I have just watched North West Tonight on I-player. What an indictment to viewers in the North West of England who live north of the River Mersey. There was nothing about their area at all. The exception was coverage of the Isle of Man being Coronavirus free after three months. However, for someone living in Kendal or Windermere the Isle of Man’s news is no more relevant than what is happening in Birmingham- and all the other news tonight concerned happenings seventy or more miles away to the south of them.
BBC North West Tonight should make a point of being seen to cover North West England in its entirety. Otherwise, why call themselves “North West Tonight”? It’s interesting that tonight they had a piece on Buxton- which is in Derbyshire and which is actually a Midlands county but they reported nothing from the two major North West counties of Cumbria and Lancashire!
Why don’t they have done with it and call themselves “The Mersey Tonight” for they scarce mention anything north of the conurbations along the banks of that river. At least Cumbrians and North Lancastrians would know where they stand- and might campaign for their own BBC Regional TV- perhaps called “North West Tonight”.
North West England is, strangely enough, North West England: It encompasses that bit of northern England that is west of the Pennines and which borders the Irish Sea, not just the southern third of that region. However North West England does not include counties in the Midlands (like Derbyshire) which, by any definition is in the English Midlands!
