Radio Times

Just something I've been wondering about, how many regional versions of the Radio Times are made,

Does Grampian share with Scottish or have one on its own?
also what about the former HTV regions and does Channel have its own or share with Meridian?

I wouldn't have thought Channel would share with Meridian. The Radio Times is done by area, not which companies like each other. It's most likely to share with Westcountry. I'm not sure about Scotland - as they also contain the Border listings.

There are two sold in my area; Yorkshire/North East (Look North Hull, Look North Leeds, Look North Newcastle) and Midlands (east Midlands today, Midlands Today). I noticed on holiday that there is also a North Western edition as well which covers the North West Tonight area.

So that's three at least......

Does Channel Television still publish 'Channel TV Times'?

I don't think there is a specific Channel Islands edition of 'Radio Times' myself.

Does S4C still publish 'Sbec'?

There isn't an edition that carries all the regional variations for most magazines.
North/Yorkshire and North East/Tyne Tees share main listings with Border, Central and Scotland in the variations
Central/Midlands and East Midlands share main listings with Wales, Anglia Granada and maybe a few others in the regional variations.

I know there was an NTL version of the Radio Times and I think it is still in publication.

I also know that there is a North West version, but it covers variations for Wales, Yorkshire and the Midlands. I think there is an issue for every major region. Though other magazines tend to base itself round ITV regions, I think for us we can get a Granada/Central version of TV Times.

Though when I went to Leeds a couple of years ago most of the TV Guides were for Yorkshire and Tyne Tees, with no seperate versions or anything.

I still have an Anglia version of the Radio Times from 2001 somewhere.

I still have a TV and Satellite Week from 1997 and for ITV it gives the main listings for Granada and Central, when they had different schedules!

The one in my region has the title - Scotland/Border, but that is only for the Scottish part of the Border TV region. It has two ITV columns, one for STV and one for Grampian. There is not a separate column for Border TV, but it appears in the regional variations section, with the only real changes being Border News / Lookaround or Taking Sides.

There's still a "Wales/West" edition, Andrew.

It's probably the edition with the smallest print. They ought to issue magnifying glasses with every issue!

The local radio pages are given over to three quarters of a page for Radio Wales, three quarters for Radio Cymru; then just three columns for Radios Somerset, Bristol, Wiltshire, Swindon, Gloucestershire, Hereford & Worcester.

BBC Two television's normal column is mainly split vertically in two to cover the West Analogue, Wales Analogue and Wales Digital (2W) services.

The BBC One and ITV columns are also split vertically where there are variations, but, thankfully, not quite as much as the Two column.

Channel Four is in the "normal" position, with S4C (Analogue) down a "micro-column" on the left hand side, above a tiny space for all other regional variations.

A nightmare for us varifocal wearers!

Just to make it clear I'm talking about sharing as in sharing the main body of the listings like Yorkshire and Tyne Tees do, ignore the small print regional variations bit.


Talking about radio, for some reason the Yorkshire/North East edition carries BBC Local Radio listings for all stations in Yorkshire and the North East, and the North West and Scotland for some reason, never really sure why they do that. If they removed the stations not relevant they could put more detail on those that are.

here's my expertise as a journalism student kicking in

Radio Times is produced in London. All versions are laid out and typed up in London - eg there will be a Wales desk, a Look North Desk, a Westcountry/South desk etc. All these versions are sent to the printers in batches - eg X-thousand of the Wales edition, Y-thousand of the North edition. These batches are then distributed to the various points around the UK - probably by WHSmith News Distribution

Now - this is the problem. You start making a version for every possible variation and you start losing money. By covering larger areas - like having Radio Wales listings in a West edition - you produce fewer variations, employ less people, print less copy and save money.

A good comparison is the Mirror's I Love Telly magazine. Again that's produced in London but is regionalised. Each version goes with the batch of newspapers heading for that region. In Cornwall (where I'm at uni) we get Westcountry/Meridian I Love Tellys.

And the reason that Radio Wales/Cymru has full-page listings is because they are national stations to Wales and therefore have bigger mandates and more variation in their schedules which neccessitate larger area.

Hope that helps.

I presume those same pages appear in the North West edition too so they don't have to produce the page twice and can just duplicate it..

I notice in one of the cheaper magazines the left hand pages for BBC1/2 have England printed at the bottom of them so presumably they are the same no matter where in England you are, while the right hand page ITV/4/5 is more regionalised witht he region name printed.

Most cheaper magazines just print "Local News Programme" or similar at 6:30pm, 1:30pm and 10:35pm. Radio Times lists the programme name and sometimes the presenters. There are very few regional non-news programmes on the BBC, if any. There are loads on ITV1 - Dragons Eye in Wales for example.