Does the UK really care about Regional TV?

Exactly, in the past the rationale of a regional ITV company considering producing a local programme might be:

"We have a thriving arts and cultural scene in the region, let's produce a monthly half-hour arts and culture magazine programme to serve that community. We can schedule it one night straight after the News at Ten and promote it locally through our local continuity announcers, trailers, as well as a preview spot on the local news magazines. Let's also, as a company, sponsor a local arts festival to raise our profile and the profile of this programme and put a bit back into the community. The programme might also attract a fair number of ABC1-type viewers so it will be of interest to local advertisers."

Now, of course, there's no-one around to even have the initial thought; no facility for ensuring appropriate local scheduling and promotion; and certainly no-one to arrange external cross-promotional and sponsorship activities.

An independent production company could probably make it, but at a great cost because of the research/editorial input required and the need for a studio base. Previously, this would have been absorbed by the ITV company 'in house'.

Probably - but then we (the voters) should use our power to lobby and politicise this issue. Its only really a question of just raising the profile of the issue so that it doesn't go by default.



Quite - I'd expect the planned Regional Assemblies to be fairly inert as far as these sort of subtleties go.

Yes - I see your point; this is fundamental.

Television is about creativity, and that's partly driven by enterprise, initiative and cultural stimulus within an environment where you're locked in a loop with your audience. Modern ITV is counterpoised to all of those; its about meeting targets, being risk averse, operating within a plan and measuring the audience by ad impacts rather than as a body of millions of satisfied households.

Hope that I'm not disparaging them to much; I know that being able to deliver a measured demographic in sufficient bulk is essential, if a platform like ITV is to survive. Its just that these scientific management methods are partly to blame for the conditions that give rise to one of ITV's major moans: namely that there's little brand loyalty left, and that "must watch" television is illusive to create.

Rgds/

Please see :
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/codes_guidelines/broadcasting/tv/psb_review/

Just a reminder that public submissions in the Of COM “Review of Public Service Broadcasting” (PSBR) are due in by the 15th June, and may be addressed to alex.towers@ofcom.org.uk., or, psbr@ofcom.org.uk.

The outcome of the review will have wide ranging implications for the re-licensing of ITV, as well as informing the BBC Charter Renewal process and creating a regulatory template for a decade or more.

One of the objectives will to determine fair obligations for all UK broadcasters (collectively and separately) relating to substance, diversity and (possibly) quality. This has already raised questions about the relationship between obligations and funding. The issue of regional diversity (and regional definition) is a significant measure of this, many contributors here have strong views on how well or poorly these regional obligations are currently being met.

Anyone reading this (if anyone reads my boring posts), who has a view on the state of UK regional or local broadcasting, and is not already pursuing a submission, may wish to consider contributing evidence, opinions, or both to the review. The term "public" of course includes employees, ex-employees, freelancers and contractors of broadcasters and independents, although a straight rant about ITV consolidation would probably not be constructive in the sense of not adding to the body of known opinion.

In common with governance fashion, Of COM have said that they will employ "evidence based regulation". Rather than adopting a visionary approach, there may therefore be a case for submitting conclusions based of statistical, empirical or even anecdotal evidence. A starting point may be to ponder the following questions posed by Of COM :



Again, apologies for a long post, but I do feel that this is worthy of your considerations.

Regards/

Sorry, I failed to add that submissions may be made in confidence , or a less restricted not for publication

Yes, this is a good way of getting your voice heard, and I've submitted my twopence-worth already.

Building on some of the ideas mentioned in this thread, I'd personally like to see a Regional Public Service Television Trust established. It could be funded entirely from the licence fee and a proportional cut of the advertising revenue from each of the commercial terrestrial broadcasters. The trust would be a professional, but entirely not-for-profit organisation.

It would be responsible for sourcing, commissioning or producing itself non-news regional programming in each ITV1/BBC region (which would have to be re-calibrated so that they matched). It would maintain a presence in each region.

It would be guaranteed airtime for this programming in each region on BBC1/BBC2/ITV1 at specific pre-determined time slots. The amount of airtime devoted to this programming would be the same as the total of non-news regional output on these three channels combined. The big difference would be that each channel would in the future be responsible for providing an equal third of the available airtime. This would force the BBC to devote more time to the regions and release ITV1 from its current contractual responsibilities. ITV1 could continue to sell advertising around these slots and the income would be entirely theirs.

C4/C5, also contributors to its budget but at a much lower rate because of their proportionately much smaller ad revenues than ITV1, could have free access to any of the trust's programming from across the country and show it if they so desired.

Each regional trust would be staffed by broadcasting professionals but run by a committee of trustees including community leaders, ITV1 and BBC senior management representatives, independent producers, local business leaders, viewers, etc.

The trusts would be regulated by Ofcom. Each regional trust could hire studio facilities from the local BBC or ITV stations and/or commission programming from independent producers.

This would basically remove responsibility for non-news regional programming from ITV and the BBC; guarantee airtime for regional programming; ensure consistent quality of regional programming by ringfencing secured, long-term funding; and, most importantly, ensure that the interests of diverse regional communities are served by public television. It would, in effect, protect regional broadcasting for the long-term.

Just an idea, and I'm sure there would be many impracticalities to be ironed out.

Even in the programme above 'DVD Clinic', there is regionally. I know it sounds silly but it is somehow quite clearly a London only show (though that might be because they keep dropping in the word 'London'). I guess this is easier to do because lots of film events/interviews happen in London. They also do quite cool recreations of London based films for the competition. Even though it probably would be better if it was a national show they at least made a good effort for a very un regional subject and in many ways that’s all I ask of regional programming.
If I was from Bristol I might not need to see programmes about Bristol every night but I would like to think some were being made by local people with some understanding of their audience and what they are interested in. I think that’s the most important thing, regional programming that doesn't just cover local events because it's forced to, regional in the sense that it is targeted at a local audience (am I making sense).