Radio Times

Just looking through this weeks Radio Times and noticed (on page 147) that subscriptions are now showing a joint London, Anglia & Midlands edition only.

Any idea when this is taking place or is this just error?

If it is true then that would be one of the most stupid regions ever concieved in British history!

Yeah because the programmes in London are so much diffrent from those in the midlands!

I'm surprised they even have different editions for England. Maybe the regions are for advertising?

The completely stupid thing about all this is that there are minimal differences in the television and network radio programmes through England, the biggest differences are in local radio.

Yet the Radio Times already prints exactly the same local radio details in all the English editions for anywhere south of a line through The Wash.

The Radio Times is in the quality listings market and therefore being able to list regional programmes in some sort of detail is expected

Having an 'England edition' and fitting in the name of about a dozen programmes in a tiny font like some of the cheaper magazines do is not what people would expect to see

But dont Whats on TV which is one of the cheaper magazines have more regional editions than TV Times which is far more expensive?

You're right Jez - TV Times (ahem) has one edition for England I believe.

Whats on TV, TV Choice and TV Quick all still have the West/Wales (HTV) version, whilst TV Times and Radio Times we get a Wales only version. TV Easy is a Wales/Scotland edition I think.

For advertising reasons? There's a much more blindingly obvious reason for regional editions, that everyone seems to have missed!

We're all talking about the TV listings bit of the magazine, but are overlooking the big clue in the magazine's name : Radio Times !

If there were ever an "England Edition", the radio listings section would have to include every BBC (English) Local Radio station! - which would mean either A a ridiculously small font size with even less programme detail than now; B less features elsewhere in the magazine, to allow for more radio pages, or C a fatter magazine to allow for more radio pages without sacrificing features, which would inevitably push the cover price up.

Is the RT legally obliged to list all local radio stations though? Maybe when it was the BBC's official Radio Listings magazine, but nowadays I guess it's just a TV listings magazine that's retained its old title..

They did briefly ditch local radio listings in November 1990 in favour of features on local radio, but restored them in March 1991, presumably due to reader complaints...