Take a look at BBC Midlands Today (with Nick and Suzanne) to see the bestg watched it for a local news programme on the BBC. Points West doesn't come close having been in the region for a week (and the so-called news nonsense about the snow was a disgrace, a few inches of snow and people develop a neurotic condition down there, talk about a namby-pamby society!). I spent time in Canada, where it really snows!
Take a look at BBC Midlands Today (with Nick and Suzanne) to see the bestg watched it for a local news programme on the BBC. Points West doesn't come close having been in the region for a week (and the so-called news nonsense about the snow was a disgrace, a few inches of snow and people develop a neurotic condition down there, talk about a namby-pamby society!). I spent time in Canada, where it really snows!
Fancy having another go, preferably in English, as I honestly cannot make head nor tail of what you're trying to say there.
Jane's freelance now, although she presented the West GMTV bulletin on Tuesday morning.
A few of the established presenters have left / gone freelance, including the lovely Fiona Wilson who I feel was under-used at HTV. I would've had Fiona as one of the main presenters of The West Tonight as cover for Lisa Aziz.
Jane's freelance now, although she presented the West GMTV bulletin on Tuesday morning.
A few of the established presenters have left / gone freelance, including the lovely Fiona Wilson who I feel was under-used at HTV. I would've had Fiona as one of the main presenters of The West Tonight as cover for Lisa Aziz.
It surprised me when I saw Jane today talking to David Emanuel. It's good to see her on the welsh news and it'll help improve the stock of reporters on itvwales.
I thought Jane was putting on a hint of a welsh accent too.
The "West of England" telly region isn't very big, right?
And, given the amount of overlaps with other regions (e.g. Southwest/South/WMids), and the fact that - allegedly - a lot of viewers in those overlap areas may be more likely to prefer the "not West" option, the area that
definately recieves nothing but "West" telly
is really small indeed.
So much so, that... is there any point in a "West of England" telly region even existing? Couldn't one or more neighbouring region(s) have its/their official patch extended?
There is a large overlap between West (Mendip) and South West (Stockland Hill section). Although many places in the overlap can get both West and South West regions, I think there are some people in the overlap area who can only get either Mendip (West) or Stockland Hill (South West). Some places in the overlap e.g. Crewkerne have had to be filled in with a relay of one of these two transmitters - Crewkerne is a relay of Mendip.
Never understood why part of the HTV franchise is in the West of England.
There WERE reasons, of technical geography to do with transmitter locations; and of financial support of the high cost (Welsh speaking) areas from low cost (English speaking) areas, back in the first days of the ITA advertising the franchise, but those days are long, long gone.
I agree with you, that a merger of the area from Gloucester to the Scilleys would now be (and would always have been) for the best, both for the BBC and ITV regions.
I'm not 100% certain on this, but I guess that it must have been down to physical geography in the days of 405 VHF. Perhaps the goal was to cover the country with as few VHF transmitters as possible. Presumably St Hilary in south east Wales was a good high point to site a transmitter to cover south east Wales and the TV region described as "West of England", i.e. Gloucestershire, Bristol, Somerset and Wiltshire. Remember, those were the days of TWW. Also remember that in the early days, TWW did NOT serve north Wales - WWN got that franchise in 1962 but failed financially in 1964. Thus the WWN franchise was combined with the south east Wales and west of England TWW franchise to form one "Wales and West" franchise, hence why you ended up getting one "odd" area stretching from Anglesey to Sherborne.
After the TWW franchise passed to HTV, the conversion to UHF, a decision was to site a transmitter at Wenvoe in south east Wales, and on Pen Hill north of Wells, Somerset, i.e. the Mendip transmitter. This enabled, for the first time, separate services for HTV Wales (Cardiff) from Wenvoe (and other Welsh transmitters), and HTV West (Bristol) from Mendip.
As for one big south west region Gloucestershire to Scillies - wouldn't that be silly? Do people in Devon and Cornwall really want to know what's going on in Gloucestershire, Bristol or Wiltshire? Conversely are people in Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Bristol interested in Devon and Cornwall for local news? Although politically the south west covers reaches from Gloucestershire to Cornwall (including Scillies), for TV regional news purposes, don't you agree it's better to split it into two regions:
News from Plymouth for Cornwall, Devon, Somerset (part), west Dorset
News from Bristol for Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Bristol, Somerset (part) Dorset (part)
Judging by Nick's previous postings I would hazard a guess that his reason for wanting a merger is not down to the interests of the viewers. Perhaps Mr H's annoyance with the implimentation of news by the respective newsrooms in Bristol is at the root of his frustration.
Judging by Nick's previous postings I would hazard a guess that his reason for wanting a merger is not down to the interests of the viewers. Perhaps Mr H's annoyance with the implimentation of news by the respective newsrooms in Bristol is at the root of his frustration.
The original reason for my argumant, mainly with the IBA at their public meetings was, indeed, for the good of the viewers.
It was in order for the west to stop being the poor relation, where we didn't get second best output, we got tenth best output, which was all TWW, then HTV, could afford after pouring the huge majority of their advertising revenues into programmes for Wales in both languages.
The IBA response was always that the west was too small an area to be a franchise on its own, hence the argumant in favour of a merger of the west and south-west franchises under their various contractors was born.
Now the days of the west being affected by spending levels in Wales have gone, it is indeed tempting to continue the argument in favour of a merger, simply in order to improve the quality of news production on ITV.
However, it's now become less of a problem with satellite reception meaning I can avoid the output of both Bath and Whiteladies Roads and watch either Westcountry Live, Spotlight, or both.
As regards geography and affinities, the argument has always been whether Wiltshire has more affinity with Cornwall or Caernarfonshire and there's never been any doubt about the answer to that question.
