Scottish pres discussion Thread

Don't know about UTV - but Channel are very reliant on the ITV South feed I believe - so that they don't have to run a 24/7 presentation operation. Although they now have a fibre, rather than off-air analogue, feed from the UK, I believe they still rely on the ITV South feed - including regional presentation and ad breaks - to sustain them off-peak - and don't replace every commercial etc., and in return ITV pay them money for the adverts shown in the ITV South region that are also re-broadcast in the Channel Islands region?

I suspect the amount Channel are expected to pay to show ITV Plc networked programmes like The Bill, Kingdom etc. is much, much smaller than the amount STV pay for the STV/Grampian regions, and probably compares favourably with the cost of buying in their own replacements (they aren't going to be able to afford to make replacements) AND running a playout operation to play them, and more/different commercials, out?

There is also the argument about cultural differences. Scotland audiences have quite different viewing patterns to English audiences - with some shows that are popular in England not rating as well in Scotland. I suspect - based on absolutely no evidence (!) - that the viewing patterns in the Channel Islands are closer to that of England - so the arguments that some programmes have been dropped in Scotland because they aren't getting the audiences that their cost demands may not be valid in the Channel TV regions.

In other words, Channel TV may make enough in advertising revenue from the popular networked shows to cover their licensing costs because although they are pro-rata expensive, they are also pro-rata popular. STV's argument has partially been that some of the high-end ITV PLC stuff is being licensed pro-rata expensive, but doesn't rate as well in Scotland as England, so they make less money when they show it in Scotland... They've used this as an argument to reduce their licensing costs for some shows, it hasn't worked, so they've ditched the content.

I don't know how ratings in Northern Ireland compare to ratings in England for given shows, and also Northern Ireland is a smaller territory, and it may not be in their interest to leave the network? SMG has a bigger back catalogue of shows AIUI, and may have more deals with other distributors?

It might be worth noting that TV3 in Ireland broadcasts a lot of ITV1 programmes simultaneously. Therefore, if UTV were to drop network programmes viewers on both sides of the border might simply watch TV3 instead. UTV is already annoyed about the TV3 deal with ITV but if it drops network programmes it would be only looser!

Do the listings magazines only print one version of the feature pages or do they do regional versions?

Are STV viewers reading features in Radio Times or What's on TV about programmes that they will never see?

What's On TV had an article on something not been shown in Scotland with 'Not Scot' beside it.

I've seen a couple of Radio Times articles with "not STV" in the bar at the top. I would have thought it's only the listings bit which has regional variations (apart from the well-documented sporting covers they sometimes do), although they may need to reconsider that the way STV are going.

In Wales, I've occasionally seen the "choices" page make reference to Welsh sporting events, noting the availability of Welsh commentary on S4C in the body of the text. They almost always show when a Channel 4 programme is shown on S4C analogue the same day on the choices page, and the week-at-a-glance page in the front is also localised in the same way ("not digital" was a frequent occurrence back in the 2W days).

This week, "Single-Handed" has "(not STV)" next to it in its feature on page 25, but not anywhere else in the Welsh edition.

IF the Sun Mag can take out all Not STV show then Radio time should do it!

Don't be daft. They also have features on movie premiers, but not everyone has Sky Movies, do they?

And PS - you're back to doing this "STV dumped ANOTHER DRAMA!" subtitles on this thread, and its really getting on my tits.

I mean, did you read the synopsis of the one they are dumping? Sounds bloody awful.

I reckon you could be showing a bit more support myself, or just watch ITV1 on 853 and have done with it.

only two programmes I cared about ( If I can say that ) was Dexter s2 and Kingdom, one of them finally being broadcast on Friday nights 6 months later. ( we might see some of the stuff returning at discounted price )

I shall be honest I just like the thrill of it that Stv, is standing up to itv and saying No, and dumping the shows,

Well technically as usually they only refer to programmes being on ITV1, rather than ITV1/STV/UTV, they don't need to point that out.

They do occasionally have regional features, though, I remember Scotland had a Still Game cover a few years back with accompanying feature when it was only on in Scotland. As has been said, the choices and the at-a-glance spread at the top is regionalised but they wouldn't be able to drop features on every show STV is dropping as there wouldn't be much left in the magazine.

I know Tony Currie is on this forum so I'm rather redundant, but I do have a lot of Wales Radio Times from the eighties, where there are often features on programmes on BBC Wales replacing features on network shows. Sometimes it was when network programmes had been dropped, sometimes they just didn't run the feature. In addition, for a few years they dropped the national highlights spread and did a Welsh highlights spread instead - that did initially replace the local radio pages (because Radio Wales was included on the national radio pages) but when S4C started they put their listings there instead so moved it to replace the national highlights spread.

And as Tony points out in his brilliant book, in 1998 they put The Hello Girls on the cover but BBC Scotland were showing it a week later so they put The Cruise, which was networked everywhere, on the cover in Scotland instead.

Steve Hamilton, dying is shock, how old was he?