§ Lord Roganasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, in order to maintain and strengthen the cultural diversity of the regions of the United Kingdom, the number of weekly hours of local programmes transmitted yearly should be more than is currently being broadcast by the 17 television licensee companies. [HL13]
§ The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Blackstone)The Government have set out in their White Paper,A New Future for Communications, their proposals to retain and to strengthen the regional dimension to public service broadcasting to ensure that it meets the needs of different communities and cultural interests. Under the proposed new three-tier structure for the regulation of broadcasting, ITV licensees will have to comply with targets for regional programming and regional productions.
§ Lord Roganasked Her Majesty's Government:
What was the average weekly time allotted to regional programmes transmitted in each of the 17 television areas for the years, 1998, 1999, and 2000. [HL14]
28WA
§ Baroness BlackstoneThe Independent Television Commission is responsible for regulating and monitoring the requirements in the ITV licences for regional programming. The average weekly amount of new and repeat regional programming provided by each of the 16 regional Channel 3 licences for 1998, 1999 and 2000 is:
1998 1999 2000 Licensee Achieved Hrs: Mins Achieved Hrs: Mins Achieved Hrs: Mins Anglia 10:49 11:29 11:02 Border 5:49 5:54 6:09 Carlton 10:09 9:43 9:47 Central 17:43 17:17 17:39 Channel 6:09 5:45 5:49 Grampian 8:54 10:25 10:36 Granada 9:58 10:11 9:54 HTV Wales 11:46 12:06 12:01 HTV West 11:18 11:23 11:21 LWT 4:03 4:09 3:55 Meridian 16:11 16:30 15:57 Scottish 22:15 22:11 21:24 Tyne Tees 10:36 10:35 10:28 Ulster 14:15 12:56 12:58 Westcountry 12:04 12:12 12:23 Yorkshire 14:52 15:23 14:46 Total 186:51 188:09 186:09 NB. These figures exclude additional sub-regional programmes produced by Anglia, Border, Central, Meridian, Tyne Tees, Westcountry and Yorkshire.