4th August 2021
Dear Readers
Last night, 3rd August 2021 saw no Cumbrian news on either BBC North West Tonight and ITV1 Granada Reports– which seems to have been the case so far this week. Viewers of Regional Television, who live in northern North West England but who nonetheless have the main North West Regional TV broadcasters for both ITV and the BBC are constantly short- changed.
BBC North West Tonight does cover Lancashire reasonably well, last night there was an extensive piece of coverage of farm thefts in the Ribble Valley and persistent Covid-19 cases in Blackpool. But it goes through periods (like this last week) when Cumbria is scarcely even mentioned once. At such times there are unusual quirks whereby BBC Look North (NE/ Cumbria) will often cover plenty of Cumbrian news- including South Cumbria (the River Kent near Kendal and Barrow in Furness both got a mention)- whereby the people who would really benefit from getting this news like in the north of BBC North West’s transmission area. ITV Border’s Lookaround continues, as ever, to cover Cumbria extremely well- not least since a number of competitors in the Olympic Games (2020) come from Cumbria and they have been featured heavily.
South Cumbria and northern Lancashire are indeed in North West England- and the receipt of geographic-appropriate and regionally-appropriate Regional news is important so I would not for a moment suggest watching BBC Look North (NE/ Cumbria), which mainly covers North East England. However, it remains important that overlooked viewers in the northern North West of England have the choice to vote with their televisions in a manner that gets them the best- possible geographical Regional coverage. Alternatives, such as a combination of ITV Border Lookaround (which you can watch via the Internet to get the Cumbrian coverage) then BBC North West Tonight for more southern North West England coverage- then writing to the North West’s two main Regional TV producers to explain why you are changing your viewing choices will- as ever- send a strong message to Programmers in Media City, Salford that news- coverage for viewers north of Preston is simply not good enough.
If you wish to make an even stronger point that Regional TV north of Preston is not acceptable for your community, you could just watch ITV Border Lookaround for Cumbrian news then That’s TV Lancashire (Freeview Channel 7 at 6.pm on week-days)- or just catch up from their website (here: http://www.thats.tv/lancashire/) or from Lancs Live (here: https://www.lancs.live/) to get the Lancashire news. And, if you live in Morecambe or Carnforth those sources will provide you with just about all happenings within an hour’s drive- so you can boycott both BBC North West Tonight and ITV Granada Reports to make the point to them that their versions of North West Regional News- which cuts off the northern half of North West England is not satisfactory to you. Do write in- and tell them- if you plan to do this and get your friends and family to do the same. This will help to jolt Regional TV producers at BBC North West and ITV Granada out of any sense that they can take the unquestioning loyalty of their more northerly viewers for granted!