Changes at ITV pre-empt Ofcom decision on local news cut backsThe Thames Valley chapel is still in the dark as to ITV's final plans for the shake-up of regional news. The Thames Valley chapel is still in the dark as to ITV's final plans for the shake-up of regional news.
Ofcom, the regulatory body for the broadcasting industry, has yet to make a decision regarding ITV’s plans to cut its regional news budget from £85 mn to £35–£40 mn and replace the existing 17 news regions with 9 mega regions.
However, moves to merge management jobs at Border TV (Cumbria) and Tyne Tees (Northumbria) are prompting fears that ITV is trying to push through the proposed reorganisation without waiting for Ofcom’s go-ahead.
If ITV gets its way, there would certainly be substantial job losses and Thames Valley Tonight would not survive. The plans also threaten the very future of the Abingdon studios, currently the centre for news gathering and production of Thames Valley Tonight.
ITV news coverage for Oxfordshire could end up split between a merged Meridian, to the south, which would stretch all the way to Kent in the South East and Dorset in the South West, and a merged Central to the north,which would cover a swathe of counties, including parts of Worcestershire and Herefordshire to the west and Nottinghamshire to the east.
The NUJ and BECTU are calling on ITV to engage with them on the wider issue of how to secure adequate funding for quality local and regional news programming.
“If we are to find a solution to the funding problem, we will have to do it as a team,” said Laura Davison, NUJ broadcasting assistant organiser. “The union side have put forward a number of options that we believe would allow ITV to maintain and strengthen its local and regional news programming, but so far ITV has refused to sit down with us to discuss them. Our concern is not that ITV may not be able to fulfil its obligations as a public service broadcaster, but that it simply may not want to.”
AW 2008-05-04
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