15th September 2024
Dear Readers
There has been some sporadic coverage of Cumbrian issues on BBC1 North West Tonight, this week there was coverage of The High Court overturning permissions for a new coal mine in West Cumbria. There was also a showing of pictures taken of the fine display of the Northern Lights seen in parts of North West England, including in the Lake District. But the point is, coverage north of Lancaster is sporadic, which means on an equal number of days BBC1 North West Tonight doesn’t cover Cumbria.
The English North West is a big Region
Now, the North West of England stretches almost 200 miles from the northern end of the Potteries and the Cheshire/ Shropshire border right up to the Scottish Border, fifteen miles north of Carlisle. A single Regional TV service cannot hope to provide effective local news-coverage for such a vast area and keep the 7.5 million inhabitants across it happy. I understand that broadcasters would point out that this is “Regional News” not “Local News”- to which I would counter: Firstly, that people watch Regional TV to find out what is happening in their area as well as a bit further afield, secondly there’s a demand for local news.
The only variation in the output received across this vast Region is that northern and West Cumbria gets BBC1 Regional TV output from the North East, which means that folk living in Maryport, Workington and Whitehaven get news about locations 100 or more miles away. Northern and central Cumbria also receives ITV1 Border Lookaround, which does provide the best local news but quite a lot of coverage of southern Scotland which may be of interest to folk living around Carlisle but less so for the central Lakes around Grasmere.
The remainder of the English North West, from Kendal southwards all the way to the outskirts of Stoke on Trent gets a choice of ITV1 Granada Reports or BBC1 North West Tonight. The Manchester- Merseyside heavy output from both is fine for folk living in Manchester, Warrrington or St. Helens, but it’s awful for viewers in places like Carnforth, Ulverston, Kirkby Lonsdale or Morecambe for whom 90% of the output is not local at all.
North Lancastrians have strong links with Cumbria
The Regional TV services, as broadcast, fail communities across a wide area of northern North West England that are, nonetheless, too far south to easily pick-up ITV1 Border Lookaround. There are local TV services such as That’s TV Lancashire (available on Freeview) that viewers on the Fylde Coast can get but reception is patchy and, rather than a Regional TV News-program of half an hour these provide ten minutes of news just about Lancashire. Communities in South Cumbria would also watch That’s TV Cumbria at 6.pm on week-days but it seems only to be available in northern Cumbria (on Freeview), in areas that can get ITV1 Border Lookaround (which also covers Cumbria very well).
In view of the fact that Lancastrians visit Cumbria regularly in nice weather, and a number work there or visit family and friends there communities northwards of Preston would benefit from Regional TV that covered Cumbria very well, as well as majoring on Lancashire. North Lancastrians would prefer local and Regional TV output as-befitting their Regional and local connections and affiliations. People living in Lancaster and Morecambe don’t travel to Manchester as much as they would visit the Lakes, at least if they have choice in the matter. Most shopping can be done online, even going abroad via an airport need not necessarily mean Manchester Airport. There’s even less incentive to travel to Liverpool or the Wirral, which is even further from North Lancashire.
There is a Need for Lancashire- Cumbria focussed Regional TV
There is a need for a Lancashire- Cumbria focussed Regional TV service, one which would benefit all the northern half of Lancashire north of Preston (including the Fylde Coast), South Cumbria and up the West Cumbrian coast as far as Whitehaven. South Cumbria, and the southern half of West Cumbria have stronger links with Lancashire (at least to Lancaster and Blackpool) rather than North East England or southern Scotland so they, too would benefit from a Lancashire- Cumbria focussed Regional TV service.
Alas, this is not the case and although BBC1 North West Tonight covers Cumbria at times and covers Lancashire better than ITV1 Granada Reports, both Regional TV services are heavily-focussed on the M62 Corridor. Indeed, there will often be periods of a week or longer when neither of the two main North West English Regional TV broadcasters manage to get north of Preston, and during such times there will be significant happenings in Cumbria of interest to viewers in northern Lancashire that don’t get reported on.
Back in the late 1980’s there was an outcry in northern Cumbria when the BBC deemed it appropriate to provide northern Cumbria with Regional TV from Manchester, rather than Newcastle. Whilst BBC1 Look North (from Newcastle-upon-Tyne) covered Cumbria relatively poorly (as nowadays), BBC North West covered the area even less. North Cumbrian viewers were also angry that there was lots of coverage of Cheshire and Manchester with which northern Cumbrians had no links, but no coverage of the Tyne Valley just forty miles east of Carlisle with which North Cumbrians had links.
But It’s Manchester- Merseyide focussed instead
The matters around regional affiliation applies to folk living in South Cumbria and Northern Lancashire too. They get lots of Regional news about The Wirral and South Manchester (which is not relevant to their lives), little local news and almost nothing about Cumbria (with which folk have connections). North Cumbrians, all those years ago, launched a concerted campaign to get the BBC to change their Regional News back to BBC1 Look North– and they eventually won. Today there is someting similar required for communities in and around Blackpool, Lancaster, Ulverston, Kirkby Lonsdale and Millom who receive “The News from Where You Are” (as the BBC likes to advertise), which is 90% no more relevant than what’s happening in London or Cornwall!
Regional broadcasters are not amenable to providing new Regional TV services because they cost money, for ITV.Plc it would eat into it’s profit margin and no Government is willing for the BBC to increase the TV Licence to fund extra BBC Regions during a Cost-of-Living crisis. But good, localised Regional TV services that inform folk of important happenings in their communities and a bit further afield are a Public Service inasmuch as local libraries and weekly bin-collections are. To that end, it is incumbent on local, Regional and National Government to require better, more localised Regional TV of the BBC at the very least: The BBC Royal Charter affirms that the BBC must provide high quality news and documentaries for all parts of the United Kingdom, and that includes Lancashire and Cumbria.
Regional TV is a Public Service
There would be those in the broadcasting services who point out that there is a number of Regional TV services, and if people want local news there are websites, folk should read the local papers and their websites, etc. However, not everyone has access to the Internet and Regional TV News informs people of developments of interest that folk might miss otherwise: Especially of a news-feature in a place that is still fairly local but outside the normal coverage area of the Regional TV provider. Regional TV News also provides live pictoral news-footage and commentary that shows what is happening in a more forceful manner than, say, an article on a website or a news-item on the radio.
The local news services, like That’s TV Lancashire are not widely available and coverage seems to be patchy. They are also only ten minutes long, and the absence of any overlap to locations outside of their designated areas make these less than ideal for folk living on the transmission fringes who nonetheless want all-round-the-compass local news. The government, at least at a local level, needs to step in and require of the main broadcasters to improve their offering for places like Kendal, Lancaster, and Morecambe. The BBC could, for example, be required to spend a minimum of 15% of it’s revenue providing Regional TV News, and increasing the number of BBC Regions for large rural areas like Cumbria and northern Lancashire and providing a separate BBC1 Isle of Man service for what is really a separate country in it’s own right.
Viewers must write to their local MPs
If the Government directed that the BBC spend less on cheap entertainment such as programmes called Pointless and Bargain Hunt (entertainment is available on a myriad of Channels) and more on providing good, more localised Regional TV and Documentaries that would mean good Regional TV. Viewers on the Isle of Man, in Lancashire and South Cumbria would see a massive improvement in the services that they receive. To that end, folk must write to both BBC1 North West Tonight and ITV1 Granada Reports asking for a Cumbria-Lancashire news opt-out so that they cover the northern North West much better.
If, as is likely, broadcasters refuse on cost grounds the next step is to write to the local MP, asking them to require broadcasters to devote more resources to Regional TV for northern North West England. Explain to one’s MP if local coverage is only 10 to 20% local in any meaningful sense and if broadcasters miss news that is still local to one’s community because it’s north of the transmission areas: This is unacceptable. Get local friends, colleagues and family to write to the local MP too, with suggestions that broadcasters afford greater resources to the Public Service of Regional TV News, less to Entertainment available from other sources (like Netflix). In this way, it is local MPs who will put pressure on the BBC to improve their local news-services.
The address to write to one’s local MP will always be: House of Commons, Houses of Parliament, St. Margaret Street, LONDON. SW1A 0AA.
And Boycott Regional TV services if they need to
Beyond that, should pressure from MPs yield few results, communities can boycott Regional TV services that fail to provide the news-coverage they require. If local folk do this, it is important to write to broadcasters to explain why one is boycotting them- namely that they fail to provide geographic-appropriate local news-coverage. With a clear view north and a high aerial, viewers across much of South Cumbria and North Lancashire can receive ITV1 Border Lookaround instead of ITV1 Granada Reports. Viewers can also look at the LancsLive website for Lancashire news if they cannot get That’s TV Lancashire. The combination of ITV1 Border Lookaround and LancsLive (details here: https://www.lancs.live/) could provide much better all-round local news for some-one living in, say, Carnforth or Kirkby Lonsdale.
Viewers in northern Lancashire might be reluctant to switch over to ITV1 Border Lookaround to get news about Cumbria. Viewers would understandably be concerned about losing coverage of Lancashire (and also getting coverage of southern Scotland), but that does not preclude them keeping BBC1 North West Tonight which covers Lancashire better than ITV1 Granada Reports. However, ITV1 Border Lookaround for Cumbrian news (typically about 50% coverage of Cumbria) then LancsLive for Lancashire would provide a more geographically local mix for viewers that try it. For folk living in Morecambe or Fleetwood, they could soon be glad of the switch from endless Manchester- Merseyside dominated coverage from the two mainstream North West TV broadcasters. And in the process, if enough people do it, they would send a powerful message to broadcasters to improve their offering to more northerly viewers- or lose custom!