Should (and could) ITV regionalise again?

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Channel 3 no longer has the privileged status it had back in the years when analogue terrestrial was the mainstay of TV broadcasting. If people want to watch Corrie they will do so regardless of what channel it is on.

ITV doesn’t really mean anything anymore. It hasn’t for nearly 2 decades. It’s a brand name and is trading as such with some impressive products. ITV could be anywhere on the spectrum and still pull in viewers. I can see in 10 years time maybe even less ITV just becoming a pure streaming service on satellite and cable and dropping all PSB provisions and maybe just being a prime time service.

Forget it, you can speculate it as much as you want, but ITV are never going to leave LCN3

We can take that as a given.

The locations of main transmitters were determined in the 50s and 60s, primarily to provide national coverage from as few sites as possible. Regional considerations were secondary,

Belmont was always a 'Northern' regional transmitter for the Beeb BTW.

Several of sites cover regionally 'no mans land'

Caldbeck (Straddles England and Scotland)
Oxford
Belmont
Bilsdale
Sandy Heath

Then there's Wenvoe and Carmel that between them do a fantastic job at providing Welsh channels to the North Devon and Somerset coast

PSB requirements are negligible to ITV, they've weakened over time and ITV simply got used to it as if it's a non-issue. DCMS/Ofcom will keep awarding the licences ad infinitum as long as ITV stay on top of its PSB commitments and whatever new commitments they will have to follow.

However, if ITV does lose 3, it would still be a force not to be reckoned with and the new Channel 3 licence holders would not only have to offer something to the same standard quickly and have financial backing but also to deal with ITV itself as an additional competitor. Knowing that such a move would be unpopular and confusing amongst the public nowadays, it wouldn't happen.

ITV want to have their cake and eat it.

I think that there is a lack of vision for the future of ITV amongst the political community and even British society as a whole. Apart from a small number of folk on TVF and similar websites, nobody really seems to discuss anything about the future of ITV. This is probably the strongest driving force behind the DCMS simply re-awarding the Channel 3 licences to ITV in 2024 rather than considering an alternative.

If there was more public interest in an alternative future for ITV and Channel 3 then things could be different in 2024...

To be honest 99% of people don't give a fig about the future of ITV. So long as they're able to watch Corrie etc then that's them satisfied. Sad but true

There is a big question whether it is necessary, or even desirable, that a privately owned, strongly profit driven, and popular mass entertainment centred TV channel should even have any PSB requirements in this day and age or after 2024, or whether it is clearly an anachronism from the past.

I think that the biggest concern with the DCMS not re-awarding ITV the Channel 3 licence in 2024 is the potential loss of a news service and the mass redundancies of staff who worked in the ITV news departments. Apart from the general lack of vision for the future of ITV and Channel 3, this is ITV's saving grace when comes to perpetually being awarded the Channel 3 licence.

ITV News/ITN is one of the best aspects of commercial television. I think if the DCMS had a viable alternative to the current news setup which had provision for both regional and national/world coverage possibly with say Reuters linking up with the news departments of ITN/regional news then there could be a "Reuters News Network" (RNN) being contracted by ITV to provide news.

Sounds like the basis of a good game show, Michel Barnier could be the talent...