REGIONAL TV BROADCASTERS SHOULD KNOW THAT NORTHUMBERLAND IS A BIG COUNTY ACROSS WHICH THE IDEAL REGIONAL TV WILL CHANGE.

29^th August 2023

(Updated 16th September 2023)

Dear Readers

There are two mainstream producers of Regional TV that serve the large county of Northumberland: The first is BBC1 North East & Cumbria that produces the flagship BBC1 Regional TV programme Look North (the version for the North East and Cumbria transmission area that also includes much of North Yorkshire), and ITV1 Tyne Tees & Border that produces ITV1 News Tyne Tees. The distance from the southernmost border of Northumberland with County Durham (just south of Allenheads) to the northernmost tip of Northumberland (adjoining both the North Sea and the Scottish Borders) is 72 miles as the crow flies, but the distance is 105 miles by car from the Northumberland- County Durham county boundary south of Allenheads to the north-east end of Scottish Border, which borders Northumberland on the North Sea Coast. It would take over two hours to drive that distance by car. Yet both these extremities of Northumberland get the same Regional TV programming.

The east- west breadth of Northumberland, which is greatest across the south of the county, is also 48 miles as the crow flies from the North Sea coast at Seaton Sluice, adjoining the North Tyneside boundary to the Cumbrian border on the Pennines west of Slaggyford in the South Tyne Valley: It also takes an hour and 12 minutes to drive the 55 miles by road from Seaton Sluice on the south-east Northumberland Coast  to the village of Slaggyford in the South Tyne Valley. Both Seaton Sluice and Slaggyford also get the same Regional TV programming from BBC1 Look North (NE/ Cumbria) and ITV1 News Tyne Tees., although the Haltwhistle area and South Tyne Valley up to Slaggyford can also pick up ITV1 Border Lookaround fairly well. The Berwick-upon-Tweed area in the north of Northumberland, and communities along the River Tweed and along the Scottish Border westwards of Berwick-upon-Tweed can also easily get the BBC1 Scotland signal so viewers there can easily watch BBC1 Reporting Scotland if viewers so wish.

The illustrations of the east-west and (particularly) the south-north breadth of Northumberland, and changes to the Regional TV services that can be picked up in the northernmost and westernmost extremities of the county are sufficient to demonstrate that what would be relevant and local in the south-east of the county- adjoining Tyneside may not be local to viewers in the South Tyne valley south-west of Haltwhistle or to viewers living in the far north of Northumberland around Berwick-upon-Tweed.

Naturally, for folk living in Northumberland and, by extension North East England, Regional TV broadcasters might expect all good Northumbrians to watch either BBC1 Look North (NE/ Cumbria) or ITV1 News Tyne Tees because that is what you are “supposed to watch” if you live anywhere in the North East of England! But across other large rural counties in northern England, such as North Yorkshire and Cumbria, viewers of Regional TV do view markedly different Regional TV services depending upon where they live: Taking North Yorkshire as a case in point, the Regional TV providers don’t have this insistence that folk everywhere in the county should only watch Yorkshire Regional News because they are in Yorkshire, and both BBC1 Look North (NE/ Cumbria) and ITV1 News Tyne Tees covers in news-output (and is transmitted to) the northern two-thirds of North Yorkshire which, as part of the old North Riding of Yorkshire was historically affiliated with Middlesbrough and Teesside. Regional TV programmers recognise this, so whilst the south of North Yorkshire- Selby, York, Harrogate, and Skipton- get ITV1 News Calendar (North) and BBC1 Look North (Yorkshire) the middle and north of the county gets Regional TV output from the North East. Programmers recognise that the north of North Yorkshire has a different local and regional affiliation than the south of the county.

Where Regional TV falls down is in terms of coverage of North Yorkshire: Viewers in places like Hawes, Ripon, Scarborough or Ingleton, well away from the main centres of population, would welcome much more coverage of North Yorkshire, and so viewers in those places would do well to write to both BBC1 NE/ Cumbria ( BBC1 Yorkshire in the south of the county) and ITV1 Tyne Tees & Border (ITV1 Yorkshire in the south of the county) to cover the county better. However, in much of North Yorkshire, getting better, more localised  Regional TV news does not involve watching the mainstream Yorkshire Regional TV services. In order to get better Regional TV for communities in the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors, viewers in those communities may not only need to write in and get their local MPs involved to demand more local coverage but viewers must even be prepared to boycott the mainstream Regional TV services and seek out other local news- services that are more geographic- appropriate such as That’s TV North Yorkshire (which can be watched at 6.pm on weekdays on Freeview Channel 7. Details of programme here: http://www.thats.tv/north-yorkshire/).

What applies to North Yorkshire applies to Northumberland: Northumberland is a large county with a considerable east-west span across the south of the county and a considerably larger south-north span. What is appropriate local and Regional News for viewers up along the North Northumberland/ Scottish Border is not appropriate for viewers anywhere in the south of the county, and vice versa. Viewers want local news first, news about their county second and news about their Region third. If “local news” as watched by a viewer is about something happening over fifty miles or over an hour’s travel time away (whichever is the greater distance) that viewer is not going to see that news as local. Primarily, viewers also want really local news, which is news within a 25- mile radius or 30-minutes’ travel-time (whichever is the greater distance): That is, encompassing places to which they travel to work within, go out shopping, go out for an afternoon drive and a pub- lunch- which is what one would term Immediate Local. Outside that zone are places to which one might travel on a fine summer’s day out, go to visit relatives several times a year, or go for a major shopping trip or a proper day at the sea-side: These are places that are local but not Immediate Local, but Regionally Local and that is anywhere up to an hour’s travel time away (or 50 miles away), whichever is the greater distance. Naturally, what is Immediate Local to someone living in Berwick-upon-Tweed (almost half of the places of which will be over the Border into the Scottish Borders) will be wholly different to what is Immediate Local to an inhabitant of Hexham or Blyth (for whom Newcastle-upon-Tyne would be in the orbit of what is Immediate Local). In the mid- northern part of Northumberland, near Alnwick or Alnmouth, only locations in Northumberland would really be Immediate Local. For the area around Haltwhistle, in the far south-west of Northumberland, the city of Carlisle in North Cumbria is within the Immediate Local range,  but Newcastle-upon-Tyne is well outside this range but is still Regionally Local.

Locations outside of the Regionally Local range, over 50 miles away or involving a journey taking more than one hour (whichever is the greater distance) would not be considered local. Places outside this range are those that most folk would undertake two or three times a year and would necessarily involve an overnight stay away from home. What happens in these Not Local places may be of interest to viewers in relation to what is happening nationally, but no more than that unless the viewer concerned has family or friends living in the area about which the news is. For example, a viewer living even in Hexham in south-west Northumberland would be no more interested in hearing about a shooting in Leeds or Manchester than if they heard about the shooting being in South London- unless, that is, they had an aunt living in Leeds or a university friend living in Manchester. That’s what the BBC1 News at Six and ITV1 ITV Evening News is for, to inform folk about what is happening in other parts of the country that is not local to them. Regional TV is- or should be- geographic-specific to the communities that they serve, and it is encumbent upon broadcasters to ensure that what is local to viewers and what is in keeping with viewers’ wider Regional affiliation is what is broadcast: Viewers of Regional TV, for their part, can and should communicate broadcasters their failure to provide such a service for their area so that broadcasters can do something about it.

In practice, how this works out for viewers in Northumberland will vary across the county, but common to almost all of the county (with the possible exception of the south-east corner, adjoining Tyneside) will be that viewers in Northumberland need more news about Northumberland. Unlike across the Pennines, where much of Cumbria has it’s own very good local and Regional news-coverage from ITV1 Border Lookaround viewers in Northumberland do not have a go-to local news- service. If one lives in the area around Alnwick, ITV1 News Tyne Tees will provide slightly more local news than BBC1 Look North (which also covers Cumbria in output), but neither Regional TV- service provides much more than 10% coverage northwards of the River Tyne. These Regional TV services are also the only ones that can be watched from ones TV aerial, but it is certain that- from the Alnwick area at least- getting BBC1 Reporting Scotland or STV News at Six (East Scotland version) would be even worse in terms of geographic-appropriate coverage since there would be no news about Northumberland and (despite cross Scottish Border links being important to northern Northumberland) most of the content would be about places over ninety miles away to the north-west.

The best bargaining chip that folk in mid-Northumberland have is to switch off the Regional TV News and sign up for local media outlets like the Northumberland Gazette newspaper which covers the local area (details here: https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/). The website for this newspaper does sometimes have local news links. There is also The Evening Chronicle’s Northumberland Live feed (details here: https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/all-about/northumberland), which has a wealth of news about Northumberland although it is not a sit-down-and-watch Local TV service. There is also You Tube based Northumberland TV, which mainly has news about local politics but has other news-clips too, but it is the closest to providing something that local viewers can actually watch- albeit on a computer via You Tube (the website address details are  here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRjaNG8hxEey9jHfGPaSuVg). If one finds these local news- features valuable and provide all the local news that you need then one can credibly boycott BBC1 Look North (NE/ Cumbria) and ITV1 News Tyne Tees. If one can do this, encourage local friends and family to boycott Regional TV in favour of these Northumberland-only news-sources, and get them to tell programmers for BBC1 Look North (NE/ Cumbria) and ITV1 News Tyne Tees why the programming is being shunned (i.e., little local news about Northumberland).

Unfortunately, Regional TV producers based in Tyneside know that viewers across most of Northumberland think that what they have is the best that there is. Indeed, for much of Northumberland that would be correct. Unlike in Cumbria and in North Yorkshire, where other, more local TV news-services do exist, the mainstream Regional TV-services that serve Northumberland are the best that there is for much of the county. That limits the capacity of folk in most areas of Northumberland in their ability to credibly boycott the Regional TV News-services on offer: Why? Because the broadcasters who produce BBC1 Look North (NE/ Cumbria) and ITV1 News Tyne Tees know that viewers like to stay sat down to watch the Regional TV News after (for BBC1) or before (ITV1) the main National News, and it is hard to switch off the telly and switch on the computer instead to get what will only be news-clips from you You Tube-based Northumberland TV.

To that end, local folk in mid-Northumberland would be better off sticking with ITV1 News Tyne Tees on the basis of slightly better coverage than from BBC1 Look North (the latter covering Cumbria too). Viewers can then write to ITV1 Tyne Tees & Border, which produces output for ITV1 Border Lookaround as well as ITV1 News Tyne Tees to suggest that they cover Northumberland better and put one or two of the news- stories about the Scottish Borders (that go in ITV1 Border Lookaround) into ITV1 News Tyne Tees. It is probable that ITV1 Tyne Tees & Border is slightly more malleable than BBC1 Look North (NE/ Cumbria) when it comes to persuading broadcasters- with added pressure from local MPs- to include more news-coverage of rural Northumberland with overlap into the Scottish Borders. This is partly because ITV1 Tyne Tees & Border has newsgathering in Northumberland and also the Scottish Borders, for news produced for ITV1 News Tyne Tees and ITV1 Border Lookaround respectively, so there would be no real extra cost for them to slip an extra news-item about the Scottish Borders into ITV1 News Tyne Tees.

Further south towns such as Blyth, Cramlington and west of Newcastle-upon-Tyne as far as Hexham viewers are likely to be happier with the Regional News output as it is: Folk living in these areas regularly travel to Newcastle or to Gateshead for work, going shopping, etc,. Viewers do also identify as Northumbrian in those areas and want Northumberland news, but Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Gateshead and Whitley Bay are all within a thirty-minute drive and they identify strongly with Newcastle-upon-Tyne as their main Regional centre, their go-to city. That is not to say that folk living in this more southerly portion of Northumberland don’t travel into rural Northumberland or even as far west as the Carlisle area in North Cumbria for a nice day out, but viewers in these areas might be more of the mind that If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It! with regards to the Regional TV-services that they receive.

The far south-west of Northumberland, in the Haltwhistle area and further up the South Tyne valley, receives Regional TV programming from ITV1 Border (England) and get Lookaround, although viewers here can still get ITV1 News Tyne Tees with their aerial pointed east where the view that way is clear. In this area, where folk are as likely to travel to Carlisle for shopping trips or travel across the Scottish Border at Gretna for a fine day out in the summer than go to Newcastle-upon-Tyne ITV1 Border Lookaround produces news-coverage that is perhaps more geographic-appropriate than ITV1 News Tyne Tees. That said, the scattered communities across the rural south-west quadrant of Northumberland often get little Immediate Local news-coverage and BBC1 Look North (NE/ Cumbria) usually has nothing to mention in the wide rural space between Carlisle and Newcastle-upon-Tyne: That said, BBC1 Look North (NE/ Cumbria) has more all-round Regional coverage for small towns like Haltwhistle and Haydon Bridge with news-coverage of Tyneside and Wearside complemented with some coverage of Cumbria. Even so, no harm can come from prevailing upon programmers for BBC1 Look North (NE/ Cumbria) to cover the rural space between Carlisle and Newcastle-upon-Tyne a bit better: The Head of News for BBC North East & Cumbria is Mr Phil Roberts: He can be contacted at BBC North East & Cumbria, Broadcasting Centre, Barrack Road, NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE. NE99 2NE.

For viewers in rural south-west Northumberland there are credible alternatives to BBC1 Look North (NE/ Cumbria), namely ITV1 Border Lookaround for news about Cumbria and a local Facebook and You Tube site with lots of clips and local news about Hexham and the Tyne Valley called HexhamTV (website link for the Facebook page  here: https://www.facebook.com/Hexhamtv/). This means it is a bit easier for viewers in south-west Northumberland to further add pressure to BBC1 Look North (NE/ Cumbria) to cover the local area- i.e., the South Tyne Valley, North Pennines and towards Carlisle- assuming that the original plea for better coverage does not elicit an appropriate response.

At the other end of Northumberland, around Berwick-upon-Tweed and along the North Northumberland- Scottish Border viewers local inhabitants might find stronger, convincing reasons to switch to other Regional TV-providers, these being based over the Scottish Border in Scotland. This far north, very little of the content from either BBC1 Look North (NE/ Cumbria) or ITV1 News Tyne Tees is local, and a lot more of what happens in the Scottish Borders and as far north-west as Edinburgh is more local to viewers than what happens in Tyneside, Wearside or even the very south of Northumberland.

The links- both geographic and historical- between Berwick-upon-Tweed and locations along the River Tweed to the west, and with Scotland (especially the Scottish Borders) are rather stronger than the links between the rest of Northumberland and Scotland. Berwick-upon-Tweed was part of Scotland at various times during the early Middle Ages. The old county of Berwickshire, of which Berwick-upon-Tweed was the principal county town, mostly covers parts of what is now the Scottish Borders and includes towns like Duns and Eyemouth. Today, many folk living in this most northerly part of Northumberland have close family and friends who were born and raised in Scotland. Many folk now living in Berwick-upon-Tweed and nearby villages and towns were brought up in Scotland themselves.

Thus, for communities up along the North Northumberland/ Scottish Border the balance of incentives favouring, and difficulties against, local viewers switching away from ITV1 News Tyne Tees and BBC1 Look North (North East/ Cumbria) is shifted strongly in a more  Scottish direction compared to more southerly parts of Northumberland. Not least, this is because viewers this far north can readily get BBC1 Scotland from which they can view BBC1 Reporting Scotland. For communities right on the North Northumberland/ Scottish Border BBC1 Reporting Scotland is a news-programme which has typically  20% or more coverage of Edinburgh, East Lothian and the Scottish Borders which will be more attractive to a Regional TV-service with no more than 10 to 15% of news-coverage getting north of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. That’s especially as Edinburgh is almost ten miles closer to Newcastle-upon-Tyne for Berwickers. Here too, viewers on the North Northumberland side of the Scottish Border would want more news of Northumberland as well as their immediate local area, but close to 50% Immediate Local news for viewers in Berwick-upon-Tweed, Norham or Cornhill-on-Tweed would be news about happenings in the Scottish Borders. There is, in other words, some credibility that viewers can bring to bear on Regional News broadcasters based down in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Gateshead in threatening to boycott North East England Regional TV providers to back up any refusal to countenance more coverage of Northumberland and the Scottish Borders: This far north BBC1 Reporting Scotland, STV1 News at Six (East Scotland) -viewable from the STV website if one signs up and also That’s TV Edinburgh and South Scotland (Freeview Channel 8, accessible with the aerial pointed west and a clear view towards the Selkirk transmitter- website details here: http://www.thats.tv/edinburgh-south-scotland/).

If viewers who live in far northern Northumberland can get That’s TV Edinburgh and South Scotland they will get a Local TV service that has news-coverage of Edinburgh, East Lothian, and the Scottish Borders, only the news about the Fife area and westwards of Edinburgh will not be local to folk living in Berwick-upon-Tweed. That’s a local news-service providing about 50 to 60% coverage of news- events within an hours’ travel time of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and that is surely enough for the Scottish-inclined viewers of Regional TV who live in this far northern part of Northumberland to totally reject the offerings from BBC1 Look North (NE/ Cumbria) and ITV1 News Tyne Tees– safe in the knowledge that they can get more geographic-appropriate news-coverage. That’s assuming that viewers in this far northern part of Northumberland are aware of the coverage, and availability, of Regional TV programmes like That’s TV Edinburgh and South Scotland and STV1 News at Six (East Scotland)- and this Website will play a role in educating viewers in the Berwick-upon-Tweed and north-eastern Scottish Border areas with regards to the availability and news-coverage offered by these programmes.

Alas, the credibility of the threat to boycott Regional TV in order to push those Regional TV services into providing a bespoke Northumberland/ Scottish Borders Regional TV service, possibly as a 15 minute opt-out from ITV1 News Tyne Tees, rather depends on what alternative Regional TV News-services are available and whether viewers can tolerate or happily watch them for any length of time to make a point. The dividing line across northern Northumberland, north of which alternative Regional TV services exist that are accessible and provide as good local news-coverage (even though they do not cover Northumberland) runs from The Cheviot summit, 815 metres above sea-level east-northeast to Seahouses on the Northumberland Coast. North of this line viewers’ desires for news about the Scottish Borders and towards Edinburgh begins to trump their wish to put up with news about Tyneside, Teesside, and Wearside just out of hope that they might get a little snippet of news about Northumberland. Locations immediately south of the line running from The Cheviot summit to Seahouses would like more coverage of Northumberland and a bit of coverage of significant happenings just across the Border into Scotland but are unlikely to sacrifice watching North East Regional News programming as a route to achieving this aim: More to the point, Regional TV programmers know this, which is why programmers for BBC1 Look North (NE/ Cumbria) make a special effort to provide two or even three news- features about Cumbria (where viewers can switch over to ITV1 Border Lookaround for more localised news), but rural northern Northumberland gets no special concessions (where viewers in much of the county don’t have any more local Regional TV alternatives).

It is certain that viewers in south-east Northumberland have least inclination to switch to another Regional TV service to the ones on offer given the strong local and Regional affiliation of south-east Northumberland towards Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Gateshead. Viewers here are probably happier with ITV1 News Tyne Tees than in other parts of Northumberland, although they would still be happier with a bit more coverage of Northumberland. Westwards along the Tyne Valley towards Hexham BBC1 Look North (NE/ Cumbria) may be more appropriate because communities west of Newcastle-upon-Tyne are interested in what happens in Carlisle and North Cumbria- less than an hours’ drive to the west. Westwards of Hexham and in the North Pennines south-west of the town, the lack of coverage from BBC1 Look North of the rural communities between Carlisle and Newcastle-upon-Tyne becomes more noticeable, but viewers do have some limited options to put pressure on programmers for BBC1 Look North (NE/ Cumbria) to fill the large rural area between Tyneside and Carlisle with more news-coverage.

There is certainly a divide in Regional TV preferences across Northumberland and the ideal for different areas is as follows. The two main Regional TV-services, because of the transmission areas that they currently cover and the different manner in which the BBC1 and ITV1 TV Regions are set up can collaborate and adapt to provide more localised news-coverage for the different areas of Northumberland. For these areas of Northumberland, the following would bring about much-improved, localised Regional TV News:

• Northern and north-west Northumberland: Roughly north of Morpeth and including places like Otterburn and Byrness in north-west Northumberland, communities in this area would be best-served from a 15-minute opt-out from ITV1 News Tyne Tees programme transmitted from Selkirk providing bespoke Scottish Borders and Northumberland news. The Selkirk transmitter and Chatton transmitter would both need to be linked to programming broadcast from the ready-made studio in Selkirk to be transmitted from the Selkirk, Chatton and Berwick-upon-Tweed transmitters. The Scottish Borders could opt-out of ITV1 Border Lookaround for 15 minutes and northern Northumberland could opt-out of ITV1 News Tyne Tees for 15 minutes- into this special opt-out programming for Northumberland and the Scottish Borders. ITV1 Tyne Tees & Border, which produces ITV1 Regional News programming for both the ITV1 Border (Scotland) and ITV1 Border (England) as well as ITV1 Tyne Tees is uniquely-placed to do this. There is already a main transmitter at Selkirk and a small studio used by news- personnel in Selkirk, and the old Selkirk opt-out used to provide this special local programming from within (what was once) Border Television’s production of Lookaround. As ITV1 Tyne Tees & Border are responsible for Regional TV News-output in the Scottish Borders and in Northumberland it should not be difficult to provide such a service, and with infrastructure in-place it should not be costly.

• South-east Northumberland south of Morpeth: With ITV1  Tyne Tees opting out central and northern Northumberland from the continuity ITV1 News Tyne Tees that frees up air-time for broadcasters to cover Tyneside and Wearside along with adjoining areas of south-east Northumberland a bit better. This would benefit viewers in towns like Blyth, Ashington and Cramlington with a more localised Regional TV service.

• The Tyne Valley and North Pennines areas: If producers for BBC1 Look North (NE/ Cumbria) collaborated with producers for ITV1 News Tyne Tees (who would provide more news-programming focussed on the urban conurbations of North East England, whilst providing an opt-out for central and Northern Northumberland), producers for BBC1 Look North could agree to focus more on Cumbria and the large rural area sandwiched between the A1 and the M6. That would increase local news-coverage for the less-populated Tyne Valley and North Pennines to the extent that local viewers would be happy with it. Since BBC1 North East/ Cumbria already covers Cumbria and the BBC is funded by the TV Licence-fee (and so the BBC1 North East/ Cumbria is not dependent so much on getting high numbers of viewers), BBC1 Look North (North East/ Cumbria) is best-placed to provide south-west Northumbrians with best all-round local news-coverage.

The changes in Regional TV across Northumberland in the manner suggested above is unlikely to arise from a few viewers writing in to BBC1 Look North (NE/ Cumbria) or ITV1 News Tyne Tees requesting more coverage of Northumberland, the Tyne Valley and/ or the Scottish Borders. Regional TV providers are basically reluctant a) To implement anything that involves spending more money and, b) To change Regional TV in any way that could alienate the majority of their viewers who live in the built-up areas. It becomes necessary to change the perceptions of what the balances between retaining viewers and making money on the one hand and losing viewers and money on the other.

Persuading ITV1 Tyne Tees & Border that an opt-out for localised Northumberland and Scottish Borders news could pay dividends for the entire ITV1 Regional franchise is possible: The entire ITV1 Tyne Tees & Border operation already has news reporters covering the affected areas and with a ready-made studio in Selkirk, the additional cost may be just £100,000 annually to provide this localised Scottish Borders/ Northumberland news. This would mean happier viewers in both northern Northumberland and the Borders and also the built-up parts of North East England, more viewers wanting to watch the Regional TV, and this bringing -in time- more advertising revenue. If enough folk living in northern Northumberland write in to ITV1 News Tyne Tees with this suggestion it could persuade Regional TV programmers to adopt these suggestions, but it is necessary to have a back-up plan should the pleas for better Regional TV fall on deaf ears. This would start with getting the involvement of the local MP, then escalate to either boycotting Regional TV (and telling producers that this is going to happen) or following up with well-organised  rallies outside The Watermark, Gateshead offices of ITV1 Tyne Tees & Border, with a large banner stating something like We Want Northumberland and Scottish Borders News, Not Just Tyneside and Teesside News. The more folk can get involved the better.

Regional broadcasters, like any other large organisation, do not like adverse publicity or attention being drawn to their failings towards certain groups of people or, in this case, certain parts of the country. Pressure like this cuts through, especially if a group of fifty or more people do it: Years ago, northern Cumbria was put in the BBC1 North West transmission area, which local folk objected to. Viewers in Carlisle and northern Cumbria did not like getting news that was 80% about Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire and they wrote in, in their thousands, to complain about the lack of local news-coverage. The BBC in the North West did respond by providing a bespoke opt-out lunchtime news-service broadcast from a studio in Carlisle with news just about Cumbria. When North Cumbrians continued to protest about their regional and local links being with Newcastle-upon-Tyne, not Manchester or Liverpool the BBC eventually relented and northern Cumbria was put back in the BBC1 North East transmission region, which eventually became BBC1 North East and Cumbria. The power of communities coming to protest and intoning This Is Not Good Enough for Our Area- Change Our Local News! is real, and it does yield tangible benefits if enough local folk complain and publicly highlight geographic-specific failings of their Regional TV providers. This may, of course, take time.

In conclusion, it is really important that Regional TV broadcasters based in North East England realise that neither North East England, nor indeed even the single county of Northumberland is one homogeneous area where everyone is happy with a Regional TV News-service that is 80% about Tyneside, Teesside, Wearside, and the built-up areas of County Durham. Nor should they be happy with North East Regional TV like that because people watch Regional TV not merely because it’s Regional TV about the North East of England- but because the Regional TV programmes give folk the best chance of finding out what is happening in their community and in nearby communities: The BBC even recognises this and advertises it’s Regional TV-services as The News Where You Are! Yet when a viewer in Norham or Berwick-upon-Tweed in the far North of Northumberland watches BBC1 Look North (NE/ Cumbria) it is rarely, ever, about The News Where You Are! Folk expect Regional news that is local first, about their county second and about the wider Region third, and it is time that broadcasters for North Northumbrian viewers of “local” TV news had this point brought home to them!