JOB cuts are feared at ITV Granada in Manchester after media regulator Ofcom further relaxed the broadcaster's obligations to provide regional news and programming for the north west.
Proposals now under consultation for each of the ITV regional broadcasting centres would slash the weekly offering of news programming from five and a half hours per a week to three hours and forty five.
Some regions will be hit even harder than Granada because ITV also plans to merge a number of neighbouring news operations.
Non-news programming produced for all of ITV's region will in future only need to be broadcast for an average of 15 minutes per week.
The proposals are in line with Ofcom's belief that the current model of public service broadcasting is 'broken' and that it is no longer fair to force ITV to keep all of its traditional programming commitments in an age of increased competition, particularly as digital switchover approaches.
ITV - which operates regional licences on channel 3 across the country - has indicated that it needs to make savings of £40m from its PSB production, which also includes current affairs and children's programming.
Ofcom's consultation also contains bad news for in-house and independent television production companies outside of London, with a reduction from 50 per cent to 35 per cent of overall original programming required to be made outside the M25 in future.
ITV would not specify how many jobs are under threat, but said that staff and unions have being consulted.
"We have consistently argued that the regulatory costs and commercial benefits of holding the ITV plc licences need to re-balanced between now and analogue switch off in 2012," a spokesman said.
"We welcome Ofcom's acknowledgement of the need to strike the right balance between these costs and benefits, which is reflected in its proposals for ITV plc's regional news services, regional non-news programmes and the Out of London quota."
Ofcom says that the BBC should be at the 'cornerstone' of public service broadcasting, but that viewers also want those services to be made available. It is now considering a number of options for the future, including allowing producers to bid for public money in exchange for providing core PSB programming.
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Granada was created as a family entertainment TV Company many years ago, and despite ITV wanting an end to regional logos, Granada and Granadaland will always remain. Granada over the years has provided good quality local programmes for very little expense. Granada Up-Front with Tony Wilson and Lucy Meacock was one such programme. It was a regional topical discussion programme where the audience wasn't whipped up into a frenzy of violence before it began, but by discussion of other topics in the House of Commons set for an hour before it began. And this programme also introduced us to the then unknown Caroline Ahern Character Mrs. Merton. Other excellent local programmes included "The way we used to...." series, "So it Goes", and "Upstairs at Erics". And Granada reports has consistently been more entertaining (and more friendly) than North West Tonight on the BBC. Even the long gone local continuity announcers on Granada were better than the London based announcers we get now.
If Granada is going to be allowed to give up all the things it agreed to in the 1990's then it should also lose its automatic right to be the third channel. My father worked for a Granada subsidiary in the 1960's and his office was at the Quay Street HQ. He used to describe Granada as like a huge extended family. But since Charles Allen decimated ITV a few years ago, I don't think anybody will ever be able to say the same of Granada again.
Things should stay as they are;itv1 plc is already a mess which it alone created. Granada are villains for allowing this muckup of regionalnews/programming.
So London based OFCOM yet again "kowtows" to the 'CENTRALISING' demands of London based ITV. (I think these people all drink in the same Hampstead wine bars?)
All great news of course for London workers - but yet again the regions lose out. But how come our Labour MPs never say anything about this? If Gordon Brown can give tax breaks to encourage the "London centric" film industry, why not tax breaks to support regional TV too?
Not got an opinion about these job losses, the workings of OFCOM and all this - Messrs Stringer & Lloyd?
Granada already seems to give more news on Liverpool than it does on Manchester so I think we will notice little difference there !!!!
This is just another sad side effect of the government's TV licence system.
Scrap the TV tax. It's the worst possible way to ensure balanced reporting from a variety of sources.