2009/6/18 Andrew Bowden <[email protected]> > Well each one would have a budget of £5m by that estimate. It's > possible, but only if that included satellite and internet distribution. > > Terrestrial just wouldn't be possible with the current transmitter network. >
Thankfully this isn't about the current transmitter network. You could certainly carry several low-bandwidth news programmes to have more than one "local news" service on the multiplexes for each transmitter to provide a more localized service. For example if you broken the Yorkshire and Humber region into: * West Yorkshire (Leeds, Bradford, Hudderfield, Halifax) * South Yorkshire (Sheffield, Barnsley, Doncaster) * York and North Yorkshire * Hull, North and Northeast Linconshire, East Riding You would have to carry the first two services from Emley Moor and Sheffield (and relays) because the geography doesn't fit with the transmitter areas. If you follow the logic though, I get these services: Tyne and Wear - Durham and Northumberland - Manchester - Merseyside and Blackpool - Cumbria and Northwest Counties - West Midlands Metropolitan - West Midlands Counties (two services, north and south) - Leicester/Nottingham/Derby - East Midlands Counties (Notts/Derbys/Lincs/Northamptons/Leictersh/Rutland) - Southampton and Hampshire - M4 Corridor (Oxford, Reading, Slow, Woking) - Kent East Sussex and Brighton - Surrey and West Sussex - Bristol, Bath and Western - Devon and Cornwall - Dorset and Wiltshire - Norfolk and Suffolk - Essex and Herts - Cambridge and Bedford - Edinburgh and Glasgow, Highlands and Islands, Rest of Scotland, South Wales Coast (Cardiff, Swansea, Newport, Rhondda) - North and Rural Wales - Northern Ireland - London South - London North - London East - London West I think from my general working out that you would need to carry between one and four "local" services for each transmitter, usually two. It is "doable", and would I think be a better service for all concerned. > > ------------------------------ > *From:* [email protected] [mailto: > [email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Brian Butterworth > *Sent:* 18 June 2009 10:49 > *To:* [email protected] > *Subject:* Re: [backstage] The Final Digital Britain report > > The think I have the most of an issue with is the funding of a regional > news programme for ITV. > If you are going to spend £150m (say) of BBC money, it would be better to > break up the BBC regional news service into a network of BBC local news > channels. > > For a start it would make sense to supplement BBC London with BBC > Birmingham and BBC Manchester. This would mean BBC West Midlands and BBC > North West becomes a "county" service. > > The BBC Scotland service could be split into an urban "central belt" > service for Edinburgh and Glasgow and a "highland and islands" service (cf. > "Grampian region") > > The BBC North West service could split into three, one for "Tyne", one for > "Tees" and one for "Cumbria". > > BBC North could be BBC West Yorkshire (Leeds, Bradford etc), BBC South > Yorkshire (Sheffield) and BBC North Yorkshire (another "county" service). > > The BBC South region could split as Meridian did, with one for the > Hampshire end and another for Sussex. > > And so on. There are 60.9 million people in the UK, so 30 regional news > channels serving a population of about 2 million each would be "local" news. > > It would CLEARLY be better for there to be ONE news programme with LOCAL > news for everyone, than a choice of TWO news programmes that are REGIONAL. > > Any analysis would show that people would benefit more for news of a more > local nature, than a choice of two lots of news that will be about somewhere > that is not local. > > The idea of preserving regional news on ITV is nostalgia and not an > analysis of what would benefit the public. > > You could clearly get 30 x BBC Local News 24-hour channels from £150m a > year, couldn't you? > > > > 2009/6/16 Ian Forrester <[email protected]> > >> The Final Digital Britain Report >> http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/broadcasting/6216.aspx >> >> So what do people think? Time to leave the country or dig a hole and stick >> our heads into it? >> >> Cheers, >> >> Ian Forrester >> >> This e-mail is: []secret; []private; [x]public >> >> Senior Producer, BBC Backstage, BBC R&D >> Room 1044, BBC Manchester BH, Oxford Road, M60 1SJ >> email: [email protected] >> work: +44 (0)1612444063 | mob: +44 (0)7711913293 >> >> - >> Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, >> please visit >> http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. >> Unofficial list archive: >> http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ >> > > > > -- > > Brian Butterworth > > follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist > web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover > advice, since 2002 > > -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
