Regional advertising on ITV1

Has anyone else noticed an increase in regional adverts on ITV1 lately?

I don't know whether it depends on the region you watch,, but I'm watching ITV1 Westcountry via Sky at the moment, and during an ad break in You've Been Framed, there were FOUR regional adverts in a row! I have seen the occasional one or two ads in non-regional programmes in recent years, but never four in a row, not since the pre-2002 ITV days.

I thought regional companies advertising had decreased a lot since around 2002 when transmission transferred to London, but this made it look like the good old days of regionally controlled ITV!

And as I type, they've just had FIVE regional ads in a row!

The Channel region is an odd one. It actually has a lot of regional adverts, but they all advertise either Channels website, Channel TV itself or an invite to advertise on Channel. Actual commercial regional adverts are very few and far between. God knows how they make any money!

We in Granada-land seem to be getting more and more adverts for Shopping centres such as Trafford, Manchester (as a whole), Markets (Warrington/Altrincham/Ashton), Housing Units and random ones with Stuart Hall yelling.

I guess it's not too rare for ITV, it's more rare for Channel 4, I always find it odd when you see an ad usually for Edge Hill Univeristy (Ormskirk) on Channel 4.

If you want really cheap local adverts, I'd take a look at Channel M.

Possibly a result of the recession - bigger retailers not spending and, as a result, ITV is using more local businesses, paying less.

They seem to be becoming more noticeable because they're getting "bunched" on the servers to make playout easier.

You'll get three breaks in a row of all national adverts, probably the same ones in every region, then the fourth break will be a bunch of local ones, different in each (sub) region.

If they've increased in the last few days it's probably because post-Christmas advertising is cheaper

Has anyone noticed regional adverts on ITV1 Central recently? To be honest, I haven't spotted any myself. I wonder how many ITV regions have been showing regional ads in recent months?

I've noticed loads. All cheaply made and appear in blocks of 5 advertising Drayton Manor, A fair near the NEC and various other crap (Merry Hill and nWM).

As I say, I doubt that any major regional advertising would have been shown over the past few months when ad slots have been at their premium, I suspect it's only after Christmas Eve that the smaller advertisiers have had a look in

ITV Central has had quite a few Merry Hill adverts the past month, some in peaktime. I have also seen a Bullring and Birmingham one.

I was interested to hear about the adverts for Merry Hill and the NEC - I hadn't spotted these. I was surprised to hear that they looked cheaply produced - I remember old regional adverts of 20 or more years ago looking quite cheaply made but I didn't think they would still go for cheap production with modern-day regional ads.