there just one regional news programme for Scotland? I was looking at a BBC Regions map, and Scotland is three times bigger than an average sized English region! This surely isn't correct.
Silly me, I forgot. You don't live south of Luton. So you obviously don't count, like us.
Reporting Scotland is the only Scottish BBC region.
Hence they call Rep. Scot, the 'only national news programme for Scotland', or something like that.
The ITV Network has 2 franchises for Scotland. Scottish - 'serving central Scotland' and Grampian, the highlands and islands.
Scottish TV have the news programme 'Scotland Today', which keeps winning best regional news programme. Grampian have 'North Tonight' as their news programme.
AL
alexanderlebbon
I think it has something to do with the north south divide
yes, as chesh said, Reporting Scotland (
Scotland's National News Programme
) covers all of Scotland, highlands and islands inclusive. Ironically, both Scottish and Grampian Television, both being owned by SMG now tend to pool their news resources and leading scottish stories giving a
virtual
national network news service on channel 3.
to be fair though, it aint the size of your country its the size of your populous that counts. there simply (at the risk of offending my countrymen) aren't enough stories from the lesser populated regions of scotland to merit the amount of local broadcasts england receive. a nice comprimise would be to sub-opt to edinburgh, glasgow and aberdeen during our National News magazine.