25th September 2025
Having watched BBC North West Tonight the last few nights it is clear that whilst the broadcaster covers Lancashire quite well at times, it often cuts off any mention of Cumbria. When there’s already ITV1 Granada Reports covering Manchester, Liverpool, the Wirral and Cheshire 80%, why do Mancunians, Liverpudlians and Cheshire folk need a second Regional TV service that also provides- over 70% coverage of Greater Manchester, the Liverpool City area and Cheshire? Why- when northern Lancashire, South Cumbria and the Isle of Man are lucky to ever to get 20% coverage from both Regional TV outlets?
If one lives in Lancaster, Morecambe or Kirkby Lonsdale one’s main area of interest is northern Lancashire and South Cumbria. There’s about 20% wider regional interest as far south as northern Manchester one way but up to the Scottish Border northwards: It’s not the Wirral, Woodhead Pass (on the A57 between Manchester and Sheffield), which featured on BBC1 North West Tonight last night. In terms of topical interest- rural poverty, farming, fishing, tourism and rural transport are of more interest to folk living north of Preston.
The effective syncing of the BBC Regions and ITV1 Regions across most of the UK leads to duplication, whilst rural communities at the margins of transmission areas get poor coverage, and get to know nothing about anything just across the transmission area to them. Proud Northerners also like Regional News to affirm their “northernness”, they don’t like Regional broadcasters sullying their “northernness” with news about locations well south of them. So if anything proud North Lancastrians would rather have news about Carlisle and northern Cumbria than about South Manchester and the Wirral. Ideally BBC1 North West Tonight should do this because their transmission area extends deeper into Cumbria, leaving ITV1 Granada Reports to major on places along the M62 and southwards.
North Lancastrians and South Cumbrians Can Fight Back
It doesn’t need to be this way. If you live in Lancaster, Morecambe, Fleetwood, Barrow-in-Furness or Kendal you can write in to BBC1 North West Tonight at: nwt@bbc.co.uk and ITV1 Granada Reports at: granada.reports@itv.com, to explain that your local and Regional TV News is not geographically relevant, that is proud Northerners you find constant exposure to coverage of places and concerns well to the south of you demeaning to your sense of northernness, that you want local news and some coverage of happenings in Cumbria with which your community has greater affiliation. Get your friends and family to write in too.
If that doesn’t work, write to your MP, get them to contact the North West’s broadcasters to put pressure on to provide better coverage of North West England. Get together with friends and family to campaign for all areas north of Preston to be transferred to ITV1 Border Lookaround because that covers Cumbria (currently about 50% coverage) and the much lower population of the transmission area would guarantee better coverage of northern Lancashire were that in the ITV Border Region. Folk in places like Carnforth and Lancaster would get more all-round geographically-relevant, and topically-relevant news from ITV Border Lookaround than from ITV Granada Reports.
And if you live in the Isle of Man you should fight back to go to a local mhk that would probably want your vote it this time next year