Does the UK really care about Regional TV?

and don't we all wonder who that will be.

Fair point I suppose Mr Stand or may I call you Mike? Anyway should we not be biting the hand that feeds us albeit on a freelance basis now?

Time for an afternoon drink, maybe I'll have a G & T.

It's the same in Scottish/Grampian land with Moviejuice on a Friday night. Utterly pointless having programmes like this which duplicate what the network is doing.

Do we really care about regional television? In a word yes, we the viewers do. Appropriate regional programmes tend to have audience levels that reflect an interest/desire to see regional television. But do we as voters care? Well there's the question!

The other question should be, should ITV care? I'd argue, possibly not.

The BBC has recently embarked on a reinvestment in what they term the "nations and regions". They haven’t done this on the basis of political or cultural whim, but because diligent research has clearly demonstrated that there is a desire by licence payers for licence payers cash to be spent in providing both localised news and actuality on TV and radio; but also strands of programming that reflect wider regional culture including history, the arts and contemporary issues. In part, this seems to have been driven by the "democratic" elements of the BBC, namely the local and regional panels, appointed by the Governors.

What the BBC have woken-up to is the problem that has always dogged its regional programmes, especially those in England; that is, regional perception and definition of boundaries. Although nowadays the term "granularity” is applied, the issue of regional significance has been something that has deeply exercised the minds of senior managers of bother the BBC and the ITA through the 1950s and '60s.

Local radio was seen in part as a mitigation of the inadequacies of the regional pattern of broadcasting mandated by the technical constraints of MW radio and VHF Band I television. The initial ILR areas were in many cases defined out of recognition within the IBA that the areas were a poor match to the ITV region that they found themselves itself in. Asa Briggs has a whole chapter on attempts by the BBC to remedy some of their regional mapping issues thoughtful siting of UHF transmitters, but whilst the exercise was positive in some areas, in others the effect was dire.

The BBC has embarked on an exercise to split-out sub-regions, and where possible provide an economically viable local service. This has been done even at the risk of compromising production values, because it is seen as worthwhile. The much overdue proposal to introduce regional television in Scotland is testament to their efforts, as is the provision of service to the diverse “region" described only as "Belmont". Hopefully the next stage will be to utilise the flexibilities inherent in digital broadcasting to correct some of the mismatches in regional boundaries, North Norfolk, Worksop, York, and around the Crystal Palace and Sandy Heath fringes. This might even be followed by some regional service to areas that have in transmitter terms been a regional void, notably Merseyside, and Sussex.

But should ITV care? I'd argue not. It isn't for the ITV plc board or its shareholders to decide what level of service they apply to a particular area, or to define those areas. The only internal drivers for ITV and SMG should at this point be commercial. The definition of ITV's regional obligations and its regional boundaries are a matter for the regulator in its formation and interpretation of ITV's licence obligations. The regulator's deliberations on this are both within the public domain, and although nominally independent, part of the political process. Also, there's a General Election coming up!

The point about ITV, I'd argue, is not what existed 30 years ago, or even what prevailed when the existing licences were awarded; but, what is possible and desirable, and what would be appropriate for what is still in effect, monopoly user of publically owned UHF bandwidth, be it digital or analogue.

In allowing Carlton, Granada, MAI and potentially even SMG to merge the regulators (and by default legislators) have stated that they wish to see an economically powerful UK commercial TV operator; this, able to be a player in the same markets as Sky, the BBC, US networks, Bertelsmann, TF1, etc. That means having an economic strength, a certaincy and confidence behind you that underwrites big rights negotiations, and facilitates bold projects rather than timid gestures. But, this shouldn’t mean that local requirements should be ignored, however, just as TVAM were franchised to provide a service that the ITCA members of the time were unwilling or unable to provide; other parties should be invited to tender for the provision of services now too remote or parochial for the national licences to contemplate.

Supposing, for want of argument, ITV plc were awarded a consolidated licence for all of England, Wales, the Crown Dependencies (and SMG a consolidated licence for Scotland). The licence would specify obligations to attain specific public service objectives, both in terms of overall programming, genre and regional diversity. But sub-regional obligations may be limited to specific areas, perhaps compact populous areas.

Sub regional news and programming could be provided by ITV and SMG, under their licences, but only in these specified areas. In other areas, the regulator would define the boundary, but the local programming would be provided by another party, either as a separate licence, or as a nominated subcontractor to ITV or SMG. This way ITV could relinquish it obligations to specific sub-regions, but they would in the process relinquish a specified amount of local air-time to a local licensee who would fulfil the PSO for that area. This would be analogous to the position that currently pertains in the Channel Islands, where ITV (ex Meridian) supply a feed of programmes and commercials, free at point of delivery to the local licence (CTV) who insert local programming funded from local air-time sales.

ITV would thus be a provider of network programmes, and would be in a position to sell national air-time, as a block, in regions or sub-regions. As with networks in the USA the network would feed programmes and commercials to all areas (markets), but the local licence would opt-out at specified times to provide local programme.

In a North American style "affiliate" contract, the network pays "network compensation" to the local licence, to compensate for lost commercial sales during network air-time. As an alternative to this model, air-time could be divided between the local licence and the national licensees, as is air-time currently between the existing ITV licensees and GMTV . To guarantee that local resources were sufficient to support obligations, a 1990s Channel-4 style safety-net could be constructed to guarantee the appropriate division of local and network revenues.

I’ve been flamed at, and pollaxed for producing such bilge as this for a number of years on broadcasting newsgroups, or thereabouts. So, as a newcomer her I do apologise for the rant, but to summarise :

(1) It must be appropriate for the UK to have a strong commercial TV operator, but they (ITV) have to realise that the air they transmit in is ours, and ultimately our democratic institutions should define network obligations.

(2) Considerable engineering effort, and aggregate bandwidth could be devoted to re-defining regional boundaries on more logical social or political boundaries

(3) The BBC is right to believe that they can’t go on ignoring regional diversity in Scotland.

(4) Regional TV is a realistic public desire, and economically sustainable.

(5) Rather than complain about it, we should determine what we want, and tackle every parliamentary, euro, county council and unitary authority candidate on the subject.

I should add - perhaps we need to educate them a little along the way.

Surely the arrival of regional assemblies, and the prospect of elected regional assemblies, has had some impact on the "blind midgets in business suits"?

Yes, I'd agree with that. Certainly there's a debate on the definition and affiliation of regions. That has been inspired politically, probably not by the broadcasters.

No, what I meant was that the BBC in particular seems to be more interested in regions now that over the last 30 or so years. Also, questions such as "what do we do about North Norfolk" are now taken, rather than just being dismissed as something that must be accepted as a immovable artefact of the engineering of UHF television.

Perhaps the issue of DTT has awakened a public interest in transmitters and aerials, but from the people I know who inhabit, visit or know North Norfolk, the view of television has changed from "isn't it quaint that we get Yorkshire", to "isn't it absurd that we get Yorkshire".

Nathan, dear boy, WELCOME back.

A new name, I see, since the old days.

" From what I see in the Midlands, regional tv is just full of old-fashioned programmes, like A Taste for success and really dry programmes. Im sure a lot of people will disagree with me, but this is what i think!"

The BBC English Regions are based in Birmingham at an administrative level. BBC Birmingham's productions include much stuff that's broadcast nationally. Midlands Today can be fantastic and having experienced other regions' equivalents, I'd say we do pretty well. Our Politics Show opt-outs are quite watchable and local radio is fantastic too.

However, if you've been watching any ITV in the Central region, then beyond the Central News bulletins (which are almost local, being split between studios in Birmingham, Abingdon (Oxon) and Nottingham (although ITV plan to close this and move Central News East's production to Birmingham. Outside that, looking at a 'normal' week's listings, it would appear that there isn't much else. Although the website, in fairness, does list a few things:

MUSIC UNCOVERED Friday 30 April, 11:30 PM
OUR HOUSE Tuesday 27 April, 7:30 PM (which does head a little out of the region, too)
30 MINUTES: THE STRIKE Monday 26 April, 11:00 PM
TV GOLD Sunday 25 April, 5:45 PM (old clips from independent television's former efforts in the region)

So, not really all that extensive, then...

IMHO, the BBC need to strengthen their regional offering to balance this out - and it looks like they're planning to, especially given that this could be useful in terms of the Royal Charter. ITV's losing its regional roots - but I'm convinced that the Beeb have the potential to fill the void - if they want to...

Jeremy

All very interesting.

I think the death of regional television is down to the fact that from a viewer's perspective it is clear that ITV now makes regional programmes 'because it has to' rather than 'because it wants to'.

Before the mid-1990s, most regional companies took a pride in producing high quality regional programmes.

These were often innovative and most of them were made to national, networked quality standards even if they were to be shown only locally. The old Granada, for example, would allocate the same budget to a regional documentary as it would to a domestic national one. LWT spent a 'national' budget on its Six O' Clock Show.

Because most regional programmes were then made 'in house' they had the technical and editorial resources of the company to fall back on. This also gave each station's regional output a sort of 'in house' consistent appearance.

Non-news regional programmes were also properly scheduled, advertised and promoted by each company's own presentation department, even if it was just a local announcer flagging it up as part of another link.

Most English regions now have no in-house arrangements to produce regional programmes (apart from the news output) just a 'commissioning editor' who's job it is to get the cheapest deal possible from competing independent production companies flagging up ideas that are inexpensive to start with.

The result is dull, unimaginative, under-resourced, tired and predictable non-news regional programming which is not properly scheduled and is never properly promoted.

(How can a bootsale challenge/antique hunt-type programme possibly be classed as 'regional' - the action may take place in Weston-super-mare and the presenter might be local but that's where the regionality ends. In all other respects it is a national format.)

Most English regions no longer produce anything that actually requires any significant resources - gone are the days when each region had its own sports magazine programme, farming magazine, community action programme and public service announcements, jobs/industry/commerce/enterprise programme, local political programme, local dramas, local quiz shows, local chatshows, local documentaries, and so on. (I'm not saying that all of these have completely disappeared everywhere but most of them have gone in most regions for most of the time). These may never have been ratings-busters but they served a need and were highly appreciated.

Instead we have cop-out weak national formulas (like bootsale challenge) applied regionally and the usual done-a-million-times-before 'freelance presenter looks at some interesting architecture in a town quite near you' type programmes.

Regional television programmes have clearly deteriorated to subsistence levels and it is therefore no wonder that people do not care about them any more.

But it's only to be expected, how can you possibly make proper regional programmes when there are no longer any proper regional ITV companies.

Yes, that sort of puts the nail on it. Regional ITV companies were really self sustained production units, each endowed with an advertising income matched to fund their regional and network programming obligations. Production values were much the same across all of a company's output, without variance between their local and network product.

Thathcher's Broadcasting Act, and wider economic change killed of that ITV forever. I just wonder if it were possible to recreate some of that local programming ethos, albeit on a smaller scale, by having a network of sub-licencees covering the local obligations of some (not all) sub-regions.

I like your point ("tcb2004") about programmes being more genuine if the drivers for their production are desire to serve, rather than necessity to meet obligation. One objective for using local sub-licencees would be that local programmes would be the purpose, and sole income generator; rather than an auxiliary activity that had became perceived as a cost rather than a revenue.

A point that seemed to get lost somewhere in the 1990's is that a consolidated ITV will inevitably lose the desire to do anything in the regions other than the news. This may be because the impetus to create a vibrant regional identity, and feel of community was the necessity to keep viewers in overlap areas tuned to you rather than a rival ITV.

Rgds/

This will all depend on what happens come the expiry of the current Channel 3 regional franchise licenses. Will the government of the day just acceede to the wishes of commercial television and just award an England and Wales licence or will it be serious about regional broadcasting? By that time elected regional assemblies could be a fact of life, in which case, they may exert some political influence on the matter. However, as they are only intended to be centralized replacements for county councils to produce further budget savings by economy of scale, even this is somewhat unlikely.