Cumbria County Council's Leader Stewart Young says he will continue the fight to save ITV Border's flagship news programme Lookaround.
The campaign to retain a 30-minute evening news programme for the Border region will continue, despite an announcement today by Ofcom that it was set to allow news operations in Border and Tyne Tees to merge into a single news region.
Ofcom today published the second stage of its Public Service Broadcast Review which recommends the following changes to the Border region:
- Border and Tyne Tees would merge to create a new single news region, and Border would be a 'sub-region' within the news region.
- The 30-minute flagship 6pm bulletin for the region would contain a 15-minute 'opt-out' for the Border sub-region and there would be a separate late evening bulletin for Border.
- The 15-minute Border 'opt-out' will retain the title Lookaround and will also be committed to containing 6 minutes of South Scotland news.
- ITV has committed to at least 24 minutes of material per week-day devoted solely to the Border region within a combination of the 6pm and late-evening bulletins.
- Production can be centralised in a single studio for the region, which would be in Gateshead, but there will be a commitment to retain newsgathering resources at a more targeted local level.
- The overall volume of regional news within the schedule will be reduced from 5 hours 20 minutes to 3 hours 45 minutes on average per week ( through dropping the weekday mid-morning bulletins and weekend lunchtime bulletins).
Ofcom's report recognised the strength of support for saving Lookaround, saying it received 13,000 individually signed postcards supporting the region's flagship news programme.
Cumbria County Council's Leader Cllr Stewart Young says a robust opposition to the plans will be submitted to Ofcom by its deadline of December 4th:
"It's not a good news day for regional news. The ramifications of today's announcement are clear: vital jobs will be lost in Carlisle and reports on the Border region will be produced from the North East. Ofcom's stance has been taken in spite of clear evidence that local people are opposed to this. Their consultation document is littered with references to the strength of feeling in the Border region, but we've still been fobbed off with an unacceptable compromise.
"The Border region is unique and its people have been incredibly loyal to ITV for many years, we want to see ITV repaying that loyalty by properly covering news in the region. It's a large geographical area with a unique character and news gathering operations need to be appropriately staffed."
ENDS
Please note: Cumbria County Council's media team telephone numbers have now changed.
Media enquiries to Gareth Cosslett, News Manager on 01228 226332