OFCOM to renew all franchises

The circumstances are different beyond recognition. Firstly the map was completely different in the sense that it was made out of many individual contractors.

Secondly, the IBA was a completely different entity to Ofcom. The IBA was the broadcaster that franchised out its own airwaves to the independent contractors, and therefore it could divide up its own regions as it saw fit. There was no arguing, very little in the way of debate. If anything the IBA was to the regions what ITV Plc is to English & Welsh regions today.

Ofcom is not the sort of regulator that steps in to carve up regions and give them away to other companies. If the Scottish Border is not being served adequately by ITV Plc then Ofcom should act based on that and instruct ITV to improve the programming to reflect the region.

Then, if ITV feel it is not in their best interest financially to do that, it should be ITV that makes the decision to sell to STV and work with Ofcom to redraw the region.

But there actually isn't "just 1 news service" for the combined West & SW area currently though! There are fully-separate editions of every ITV News West Country bulletin, for each of the two areas (HTV West and Westcountry), which largely (if not entirely?) focus on news stories from their respective parts of the enlarged patch, rather than all of it.

So, you actually already aren't currently getting a situation where, say, Penzance viewers are regularly sitting through loads of Tewkesbury news stories, or similar.

The presenters/studio element of any news output is really the most superficial element of what goes into making the programme. As long as the news stories are about - in this case - the Devon & Cornwall area, and there is at least a newsgathering office in/near Plymouth (which I believe there indeed is), then the actual news content is going to be what all "normal viewers" want/expect to see.

My 30-something stepsister, who lives in Cornwall, thought that there really was a real actual window in the studio overlooking the Tamar bridge, until I told her otherwise. And, because I didn't bother to then go on to explain that it's actually made in Bristol, she still thinks that it's made in Plymouth, and that it's only the "window" that's a con.

Surely, this is likely to be representative of most/all "normal" viewers? As long as the news report content is right, the fact that the presenter links etc are presented from out-of-region is invisible to non-geek viewers, and therefore really doesn't matter.

Although I most certainly wouldn't condone such a move, if all ITV plc regions were presented from a multitude of identical side-by-side studios in London, most/all "normal" viewers would be similarly oblivious.

Never lose sight of the fact that a lot of things that "matter" to us TVF types, absolutely don't even occur to most of the wider TV viewing population.

EXACTLY! I've been saying similar for ages, but there are those who really don't see it.


It's the same with radio, a show presented 100 miles away in theory can have better local content than one made a mile away from the listener. And all that matters is the end product that viewers/listeners see.

From an idealistic point of view, I would indeed prefer if all regional/sub-regional programmes were still produced 100% in-region. If there ever comes a time when it is once again financially viable for ITV plc to revert to "the good old days" way of doing things, then I would love to see that happen.

But, realistically, I suspect there's frankly more chance that a UFO with Elvis Presley on board will land on the Loch Ness monster's head during a snowstorm in August.

The way that ITV plc are currently doing is a perfectly adequate compromise in terms of the end-product that any given viewer sees. And certainly a vast improvement of the 2009-2013 pan-regional nightmare.

I still don't see how separating Wales from the West was necessary. All this "Wales is a proud nation in its own right" stuff brings a tear to my eye as much as the next person but what actual practical difference does it make if there's no realistic prospect of the Wales license having a separate owner to the West one? Likewise with those complaining about Westcountry being merged with the West. What difference does it make? If anything, the whole of England, Wales plus Border may as well be one single license, for all the difference it makes.

Indeed. A single blanket licence with terms that required the same (sub)-regional news, and the same Border Scotland and Wales current affairs opt-outs (etc etc) as currently, would be effectively the same as having umpteen licences with the various requirements spread between them.

I'm really surprised that some sort of rationalisation of the licence structure hasn't happened long before now. Something like, say, just 5 licences in total (one each for Wales, NI, England (plus IoM), Channel Islands, and Scotland). Or whatever.

When the Wales-split changes were announced, I was astounded that it wasn't accompanied by something like what I have suggested above (or similar). As you rightly say, Mr Kite, "for all the difference it makes" the current structure is meaningless nowadays.

Clearly, the prospects of a proper re-tendering/franchise auction of the regions ever happening again seems about as likely as Lord Lucan putting in an appearance, so they might as well change the licence structure.

But why even have 5 licenses? Why separate Wales and the Channel Islands but not Tyne Tees or Anglia? They're all owned by ITVplc, and there seems to be no prospect of putting any of them out to tender separately. If they were going to say that Wales is all special because its a nation and perhaps needs an independent Welsh ITV run by a separate company that isn't ITVplc (let's call it S3C), then maybe it'd make some sense but there seems to be no intention whatsoever of doing that. In short, the regional franchise system is over, so far as Ofcom are concerned. It was decided long ago that the 'federal' regional system would be replaced with a 'unitary' national TV station that would be no different from any other in the future world of multi-channel TV. Even the fact three of the franchises are still owned by two companies that are not ITVplc is purely an accident of history. The idea was always a single UK-wide ITV. So why have separate franchises at all within the ITVplc area?

I beg to differ. I'm sure many will be quick to point out that Anglia East/West were always broadcast from the same building and draw parallels. If it was just a matter of the Plymouth team getting relocated to Bristol where a full separate service for the South West continued then I could accept that, but that's not what we have.

Although there are separate South West/West versions of the main 6PM programme, half of it is pan-regional. And of the half that is split, only 1 version is live, the other is pre-recorded. Similarly, whilst most of the short bulletins are split, they are also only able to transmit 1 version live at a time. It's essentially just 1 team producing a service with 2 sub-opts but with only 1 set of facilities to broadcast both sub opts from - they will always have to choose between which half of the region has the bigger news story of the day and gets the greater focus as they can only focus on one half of the region at a time. If there were ever major breaking news in both halves of the region at the same time, they couldn't give appropriate coverage to both. If there's breaking news whilst they are on air this can only be covered live if it's in the part of the region that has the live show.

I could accept that in the face of cutbacks something had to give and Westcountry would probably have to let go of it's 4 sub opts, but shutting it down altogether and retooling Bristol to provide a pseudo-regional service to the South West alongside their own without any real increase in capacity was a step too far.