BBC English Regions
BBC English Regions is the division of the BBC responsible for local and regional television, radio, web, and teletext services in England, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. It is one of the BBC's four "nations" – the others being BBC Cymru Wales, BBC Northern Ireland, and BBC Scotland.[2]
TV transmitters
Terrestrial, cable and BBC UK regional TV on satellite
The Mailbox, Birmingham
Helen Thomas, Director of BBC England (2018–present)[1]
The division is made up of 12 regions. Many of the names of these regions are similar to those of the official government Regions of England, but the areas covered are often significantly different, being determined by terrestrial transmission coverage rather than administrative boundaries.[3]
BBC English Regions has its headquarters at The Mailbox in Birmingham (West Midlands) and additional regional television centres in Norwich, Nottingham, Broadcasting House (London), Newcastle, MediaCityUK (Salford), Southampton, Tunbridge Wells, Plymouth, Bristol, Leeds, and Kingston upon Hull as well as local radio stations based at 43 locations across England.[4]
Overall, the division produces over 70% of the BBC's domestic television and radio output hours, for about 7% of the licence fee.[5]
Since April 2009, the English Regions division has been aligned with the BBC News department to "maximise co-operation in the BBC's news operations".[6]
History[edit]
The four regions[edit]
The current BBC English Regions division was the product of the controversial Broadcasting in the Seventies report – a radical review of the BBC's network radio and non-metropolitan broadcasting structure – published on 10 July 1969.[7]
Before this the structure of regional broadcasting in England had remained virtually unchanged since the late 1920s, when the establishment of four regional radio transmission stations covering England had led to a regional structure on similar lines. BBC North was based in Manchester and covered the area from Cheshire and Sheffield northwards, BBC Midlands and East Anglia was based in Birmingham covering a swathe of central England from the Potteries to Norfolk, and BBC South and West was based in Bristol covering the area south and west of a line from Gloucester to Brighton. The London area, though it had regional transmission infrastructure of its own, produced only national programming and wasn't considered to be a region as it acted as the sustaining service for the other regions.
These regions (alongside the national regions BBC Scotland, BBC Wales and BBC Northern Ireland that performed a similar role outside England) were well-suited to delivering the pre-war BBC Regional Programme and the post-war BBC Home Service that replaced it. By the 1960s, though, the growth of television, the birth of the more locally based ITV franchises in 1955 and the development of smaller BBC Local Radio stations (made possible by the development of FM radio) were making the structure look increasingly anachronistic.