North West Regional TV Campaign to include all regions

THE NEED FOR REGIONAL TV INFORMING ENGLISH NORTHWEST COMMUNITIES, KEEPING FOLK INFORMED OF EVENTS LOCALLY, NOT JUST IN GREATER MANCHESTER AND MERSEYSIDE.

For all Those living in the two-thirds of the English North West North of Preston.

The main purposes of Regional Television are to inform communities of what is happening in their areas and a bit further afield (but still within an hour’s drive, north as well as south). This is so folk can make informed choices about what to do based on the news they hear. So, folk must be told of places to visit, where to avoid disruption on roads, local work opportunities, etc. If folk go on holiday, they need to know about disruption to travel to/ from airports, and on longer train journeys.

The Campaign Website, NorthWest Is NorthWest (Website here: https://northwestisnorthwest.org/) finds that both BBC North West Tonight and ITV1 Granada Reports fail to provide geographic-appropriate news-coverage for their viewers North of the Ribble. Many viewers of Regional TV who live in North Lancashire and South Cumbria get frustrated that important happenings locally or just north of them aren’t covered, but Greater Manchester and the Liverpool City area are heavily covered because of the high urban population. This is very true of ITV Granada Reports and the ITV Granada Debate Political programme- whereby Greater Manchester, Liverpool and Cheshire often get over 85% coverage, and only south Lancashire gets the remainder. The Granada Debate, for instance, usually has an MP from Greater Manchester and an MP from Merseyside/ Cheshire taking part!

If you happen to live in Morecambe, or Barrow-in-Furness- both in the transmission areas for ITV Granada and BBC North West- it means that most of the so-called Local and Regional News is not local and is not likely to be about places visited regularly. Also, often-Metropolitan subjects covered by Regional TV are not likely to be the main concerns for largely rural Cumbria and northern Lancashire. The North West English regional identity is important, but coverage of the whole of North West England, up to the Scottish Border would be more geographic- appropriate Regional News for viewers north of Preston. This is discussed in articles on NorthWest Is NorthWest.

NorthWest Is NorthWest forms the basis of a Campaign so that viewers of Regional TV who live in Lancashire and South Cumbria can fight back against Regional TV News that does not meet requirements: It enables viewers to put pressure on Regional TV News- Producers to put resources into North West TV for Lancashire and Cumbria, rather than just mainly Greater Manchester, Merseyside, and Cheshire. The Campaign does this by producing helpful resources to enable viewers of Regional TV to do the following:

1. Send e-mails directly to Regional TV News- producers to complain about the lack of coverage north of Preston.
2. Providing contact details for OFCOM and local MPs for Constituencies in northern Lancashire and Cumbria should viewers not get the desired response from Regional TV Producers.
3. Encouraging viewers to get local friends and family to write to Regional TV News- Producers, then to OFCOM, and local MPs to maximise the impact on Regional TV News-producers to increase local news- coverage.
4. Informing viewers of alternative sources of local news-coverage, instructing one to point the aerial “north” or watching other Regional TV programmes online (like ITV Border’s Lookaround), perhaps in combination with BBC North West Tonight. This enables viewers to get best all-round coverage, which is covered on the Website. Then viewers can tell mainstream Regional TV producers that they will go elsewhere if local news requirements aren’t met. Again, viewers are encouraged to get local friends and family to follow suit. Programmers hate losing viewers (and thus revenue), so if viewers can credibly threaten to leave for competition, then Regional TV News- providers are likely to respond to viewers’ needs.
5. Through the Power of peaceful Protest. Once a sizeable number of dissatisfied viewers can collaborate, protesting with a banner with “North Lancastrians Want Cumbria and Lancashire News, not Manchester and Liverpool News” outside the Media City headquarters of BBC North West Tonight and ITV Granada Reports. This can help drive the point home to TV Producers.

Each of the above steps are progressive, following one from another. The steps 1 to 4 are something that individual viewers can do, though it will have more impact if more people do it. Step 5 will require more folk getting involved. However, viewers don’t have to put up with “Local” and Regional TV News that is not local or relevant to their communities. The tools are in people’s hands to make sure they are informed of what happens where they live, where they work, and in the places that they like to visit.

Find out more at https://northwestisnorthwest.org/2022/09/19/the-campaign-for-a-regional-tv-news-service-for-lancashire-cumbria-and-the-isle-of-man/.