19th April 2026
Dear Readers
I have just watched the Sunday tea-time news from BBC North West Tonight (today, 19th April), with coverage of the Manchester marathon, housing in Rochdale and a commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Peak District National Park. Again, if one thinks ITV Granada Reports might have offered something better, then you would be sorely dissapointed, as it’s most northerly coverage extended to Haslingden, in east Lancashire. Most coverage was, of course about Manchester and Merseyside.
If you live somewhere like Morecambe, Garstang, or Millom (in what is now recognised as far south-west Cumberland) you are stuck with the default NW Regional TV broadcasters, but they do not address your concerns nor give you news about the places you live in or prefer to visit. The news is about locations 60 to 100 miles to the south!
If you live north of Preston but still in the north of the transmission areas for both BBC North West Tonight and ITV Granada Reports, you are within an hour’s travel-time of most of the beautiful Lake District and the western Yorkshire Dales. Yet these areas are scarce covered, and stand to be covered even less in future.
Cuts to Regional TV are more likely than Extra Funding
In recent years, there have been cuts to Regional TV in other parts of Britain: Rather than additional funding to ensure remote areas in the North are better-covered, both the BBC and ITV.Plc have implemented cuts. In recent years, BBC Local Radio has been cut, two whole BBC Regions in the southern half of England have been mothballed and, closer to home, ITV Border Lookaround has been reduced to a short-optout from within ITV News Tyne Tees (which itself has had an opt-out serving Teesside and North Yorkshire cut). Cumbrian and southern Scottish viewers and local MPs protested greatly about the loss of ITV Border Lookaround, and the fact that towns like Whitehaven and Castle Douglas received “local” news mainly about Tyneside and Teesside- so ITV.Plc eventually reinstated ITV Border Lookaround.
In Scotland, Scottish Television (STV) now wants to axe a flagship Regional TV for northern Scotland, so that folk living in the Orkney and Shetland Isles get news mostly about Glasgow- some 400 miles away: OFCOM have yet to give their approval, but if they do it will be open season for Regional TV Cuts: It will then be far harder for Cumbrians and North Lancastrians to argue for getting local news coverage, rather than news about Manchester and Liverpool.
Regional TV for northern NW England is already Totally Unacceptable. Viewers should not stand for it becoming Even More So
If ITV Border Lookaround is cut again, and the BBC axes BBC Look North (Yorkshire), then Cumbrians will have a choice of BBC NE England, with North and East Yorkshire news or an enlarged BBC NW covering West and South Yorkshire too! The ITV alternatives would be ITV Granada Reports or ITV News Tyne Tees– covering NE England and much of North Yorkshire too. The options for northern Lancashire will be the same.
If Regional NW Regional TV fails to serve northern NW England now, it will completely fail to in future if both ITV.Plc and the BBC cut Regional TV services. It’s not just a case of Regional TV boundaries cutting across areas of wider Regional affiliation to which North Lancastrians and South Cumbrians have interest, but of over 90% of coverage becoming completely irrelevant. This is wholly unacceptable for viewers in rural North Lancashire and South Cumbria- for whom it is the Lakes and north-west Yorkshire Dales on their doorstep, not the Wirral or Peak District.
Cuts to Regional TV to make it Irrelevant- so as to Justify Cutting it further
The way both ITV.Plc and the BBC operate is by looking purely at viewer numbers- from which they make commercial decisions: If, as a result of poor coverage of much of North West England ITV Granada Reports gets fewer viewers, ITV.Plc will use those figures to justify making cuts! That, alas, is not the correct approach to Public Service broadcasting: The question they should ask is “Why are our viewers in the North switching off?”. Perhaps if they asked some of their Lancastrian viewers they might realise those viewers want more news from North of the M62 Corridor and towards the Lakes which, if they provided it, might address the “falling viewership” issue!
This is why leaving important Regional TV broadcasting totally at the behest of the market is short-sighted: It’s like rural bus services in Cumbria and Lancashire not getting any subsidy- leading to said bus-services cutting all “unprofitable” rural routes. Pretty soon, rural areas are under-served, people use their cars and less folk connect onto Public transport in towns (so bus companies cut further). Broadcasters should be required by law to fund Regional TV better, with a block grant provided from the Government to enable broadcasters to do this (with in-built protections to stop the Government leaning on broadcasters to report favourably of Government Parties). More folk would then watch Regional TV, advertising revenues would stabilise as more folk watch the programming.
Campaign for Public Funding and Tougher Public Broadcasting Requirements for Regional TV
There is more choice online and on TV in terms of finding more local news coverage, but these are often short ten-minute affairs (if that): For instance, That’s TV Lancashire (available on Freeview Channel 7) covers Lancashire very well, but it is limited in availablity (it’s hard to receive in Lancaster or Morecambe) and it covers the county only with just ten minutes of news. So it’s great for focus on Lancashire alone, but if you live in Carnforth it will not cover the Lake District (should you are interested in what is happening there). Additionally, viewerships have not done well precisely because access to the programming is limited, aerial coverage is patchy, and the amount of news-coverage is poor: Sadly, the fact that these are in the Private sector and get no state funding means they are liable to close in the future.
There nevertheless remains a strong demand for a good local Regional TV service with half an hour of news, where the presenter is sympathetic to and engages with local viewers: ITV Border Lookaround, which covers most of Cumbria and southernmost Scotland, is popular because it covers local issues and news of relevance to viewers. Unfortunately, that does not make it immune from the threat of cuts, as recent history of ITV Border Lookaround shows! Northern NW England- those areas just a bit too far south to get ITV Border Lookaround- also want good local coverage- of Lancashire and Cumbria. But they are unlikely to get it without political pressure on both the BBC and ITV.Plc.
Viewers Can Get It if They Really Want It
The only way TV broadcasters will take much better care of their Public Broadcast Requirements for local and relevant Regional TV for northern Lancashire, South Westmorland and far south-west Cumberland is if they receive strong political pressure: For that to happen folk need to write to broadcasters explaining why the NW Regional TV coverage is irrelevant, i.e., far too much Merseyside and Peak District, too little North Lancashire. If broadcasters refuse to countenance increasing funding or coverage for northern NW England the next recourse is to write to one’s local MP and to write to OFCOM: Get your friends to do the same because there is power in numbers. The address to write to OFCOM to complain about poor Regional TV coverage is:
OFCOM
Riverside House
2a Southwark Bridge Road
London
SE1 9HA
The next step is to make some banners with friends sharing your concerns about Regional TV and to travel to the Regional TV headquarters of BBC North West Tonight and ITV Granada Reports to peacefully protest about Regional TV north of Preston. Whilst ITV Border Lookaround still exists you could campaign in your protest group for Northern Lancashire and South Cumbria to be transferred to the ITV Border transmission area on the grounds that areas north of Preston have stronger links with Cumbria than with Cheshire/ Merseyside, that your area is closer to the Scottish Border than the Welsh Border, etc,. Regional TV broadcasters do not like much negative publicity, so it is this- along with political pressure- that is more likely to encourage both BBC North West Tonight and ITV Granada Reports to explore ways of providing better air-time for locations North of Preston.
Cumbria and North Lancashire Community Television
If the very worst happens in future, and ITV Border Lookaround is mothballed, and the even more Manchester/ Liverpool centric Regional TV services (perhaps with Sheffield and Leeds thrown in) are the best there is, then all hope is not lost. In that situation, local communities need to get together to explore ways of setting up their own Local TV service- perhaps by Cable or via the Internet. This would involve input from local councils, private fundraising and the setting up of a Community Interest Company (.CIC) or Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) to provide relevant local news and current affairs programming. Folk with journalism and TV transmission and production would need to be brought on-board to provide a fully-fledged Regional TV service for northern NW England.
Then, if both the mainstream Regional TV services continue to feed North Lancastrians and South Cumbrians with a diet of Merseyside, Manchester inner-city problems and Peak District tourism- they can be credibly boycotted forever!