PICTURES OF THE LAKES, CUMBRIA FLOODS AND APPLEBY HORSE FAIR NOT BEING COVERED

25^th May 2024

Dear Readers

The folk living across this large rural area of northern North West England, dealing with wet weather, flooding and the spring lambs weathering it, must have a sense of utter bewilderment at what they see on their “local” TV at times. Why, for BBC1 North West Tonight last night, 24^th May, covered George Harrison, Manchester United and Liverpool Football Club. The programme also covered Labour Leader, Sir Keir Starmer at an industrial site in South Lancashire talking about the axed section of the HS2 Railway line which was not going to go north of Manchester: What relevance is that to South Lancashire let alone locations further north? HS2 would have stopped at Manchester- and Lancashire is still served by the West Coast Main Line!  The convicted nurse-killer Lucy Letby also featured because she had lost leave to appeal against her sentence. In summary, issues that really just concern the southern half of North West England.

It was no better for more northerly viewers of ITV1 Granada Reports who were presented with the news about the George Harrison plaque, Lucy Letby and the other of one of the Manchester Arena bombing victims petitioning the Prime Minister for a change in the law to better protect public spaces.

North West Regional TV does not serve areas northwards of Preston at all well.

The dividing line between areas with viewers who are happy with 80% coverage of the M62 Corridor and those who would prefer coverage of the Lakes and rural Lancashire runs from the Fylde Coast across the northern outskirts of Preston towards Clitheroe and eastwards to the Nelson area: Conceivably this dividing line runs further south because folk living in little places like Pleasington and Accrington have fairly rural surrounds, so what happens in big inner-city areas an hour’s drive away or more is less likely to be relevant than the rural or small-town issues that affect these communities. Issues like farmers with crop losses because of persistent rain, heavy rain bringing flooded roads and disrupting travel, even if this relates to Cumbria is likely to be more topically, if not geographically- relevant than endless coverage of Manchester and Liverpool.

If one lives in say, Garstang or even Blackpool and it’s a fine day in the spring, chances are that you would take a trip to the Lakes- rather than venture to the middle of Manchester or Liverpool on congested roads. There are few reasons why folk might venture into the city, aside from a high-paid job in 2024. People seldom need to travel to big cities to go shopping when they can get all specialist stuff that they need from Amazon or from other online suppliers. If one wishes to shop for leisure there are some lovely small towns with local shops- and products- that are unique to the area: One can think of Cartmel Sticky Toffee Pudding, Kendal Mint Cake, or Blackpool Rock, and one gets the idea about specialised local produce. Younger people go to major concerts, or attend football matches, or visit nightclubs and these tend to be in cities or large towns, but even then it would be churlish to suggests that younger people in Blackpool or Morecambe are invariably drawn to the bright lights of Manchester, over an hour’s drive away. Large cities, particularly after nightfall at weekends are increasingly considered to be unsafe (with some justification) so more folk tend to stay closer to home.

That aside, folk enjoy the outdoors in nice weather, and that invariably means heading north into Cumbria, to the coast or western Yorkshire Dales for someone who lives north of Preston. Such people want to see Cumbria featured more and Manchester/ Merseyside less.

 

 Appleby Horse Fair and Carlisle floods     

For thousands of gypsies living in North West England, the annual Horse Fair at Appleby is an important fixture that they seek to attend. The town of Appleby-in-Westmorland, situated as it is in the Eden Valley, is in the north of what is now the new Westmorland and  Furness unitary authority. As such, it is some 15 miles northwards of BBC North West’s transmission area and some 25 miles north of ITV1 Granada’s transmission area. Invariably, Appleby Fair is never covered on either BBC1 North West Tonight nor on ITV1 Granada Reports, despite it being largest annual gathering of gypsies in Europe and it being a fixture of real interest for thousands of gypsies who live in North West England. It is almost certain that both mainstream Regional TV broadcasters serving North West England will utterly ignore Appleby Horse Fair which runs next month from 6^th to 12^th June 2024.

The area around Carlisle was affected by serious flooding, with fields under water and the River Eden bursting it’s banks in places on Wednesday 22^nd May. None of this made North West Regional news-coverage because Carlisle is some forty miles north of the transmission boundaries for either of the main Regional TV services for North West England. Yet people who live in Kendal, in Millom, or in North Lancashire do have regional connections with Carlisle. I have known several people who live in Lancaster amongst my close circle of friends who have either travelled to Carlisle for work, have visited the city because it is nice, visited friends there, or whose businesses have suppliers based there. And since the Carlisle area, in what is now North Cumberland, is still part of North West England it would do folk who live in the northern half of North West England who have connections to Carlisle (or who have connections to other parts of Cumbria like Appleby-in-Westmorland) an enormous favour if more northerly parts of North West England were actually covered.

Communities must fight to get a representative local Public Service

It is not acceptable for viewers to suffer Regional TV services that do not provide local news-coverage, and which do not provide topically relevant coverage either. It is neither acceptable for folk to have wider regional affiliations foisted upon them that are not theirs naturally, when they would prefer to visit the nice countryside or nice towns with unique local shops selling special local produce. If local people- groups are denuded coverage of events that are of utmost importance in their calendars- because the needs of city-dwellers further south always trumps their needs- that too in unacceptable.

Both the BBC1 and ITV1 Regions in the North West of England are too big: It is impossible to provide good, effective local news-coverage to communities in South Cheshire, football fans in Merseyside and farmers living along the Lancashire- Cumbria boundary simultaneously. Across most of England- and Wales- both the ITV1 and BBC1 TV Regions almost exactly coincide (except in the case of ITV1 Border), and this duplication of areal coverage is a waste of resources. If the ITV1 transmission areas overlapped across parts of two BBC1 TV Regions more places that currently get poor all-round news-coverage would be better-served at little or no extra cost.

The current arrangement leaves northern Lancashire and much of south Cumbria- currently just a bit too far south to get good reception from ITV1 Border Lookaround– with poor local coverage from both BBC1 North West Tonight and from ITV1 Granada Reports. Thus, a substantial area which is home to almost one million inhabitants is poorly-served. This is not to mention the Isle of Man, which is a small country in it’s own right, that gets 95% “local news” coverage of another country from two Regional TV broadcasters covering the same sorts of areas: In what circumstance is this appropriate or acceptable?

It is incumbent on communities in small northern North West English towns like Millom, Kirkby Lonsdale, Crooklands, Carnforth and Garstang, and communities on the Isle of Man to come together and prevail upon Regional TV broadcasters with a simple message: Enough Poor Coverage! Folk can write -and get their local friends to write to their local MP (likely to be a Labour MP after the General Election on 4^th July 2024), or if they live on the Isle of Man they can write to the local Member of the House of Keys. People can come together to complain directly to Regional broadcasters, but it is only when a sizeable number of letters and e-mails are received in the Media City headquarters of the North West Regional broadcasters that broadcasters will be made acutely aware that they need to radically change the offerings for viewers living north of Preston or on the Isle of Man- or risk losing them. The latter risk of losing viewers can be brought to bear on Regional TV broadcasters, if they sense viewers are willing to seek better local news alternatives.

There is little doubt that, for viewers of Regional TV who live in either Carnforth, Millom or Kirkby Lonsdale, they could easily be persuaded to switch over to ITV1 Border Lookaround, with its excellent coverage of Cumbria providing a more local feel than the incessant diet of Greater Manchester and the Liverpool City Region. If they know that ITV1 Border Lookaround is loaded on to the ITV1 Border website to watch about two-hours after going live that deals with transmission reception issues. For such viewers, watching ITV1 Border Lookaround and supplementing that with news-clips from the Lancs Live website for the Lancashire news (here: https://www.lancs.live/) could offer a real alternative to just sticking with BBC1 North West Tonight and just hoping for some real improved coverage of northern North West England to actually happen: A little secret- it won’t until broadcasters are prevailed upon that they must radically improve the offer for folk living in northern Lancashire and South Cumbria, or risk losing viewers (and in the process- funding).

In order to bring about positive improvements to Regional TV coverage for viewers living northwards of Preston, it will also be important for the BBC to feel pressure from politicians via (threatened) revision to the BBC Charter requiring Regional TV to be given greater prominence in terms of funding, on the not-unreasonable basis that the BBC is Publicly-funded to provide high-quality, relevant and local news and documentary-programming that is different from the entertainment offered by commercial outlets.

Meanwhile, ITV.Plc can be pressurised to improve its Regional TV offering for certain areas by not aping the BBC Regions, and by transferring areas to another ITV1 Region where this may be appropriate. In other cases, opt-out Regional TV programming should be required of it, backed up by the threat of fines from OFCOM if necessary. In the North West of England, there’s a strong case for all areas north of Preston to be transferred from the ITV1 Granada transmission area into the ITV1 Border transmission area whilst ITV1 Granada is required to provide 15 minutes of opt-out programming for the Isle of Man. Viewers in North Lancashire and South Cumbria would still be able to watch BBC1 North West Tonight if they want to know what is happening in Manchester and South Lancashire, but it would mean viewers would have a choice of finding out what was happening locally and to the north of them if they so wished.

Regional TV broadcasters will not improve their offering to folk living north of Preston without being pressurised to: This will, in summary involve communities coming together and fighting for this Public service to be improved- and Regional TV coverage that is there to inform, warn, and tell people about their local area and surrounding areas is a Public service. It is not entertainment and the funding priority for it must be greater than for funds needed to produce and air Coronation Street, Celebrity Big Brother, or a western (which was aired in the past), etc. Campaign platforms like 38 Degrees also provide good infrastructure for campaigning on local issues as does involvement in politics. All these and the above-mentioned tactics can bring real pressure to bear upon the BBC and ITV.Plc to provide better (and more localised) Regional TV News-coverage for northern Lancashire, South Cumbria, and the Isle of Man.

 

Photos of the Lakes on a dry, bright May afternoon

Monday 20^th May was a dry, pleasant if partly cloudy day in the Lake District, though the sun did poke through at times. The readers for whom this Website is aimed at are those who live in northern Lancashire and South and south-west Cumbria, and on the Isle of Man. It is those of you who are most acutely exposed to the deficiencies of Regional TV- programming in terms of geographically-appropriate news-coverage.

Below is a breath of fresh air, some coverage of beautiful scenery in the Lakes which I, my sister and my father visited on Monday 20^th May 2024. It was a dry, pleasant late-spring day though not exactly sunny with a light easterly wind. Do enjoy the Cumbrian scenery that North West English Regional TV broadcasters do not show enough of!

 

 

The English Lakes are beautiful, especially at this time of year. I would also venture to suggest that they are the ideal choice for a day out in fine spring and summer weather for the large part of North West England northwards of the M62 and A580 corridors- that’s anywhere north of a line from Southport to Bolton. That being so, this beautiful part of North West England is not nearly covered as much as it should be. Folk living in Lancashire and South Cumbria know what they need to do to make sure broadcast media in the North West does cover Cumbria and the Lakes properly.

With Kind Regards

Ian Pennell