17th May 2025
Dear Readers
This Website, as readers will by now be aware, is committed to the cause of communities north of Preston who would like ready local and wider Regional TV coverage that is appropriate for their needs, rather than merely of folk living along the M62 Corridor. Viewers of Regional TV who live north of Preston continue to get Regional TV that is mostly about locations along and south of the M62 motorway. ITV1 Granada Reports continues to dissapoint viewers who want local news and wider regional news that is often not reflected in their needs, their contacts or the places that they like to visit. There has been nothing on Cumbria or North Lancashire from ITV1 Granada Reports in recent days.
Regional TV does not represent northern North West England
BBC1 North West Tonight is not much better for North Lancastrian and South Cumbrian viewers, though programmers at least make a bit more effort to cover locations north of Preston. Even so, the programming is still a long way from satisfactory, particularly when even BBC1 North West offers no coverage of Cumbria for periods of up to a week several times a year. This evening’s short bulletin, being a Saturday, had coverage of Manchester City Football Club, youths causing a nuisance on the grounds of Merseyside cricket clubs, and the northernmost coverage being on Blackpool cuisine. All well and good, I doubt even the good folk of Blackpool accept the one item of local coverage when the remainder is always about locations an hours’ drive or more to the south.
It continues to be the case that there is little geographic appropriate coverage for that half of North West England who would be more inclined to visit the Lakes for a day out or have a shopping trip to Carlisle rather than go to Manchester or the Peak District. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to change whilst Regional TV is so poorly-funded compared to it’s importance that all of North West England except northern and mid- Cumbria are served by just two Regional TV broadcasters covering basically the same area.
Cuts to Government Departments could threaten Regional TV
The Right Hon Lisa Nandy is about to lose her job as the Department of Culture, Media and Sport faces the axe (details here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/05/16/lisa-nandy-culture-department-faces-axe/). Whilst there is nothing wrong with a government seeking to cut waste and reduce the number of departments when money is tight, such a change means that there is not a bespoke Government Department fighting for funding for the BBC, for the Licence fee and for adequate resources for Regional TV, the aim of which is to provide relevant local news coverage, both regionally and topically. There have been cuts to Regional TV services in recent years, with two bespoke Regional TV services serving south and eastern England were axed at the end of 2022.
The BBC Charter and Funding for Regional TV
There is a need for two things, for the BBC License fee to be maintained and even increased slightly, and secondly for the BBC to be required by the BBC Charter (when it is updated and renewed) to spend a higher proportion of the funding that it uniquely receives (compared to other national broadcasters) in order to pay for News, high-quality Documentaries and above all Regional TV News. There should be enough money so that additional BBC Regional TV services cover the UK. North West England needs another Regional TV service covering northern Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Cumbria and the Isle of Man only, and broadcast from studios in Preston or Lancaster.
Such a Regional TV service covering central and northern North West England would provide a lot more local, and topically- relevant news- coverage for folk living in places like Garstang, Fleetwood, Morecambe and Kendal. News-coverage would reflect local issues like the impact of tourism and the farming community rather than endless sports coverage or inner-city ethnic tensions. Local communities would get news about situations directly affecting them, rather than there being news about the major cities most of the time.
Coverage of North West England proper
A Regional TV service solely focussed on North West English viewers living north of the M62 would (ideally) provide some periodic coverage of Manchester and Liverpool inasmuch as it is relevant to folk living in Cumbria and Lancashire, such as flights being cancelled at Manchester Airport or the M6 being closed following an major accident. However, this would account, at most for about ten percent of the coverage and there would also be coverage of Carlisle and the northern Lake District along with the western Yorkshire Dales because that is likely to be more relevant to folk living north of Preston. Most news coverage would focus on Lancashire, South Cumbria and the Isle of Man. This is the sort of local news information that best serves viewers living in Lancashire and South Cumbria, local geographically- relevant news.
The Campaign for much more local news-coverage in Lancashire and Cumbria must focus on money
The existing Regional TV-services serving almost 95% of viewers in North West England will never respond to lots of emails demanding better coverage north of Preston by cutting coverage of Greater Manchester and Merseyside to increase coverage further north: Most folk in the huge North West transmission regions live along or south of the M62 and both ITV1 Granada Reports and BBC1 North West Tonight will always defer to the majority. So it is to MPs and to the Government that folk living in Kendal, Morecambe or Fleetwood must write- demanding that the BBC diverts more resources to Regional TV coverage so that a new Regional TV service for Lancashire and Cumbria can be set up.
Just as it is shocking if folk living in Kendal to have to travel to Manchester to life-saving surgery, or if the local library was shut so they need to travel to Preston it is shocking that there is not a local news source. Regional TV, that should inform, warn and advise communities under it’s remit should be enabled to do it’s job properly: It cannot if there is just one huge transmission region stretching from the Peak District and Stoke on Trent up to the Lakes.
The BBC must be required to direct resources at high-quality News-services that only the Licence-fee funding can guarantee
Therefore, there needs to be concerted effort from local communities to come together to require of the BBC resources to be directed at News and Regional News so that smaller transmission areas can get better bespoke local news-coverage, with less resources for Talk Shows, Soaps and films- which can all be accessed from commercial broadcasters and from screening services like Amazon Prime and Netflix. Folk can write in to the BBC requesting such a change, but it is local MPs and government that have the power to put pressure on the BBC to direct resources as needed to greatly improve Regional TV for those living north of the River Ribble.
As regards to ITV1 Granada Reports, it does not serve viewers who live north of Preston with anything like acceptable all-round local news-coverage: It is part of a commercial organisation, ITV.Plc which would be forced to adapt if viewers who live north of Preston switch over to BBC1 North West Tonight (which covers northern North West England just a little better). If viewers are interested in what’s happening further north they can always switch to ITV1 Border’s Lookaround which covers Cumbria and southernmost Scotland. The latest bulletin is available from their website about two hours after being aired live, that’s about 8.pm. The link to the website is here: https://www.itv.com/news/border. If enough folk living in North Lancashire and South Cumbria took these steps, programmers for ITV1 Granada Reports would notice, and be forced to do something about it.
The example of Norway’s Regional TV
Norway, with a population of just over five million inhabitants has no less than twelve distinct Regional TV services covering different parts of the country provided by the Norwegian National broadcaster NRK (details of some of them are here listed under Distriktsnyheter: https://tv.nrk.no/programmer/nyheter). In addition there are a number of other local TV channels in Norway. Were Regional TV to be funded as-per head of population as in Norway there would be enough money for a bespoke Regional TV service for every county in the country!
Whilst Norway has almost double GDP per capita and a Sovereign Wealth Fund, the money available for Public Services per capita is still not much more than twice that for folk living in the UK. In fact Norwegians pay about twice, in tax, what Britons pay for the TV Licence. If the spend on Regional TV for the BBC was similar to what the Norwegian Government provides for their National broadcaster- with a similar proportion spent on Regional TV there would be enough money for one Regional TV service for each county in North West England. It’s about the prioritisation of Public resources into what matters and what serves local communities.
Norway’s NRK is State-funded…but so is the BBC albeit differently
It is true that most of the Norwegian National broadcaster NRK’s revenue comes from direct taxation, but the budget for it is protected. However this, and Press freedom means that the broadcaster is free to report on things that the Government does not like, including ministers involved in impropriety through its News programming local and national. The BBC is funded by a tax, in that folk are required by law to pay their TV Licence if they have a TV.
If North West England is to have good Public Services, of which Regional TV is one, sufficient statutory financial resources must be directed at them. A whole range of Public services have been starved of funds in recent years, partly through mismanagement of Public funds by successive Governments, both local and National. The NHS and Welfare swallow up huge sums of money, some of which needs to be diverted to pay for improving infrastructure, putting more Police on the streets, and increasing resources so that folk are informed directly- from their national broadcaster, the BBC- of what is going on in their communities and in those communities around. This is patently not the case in Lancashire and Cumbria today, and it will likely take angry communities making this point- to the BBC and to their MPs for resources to be directed appropriately.
Well this week in tynwlad Manx parliament there was a MHK asking the chief minister about the future of the BBC and the charter and if the Isle of Man would get any say, and apparently they will be when they get around to it sometime in the next couple years before the chatter is been sorted . But there’s been an idea that some of Isle of Man TV license money goes to manx radio and media and local people stating that there should be a local service