Eight News-Items about Cumbria on ITV1 Border’s Lookaround on Friday 7th January 2022

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9th January 2022

Dear Readers

On the evening of Friday 7th January there were eight news-items about Cumbria- including two concerning South Cumbria- on ITV1 Border’s flagship evening news-bulletin Lookaround. There were just three news-items covering southern Scotland. This does not include Sports coverage which also had an extensive piece about Carlisle United.

ULLSWATER IN THE NORTHERN LAKE DISTRICT, CUMBRIA IN AUGUST 2018. CUMBRIA RECEIVED OVER 70% OF NEWS-COVERAGE IN ITV1 BORDER’S FLAGSHIP EVENING NEWS- BULLETIN LOOKAROUND ON THE EVENING OF 7TH JANUARY 2022. MOST OF THE NEWS IS TYPICALLY ABOUT CUMBRIA IN ITV1 BORDER’S MAIN EVENING BULLETINS WHICH MEANS IT PROVIDES GEOGRAPHIC APPROPRIATE NEWS COVERAGE FOR CUMBRIAN AND NORTH LANCASTRIAN VIEWERS OF REGIONAL TELEVISION, WHEREAS ITV1 GRANADA REPORTS DOES NOT. THE MISCONCEPTION THAT VIEWERS IN NORTH WEST ENGLAND MAY HAVE THAT ITV1 BORDER IS “MAINLY SCOTTISH NEWS” IS TOTALLY UNTRUE!

Cumbria gets at least 50% of news-coverage in just about every bulletin- unless, of course there is news of some major disaster in southern Scotland, or in North or West Northumberland (which is very rare). At one level this is to be expected, because Cumbrian viewers make up over 50% of those in ITV1 News Border’s transmission area- southern Scotland is very rural and quite sparsely populated even though it covers a somewhat greater surface area than Cumbria. Southern Scottish viewers get their own programming from ITV1 Border (Scotland) with programmes like Border Life and Representing Border, which do not cover Cumbria directly. So the ITV1 Border News-programmers make sure that the potential 400,000 Cumbrian viewers who get ITV1 Border (England) get a bit more representation in the main evening news-bulletins. Having now watched a number of episodes of ITV1 News Border’s Lookaround news-bulletins, I can safely conclude that, overall, Cumbria gets coverage partially or wholly in typically six out of typically eleven news items: Cumbria is the second-best covered county in England in terms of regional news (at least from ITV1), beaten only by London (which has its own bespoke Regional News on both BBC1 and ITV1).

The Lookaround programme from ITV1 Border on the evening of 7th January 2022 produced eight items of news-coverage about Cumbria. Southern Scottish news- coverage was very much in the minority and there was nothing about Northumberland at all.

All of this ought to blow wide apart the belief that North Lancastrians and South Cumbrians (those not normally in receipt of ITV1 News Border) may have been inculcated with, namely the belief that “ITV Border mainly provides news about Scotland”: That is patently not true whatsoever!

Meanwhile, viewers who live in that part of northern North West England sandwiched between Preston to the south and Kendal to the north, and which extends along the south-west Cumbrian coast as far north as Millom are clearly not well- served by ITV1 Granada Reports: ITV1 Granada scarcely covers much north of Preston! Viewers in this large area of northern North West England might like to investigate what ITV1 News Border offers in its flagship Regional News programme, Lookaround for themselves to discover a news- programme that very well covers communities locally to the north of them, but which is not at all “Mainly Scottish News”! If viewers in northern Lancashire and South Cumbria do not have the wherewithal to watch ITV1 News Border’s Lookaround on their televisions they can watch ITV1 News Border’s Lookaround for the day in question from the ITV1 Border website from about 8.30 pm onwards (typically two hours after it is aired live). The website link is here: https://www.itv.com/news/border/2021-11-22/watch-the-itv-news-border-evening-programme. If you enjoy Lookaround, why not tell your local friends about it, and explain how they can watch it? Disabuse them of the notion that ITV1 Border “Mainly covers Scottish News”, because it doesn’t!

If you decide to do this, write to ITV1 News Border to say that you are trying to watch their programme because you find the content in ITV1 Border’s Lookaround more geographic- appropriate to where you live than you get from ITV1 Granada Reports. ITV1 News Border’s e-mail address is: btvnews@itv.com. Make sure you C.c. in the emails granada.reports@itv.com and nwt@bbc.co.uk to your e-mail to ITV1 News Border too: If the two mainstream Regional Television News- services for North West England see folk are actively seeking alternative Regional News- services then the impact at the Headquarters of both BBC1 North West and ITV1 Granada at Media City, Salford Quayswill be much greater than just sending e-mails to BBC1 North West and ITV1 Granada Reports complaining about the lack of coverage of northern North West England!

And it only when the two main North West Regional Television news- services get real shocks from their more northern viewers that the Programmers for BBC1 North West Tonight and/ or ITV1 Granada Reports are likely to make real efforts to improve the degree of coverage they provide North of Preston. When that happens, this Website campaigning for better Local and Regional television news for viewers in Lancashire, South Cumbria and on the Isle of Man will have achieved it’s purpose. But if the route to getting there is by encouraging enough viewers in South Cumbria and northern Lancashire to switch to ITV1 News Border’s Lookaround– whilst telling BBC1 North West Tonight and ITV1 Granada Reports about it, then that is what this Website Campaign will do.

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 have friends who live in northern North West England - near Lancaster (which is where I went to University and used to live until 17 years ago) and in other parts of Cumbria. I have two Website Campaigns that seek to promote more localised Regional TV coverage for large rural areas across the North of North West England and North East England. . 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! . People living in the westernmost part of North West England (around St. Bees Head) have local BBC news on their televisions which is 90% about North East England! 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 for significant happenings of interest to North Northumbrians. I have also done walking in the area, including around the Cheviots in the past- and the Northumberland/ Scottish Borders/ East and Mid Lothian area is vast- but it is largely overlooked by mainstream Regional TV! . North Yorkshire, the largest county in England also falls in the gaps between coverage from BBC Look North (NE/ Cumbria) or ITV1 News Tyne Tees in the north of the county, and the Leeds-based BBC1 and ITV1 Regional TV- services in the south of the county: North Yorkshire is a huge, yet beautiful county, which I have visited and explored in the past, yet is poorly covered in Regional TV. . Based near Alston, near the Cumbria/ Northumberland boundary I am well-placed to discuss Regional TV in all these large rural areas, in which collectively some two million folk live, yet they are poorly covered by the Regional TV News- services set up to serve them. These huge areas are an hour to two hours' drive from where I live: North Lancashire and South/ West Cumbria are to the south-west, Northumberland and the Scottish Borders and Lothian are to the north and north-east, and North Yorkshire is to the south-east of my home near Alston. I am well-placed to draw attention to deficiencies in Regional TV coverage for folk in all these areas. The North Pennines, where I live, is arguably another large area that touches on the other three where Regional TV coverage falls through the gaps completely (and that is despite the North Pennines running north to south down the middle of the BBC1 NE/ Cumbria Region). . 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, funding for which should be given a higher priority (and if necessary via statute through the BBC's Charter), than funding for Soaps, Films or Sport- which are for leisure. I also give viewers the tools to fight effectively for better- and more geographic-appropriate Regional TV where they live- and to seek it through alternative (often little-known) local TV services, some of which may only be available on the Internet.

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