Redrawing the map for ITV regional news

At last - an announcement about the future of ITV in the regions which isn't just about allowing further drift towards the impending digital glacier looming larger than ever on the broadcasting horizon.

For so long we've been used to OFCOM and the Department for Culture Media and Sport acquiescing to ITV's (from a commercial outlook, understandable) demands to reduce its presence in the regions.   First, the non-news regional quota was slashed and then virtually abolished.   Next, network production outside bases in London and Manchester sharply declined and once iconic production centres like Central and Yorkshire were reduced to little more than a collection of offices.   Finally, and most damagingly, various regions and sub-regions were merged to create geographically meaningless newsgathering areas - viewers suddenly found that their 'regional' news could now encompass places as far as two hundred miles away.

As a fan of ITV regional news and a firm believer in plurality, I feared for the future - I feared whether there was a future.   The announcement late last week by Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw that trials of so-called Independently-Financed News Consortia (IFNCs) would begin next year (in the Scotland, Wales, Tyne Tees and Border areas) was a welcome one.   It is probably not the panacea I would like to be, but it's a step in the right direction.

There are certainly some issues which need addressing, the most obvious being the question of where the "independent finance" comes from.   The perceived wisdom is that it will originate from that part of the licence fee reserved in recent years for funding the digital switchover.   That is top-slicing in all but name.   Personally, I am surprisingly indifferent about it, but it is far from a done deal.

Another issue is the composition of the consortia themselves.   Several local newspaper groups view INFCs as a much-needed way of diversifying, but concerns have been expressed about the ability of print media to operate a broadcast-led operation.   For me, local newspapers undoubtedly have a contribution to make in this evolving model, although I would probably be more comfortable with an established broadcast news provider like ITN taking the lead.

Then there's the Tories.   The other side of a general election, a future Conservative government would seem to favour taking the IFNC approach beyond what I believe to be its logical conclusion.   Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has suggested creating a network of local TV stations, adopting some aspects of the successful American model.    In the States, there is competition between local broadcasters serving the same populations.   Hunt concedes that there isn't the scale for this in the U.K., but believes monopolies of privately-funded local commercial broadcasters could be created.

As far as I'm concerned, the U.S. model, albeit modified, simply doesn't transfer to the U.K..   Local television news, let alone local television per se, would be too parochial and poorly funded to attract an audience.   It could only mimic what local radio and the struggling provincial press already does so well - but which would be too naff to contemplate on screen.   It would replicate the problem in local radio about ten years ago, whereby heritage stations with large populations were allowed to jettison many of their news commitments, whilst ultra-local stations had unrealistic quotas imposed on them even though they served unsustainably small audiences.   Television is much more deft at reflecting, perhaps even forging, a strong regional identity in otherwise disparate areas.

That's not to say the slightly anachronistic map of the ITV regions shouldn't be redrawn.   There are clear anomalies, such as the presence of the Scottish Borders in an English ITV franchise.   Other tweaks to questionable border demarcations could also be made and, at the very least, the level of regionality enjoyed by viewers pre-2009 should be reinstated.   This is eminently possible, since the annual budget for ITV regional news stood at £100 million before this year's mergers and that is now the level of funding being suggested for the IFNCs.   Noises from the DCMS suggest that they share my sentiment and it is one aspect of the proposals which should be non-negotiable.   If broadcast regional news needs one thing to survive it is an injection of relevance.

There is still plenty to be finalised, both about the trials themselves and any concrete inception of IFNCs in the near future.   For once, though, I'm excited - and it's a long time since I've been able to say that about the future of regional news on ITV.

What's all this about, then?

Now, why would you be reading this?   No offence meant - it was a genuine question.   Apart from people who know me and might make the effort to visit a blog like this once in a while (probably to spare my feelings more than anything), why would anybody else be interested?

If I were in the public consciousness, that would be different.   If I were a politician, journalist or broadcaster (rather than an aspiring one), there would undoubtedly be a whole swathe of people tracking my every blogged utterance - but I'm not.    And that's why I have a slight problem with the 'blogosphere'.   It all seems just a little bit conceited.   Cue the digital obsessives who'll be wailing how, to use the well-worn phrase of the year, I "just don't get it."

So having spectacularly failed to answer the first question, here comes another.   Given all that, why am I adding my voice to the ever increasing background hum of comment, opinions and unnecessary bile?   Well, hopefully, I'll manage to avoid the bile element of the proceedings for a start.   The overriding reason, though, is pure self-interest.  

Trainee broadcast journalists up and down the country are having the multi-platform message drummed into them - some of us take a little more drumming than others.     Maybe it's because, on the one hand, I'm being taught how to make finely honed and crafted radio and television packages and, on the other, being told that any old hastily arranged pictures or tatty bit of audio will do so long as it can be thrown into a mash-up (eh?) and flashed around the world in a nanosecond.   It kind of makes you fear for the future of your chosen medium and causes you to resent the brave, new, converged, multi-platform world a little more than you probably should. 

Anyway, having flirted with Twitter (and felt dirty and cheap for the pleasure), I think my contribution to the digital world can best be made here - as a little analogue outpost, gently nudging readers in the direction of those 'traditional' media which our digital cousins talk about with such rancour and vitriol.    Now that probably isn't the spirit in which I've been advised to engage with digital, but at least I've got a blog - what more do you want?