Regional ITV1 on Sky

Indeed -- Clive Jones will head up the new ITV News division of ITV plc, which will have responsibilty for national news on ITV1, regional news on ITV1 in England and Wales, and the News Channel. Additionally, this is the division of ITV plc where it is most likely ITN will end up when it is fully snapped up by ITV plc.

I suspect they will be having a thought on regional news, probably including names of these programmes, if eventually they are going to get rid of old franchise names for more generic terms like North West, South etc.

I have it on good authority that ITV is planning to make more sub-regions available on Sky. Unfortunately I don't know a timescale or how many are likely to be included.

Please will someone tell me (or point me to link or website) how to manually tune in the other regions. Does it work for all Sky packages?

Press the Services button, then add channels, then manually add the frequencies (they used to be available from the FAQ's on the top of this page but they can also be found here) - http://www.kingofsat.net/freqs.php?pos=28.2E

Should work with all Sky digiboxes, not sure of any makes without a 'add channels' option.

By Spring 2004.

It would be fantastic to get more ITV1 sub-regions on Sky. How definite is this?

Why is Border, being one of the smallest ITV regions, the only one to have both variations on Sky?

Because Border Scotland shows Scottish Football and shows like Scottish and Grampian, and Border England shows english shows like Granada, YTV and Tyne Tees.

I hope this means ITV are renting a couple of new transponders - if they squeeze any more services on their current set the picture quality will drop even further. It seems to be the worst of the "terrestrials" on DSat - though Channel Four is often just as bad... (I think Five is the highest quality on DSat - and also on Freeview)

1. It shows more regional variations than most other sub-regions (i.e. more than just local news and local ads) because it shows different sport.

2. Politically the service covers two "nations" - Scotland and England - and politically not to provide both versions would be tricky. (The Scots would be up in arms if only the English version were carried and vice versa...)

Meridian - South yes, South East no, Thames Valley no.

Central - West yes, East no, South no.

Yorkshire/Calendar - West sub-opt yes, East sub-opt no, South sub-opt no.

West Country - South sub-opt yes; North, East, West sub-opts no.

Anglia - West yes, East no.

Border (England) and Border (Scotland) are both available.

I think Tyne Tees' news has sub-opts, but I don't know how many, what they are (e.g. "north" and "south", or whatever), or which one is on Sky.

Is this right, then, that ITV are planning to put more sub-regions on Sky? If so when & how do we know??