Close to the Lancashire/ Cumbria boundary viewers want Local News about Cumbria and Lancashire.

14th August 2022

Dear Readers

Much of the Regional TV News-coverage on BBC North West Tonight and ITV Granada Reports during this last week of hot weather has focussed on strikes affecting rail and bus travel, the trial of former Manchester United footballer Ryan Giggs (who is accused of assaulting his ex-girlfriend), and various other happenings mainly occurring in and around Manchester and Liverpool. One look at ITV Granada Reports’ website (here: https://www.itv.com/news/granada) shows that, aside from their section on the Isle of Man, coverage is 80% along the M62 Corridor from Liverpool to the eastern side of Manchester. You will be extremely hard-pressed to find a report about Cumbria, which suggests that they rarely cover the county in their bulletins.

BBC North West Tonight covers areas to the north of Wigan somewhat better, there were five news-items about Cumbria in the last week. One of these was about a BBC presenter, Helen Skelton who happened to be from Cumbria appearing on Strictly Come Dancing (hardly something that most Cumbrians would be that interested in anyway). There was also coverage of the proposed coal-mine near Whitehaven being knocked back again and a zip-wire planned near Elterwater, not far from Ambleside. However, even on BBC North West Tonight there are several periods of up to a week during the year when coverage does not get north of Preston.

However, as a rule, it continues to be the case that coverage from both mainstream North West England Regional TV News-providers coverage is heavily concentrated on the 35% of the geographical English North West that extends south of Preston. Furthermore, the Isle of Man- despite having a dedicated little section on the ITV Granada Reports’ Website- accounts for barely 5% of the total coverage on ITV1 Granada Reports. BBC North West Tonight covers the Isle of Man a little better, but not much so.

It is very clear that once you get as far north as the Cumbria-Lancashire boundary there is a considerable disconnect between the locations and the issues that people there are interested in and the output that the programmers and news-editors, both from BBC North West Tonight and ITV Granada Reports, think the viewers want. Viewers who live close to the Lancashire- Cumbria border want a North West Regional News- service that reflects their surroundings and their concerns: Since almost one million people live in that part of North West England that extends north of Preston it is actually quite dismal that not only neither the BBC nor ITV.Plc has put resources into providing more geographic-appropriate coverage for this large area of North West England, but also that none of the Regional or national governments have made either the BBC or ITV.Plc provide better local News-services for a million people living in Cumbria, northern Lancashire or on the Isle of Man!

It is, of course, true that northern and central Cumbrians get ITV Border Lookaround which covers Cumbria very well, but with a Conservative Government and many major organisations (like ITV.Plc) facing major cost- pressures at this time of Stagflation there is no absolute guarantees that ITV Border Lookaround remains completely safe: I put that on record, so that ITV.Plc and the BBC knows that there are those (like this Website) watching them like a hawk should any cuts to Regional TV for Cumbria or other parts of North West England be so much as mooted! This Website will fight for Cumbrians and others in the northern North West of England to have (or to continue to have) access to good local and geographic-appropriate Regional TV News for their communities.

However, many places close to the Cumbria- Lancashire boundary cannot easily get ITV Border Lookaround. The disconnect between what ITV Granada Reports and BBC North West Tonight produce and what viewers want is particularly acute for those living close to where the borders of Lancashire, Cumbria and North Yorkshire meet, and sandwiched between the upper stretches of the River Ribble (which rises at Ribblehead in western North Yorkshire) and the River Lune live some 30,000 people who live in towns and villages like Settle, Ingleton, Kirkby Lonsdale, Sedbergh, Slaidburn, Caton and Hornby. Although Sedbergh gets ITV Border Lookaround, the remainder have the default choice between ITV Granada Reports and BBC North West Tonight, the output from which cannot be said to be geographic-appropriate to this entire area.

There is something fundamentally wrong about Regional TV in northern England whereby folk living in the western Yorkshire Dales close to the Cumbrian border are forced to accept Regional TV News that is mainly about Greater Manchester, Merseyside with some news about south Lancashire thrown in. It is certainly worth considering whether locations like Ingleton and Settle, which are arguably not in North West England because they are in North Yorkshire, would be better-served by different ITV and BBC Regions. For those areas, the combination of ITV Border Lookaround and BBC Look North (NE/Cumbria) would be more appropriate, as the former covers Cumbria very well- along with rural issues which are more in-keeping with those faced in the western Yorkshire Dales and BBC Look North (NE/Cumbria) has about 15% coverage of Cumbria and 15% coverage of North Yorkshire. The Yorkshire Regional TV News-programmes, ITV News Calendar (Northern version) and BBC Look North (Leeds version) both have 85% coverage of urban West and South Yorkshire with some of North Derbyshire and North Nottinghamshire- almost as irrelevant as Manchester-Merseyside dominated coverage.

For viewers with Sky TV, BBC Look North (NE/Cumbria) can be found on Sky Channel 975, and in some areas of the upper Lune Valley and western Yorkshire Dales, a clear view north-west and a tall aerial pointed in that direction would enable receipt of ITV Border Lookaround. A little further south, around Settle and westwards towards Guisburn and Slaidburn (near the Lancashire-North Yorkshire border) it is not possible to pick up ITV Border Lookaround on your TV directly. However, the day’s bulletin can be seen from the ITV Border Website from about two hours after the programme is aired live (i.e., about 8.30 pm and the ITV Border Website is here: https://www.itv.com/news/border).

Of course, neither BBC Look North (NE/Cumbria) or ITV Border Lookaround are ideal for the western Yorkshire Dales close to the border with Lancashire and Cumbria, but one will get more news that is topically or geographically relevant than from either the mainstream North West Regional TV News-services that are transmitted to this area. BBC Look North (NE/Cumbria) cover both North Yorkshire and Cumbria in their bulletins, though some 70% of the news-coverage will be about North East England and you would not get to hear anything about northern Lancashire. ITV Border Lookaround is very rural-focussed and will cover issues related to farming and tourism that also pertain to the western Yorkshire Dales and nearby Cumbria is covered very well. Indeed, ITV Border Lookaround has even featured the western Yorkshire Dales on occasion, such as the fatal light helecopter crash near High Bentham that occurred this summer. However, as a rule, ITV Border Lookaround does not cover North Yorkshire or northern Lancashire.

For extensive areas of northern North West England and eastwards into North Yorkshire the one-size-fits-all approach to Regional TV (as produced by the BBC and ITV.Plc) with sharp transmission borders and TV Regions serving large geographical areas with populations of five million or more leave much to be desired. If folk are technologically-savvy and have Sky TV and Internet they can shop around for Regional TV News-services that better serve their areas, but as I have made clear the Regional TV News-services that are found are still not ideal. Also, with a cost-of-living crisis fewer people living in northern rural areas can afford Sky TV, and a good number of elderly folk still do not have Internet, so they have to contend with default Regional TV News-services that are even worse for geographically and topically-appropriate news-coverage.

The real solution for viewers of Regional TV who live in South Cumbria, northern Lancashire and the western Yorkshire Dales is for the Government to get involved to make sure that all viewers of Regional TV are in the transmission area of a TV Region that provides geographically- appropriate all-round local news-coverage. The Government should certainly consider requiring the BBC, for instance, to spend a higher share of it’s revenue on providing Regional and Local News and to increase the number of TV Regions so that northern North West England and the Isle of Man has its own version of BBC North West Tonight and all of North Yorkshire is in a BBC Region of its own. In the meantime, pressure can be bought to bear on Regional TV producers by sending them an e-mail explaining that the local news-coverage is largely irrelevant to where you live. Then, when the reply is such as to indicate that nothing much will be done about it (because of cost and the five million folk who live in Greater Manchester and Merseyside) you e-mail the Regional TV producers again to explain that you want more geographically-relevant news-coverage and that if this is not met you will be shopping around for a Regional TV News-service that does provide more local news.

If you live in westernmost North Yorkshire you could go further than this, and tell Regional TV producers that you would be better served by being in the BBC1 North East/ Cumbria transmission Region and ITV1 News Border Region and you could write to BBC1 Look North (NE/Cumbria) and ITV1 News Border Lookaround to request that your area is transferred to their transmission region. In South Cumbria and northern Lancashire there is also a strong case for communities to be transferred from the ITV1 Granada to the ITV1 News Border transmission Region but to stay in the BBC1 North West region on the grounds of a stronger local affiliation with Cumbria than to Manchester and Liverpool.

Email contact details for all the ITV and BBC Regions mentioned in this article are as follows:

BBC1 North West Tonight: nwt@bbc.co.uk.

ITV1 Granada Reports: granada.reports@itv.com.

ITV1 News Border (Presenters: Amy Lea and Ian Payne): amyandian@itv.com.

BBC1 Look North (NE/Cumbria): look.north.comment@bbc.co.uk.