ITV has told its staff it wants to cut the number of regional news services in the UK to 9. At the moment there are 17. In the letter, executive chairman Michael Grade says ITV wants to make savings of between £35-£40 million pounds a year on its regional TV budget. The letter says the broadcaster currently spends £120 million a year on regional services -- most of that going on TV news. Grade says the current system is not sustainable -- and change is the only way it can carry on creating high quality, well resourced news programmes. ITV says it's going to put its proposals to the broadcast regulator Ofcom.
I can see both the positives and negatives of this idea. On the plus side, it would be more effective, as currently small regions struggle to fill programmes with credible news on a daily basis. Even in the Granada region, which is quite large, some days the agenda can be rather questionable.
On the other hand, if regions are made too large, the problem would be that there may be too much news in any given day, and some areas will not be covered sufficiently given time constraints.
The obvious negatives would be the lack of local identity as well as job cuts.
I'm guessing the Anglia News East and West programmes will get merged together into just one. Though Look East style 'West opt-out' for part of the programme would be nice. In instances such as the above whilst having more local news is handy it's not always worth giving a whole half hour for a relatively small area. These sort of sub-opt-outs are presumably cheaper than giving that area an entire regional news bulletin, though obviously its cheaper still not to have a sub-opt-out at all.
Ulster,
Scottish (STV South / STV North),
Wales,
London,
South (Meridian / Thames Valley / Channel)
West (ITV West / Westcountry)
Midlands and East Anglia (Central / Anglia)
North West (Granada / Border England West)
North East (TT / Yorkshire / Border England East)
Ulster,
Scottish (STV South / STV North),
Wales,
London,
South (Meridian / Thames Valley / Channel)
West (ITV West / Westcountry)
Midlands and East Anglia (Central / Anglia)
North West (Granada / Border England West)
North East (TT / Yorkshire / Border England East)
Close, non-itv plc regions arent included. so its
London
Central (with e and w opts)
Granada
Meridian (one opt for e, combined opt for s & w)
Yorkshire
Anglia
West / Westcountry (west opt. Westcountry opt)
Tyne Tees / Border (TT opt, border opt)
Wales