South Cumbrian viewers of BBC North West Tonight must be getting heartily sick of being ignored. For a week-and-a-bit now we have had nothing north of Preston on the flagship BBC Regional Programme for North West England, nothing for the northern two- thirds of the geographical North West of England. The Isle of Man has had an item of news- coverage almost daily (which it should, by the way, because of its isolated location) and it has a population of 85,000 tops. South Cumbrians, who receive North West Tonight and number 200,000 have had no coverage of their county.
I see the shops have all opened in Manchester and Liverpool after the Coronavirus shutdown, excellent coverage of that. Good coverage of the flooding at Milnrow, not far from Rochdale and social- distancing/ wearing masks on trains going from Manchester and flights resuming from Liverpool. But flash-flooding caused a serious accident on the M6 near Kendal this afternoon- leading to serious congestion on the M6: No coverage of that. A man has now been charged with murder after a man died in Barrow and this was not reported on at all on BBC North West Tonight (this was on BBC Look North (NE/ Cumbria) as Look North goes out of its way to report on significant happenings in south Cumbria for the benefit of their North Cumbrian viewers).
And because, unlike BBC Look North, BBC North West really dont report anything beyond their transmission areas even just a few miles hundreds of North West Gypsies recently travelled to Appleby Fair- only to find out that they had made a wasted journey. Alas BBC North West Tonight never even mentioned Appleby Fair, the largest annual gathering for Gypsies in Europe and the all- important fact that Appleby Fair this year was cancelled due to the Coronavirus Pandemic. Of course, BBC North West don’t do any reports from Appleby, in Cumbria’s Eden Valley because it is 15 miles beyond their “Patch”. So hundreds of North West Gypsies- one of the poorest and vulnerable people- groups in the Region- made a wasted journey by horseback. That is what I would call a dereliction of Public duty!
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Published by northwestisnorthwest
My name is Ian Pennell and I am a freelance Book-keeper. I live near Alston in the North Pennines in north-east Cumbria. I used to live and work in Lancaster until 19 years ago and have friends in northern North West England. I have two Websites devoted to campaigning for local, relevant Regional TV, one for Cumbria/ North Lancashire the other for Northumberland/Scottish-Border.............................................................................................................................. A big problem is that the Regional Television Bulletins for the North West covers the southern third of the Region about 90% (plus a part of Derbyshire which is NOT the North West of England), covers the middle third of North West England poorly and covers the northern third of North West England not at all! When I was studying at Lancaster University, I used to watch BBC1 North West Tonight because it covered areas up around where I was brought up- in northern Cumbria as well as more immediately locally around Lancaster. Then I came home one day, turned on BBC1 North West Tonight wondering why they were silent on Cumbria and discovered why: Most of Cumbria had been chopped off the weather-map! ........................................................................
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In rural and northern Northumberland too, Regional TV, as is received by viewers, tends too often to be Tyneside/ Wearside/ Teesside- focussed with little news locally. Communities in North Northumberland have strong links across the Border into south-east Scotland and towards Edinburgh but none of the Regional TV News- services serving Northumberland today ever goes across the Scottish Border to cover significant happenings of interest to North Northumbrians. The region of Northumberland/ Scottish Borders/ East and Mid Lothian area is vast- but it is largely overlooked by mainstream Regional TV! .................................................................................................................... ................
In two websites, one for northern North West England and the Isle of Man (a country in it's own right that does not have it's own TV service!), and another Website focussing on Northumberland, North Yorkshire and the North Pennines I make the point that Regional TV that informs viewers of important things in their local area is a Public Service that must be funded better, in order that rural areas of northernmost England get good geographic- appropriate local news-coverage.
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