08-11-2021, 02:22 PM
London Lite post_id=52461 time= user_id=953 Wrote:So it does, I had forgotten that. Milton Keynes serves Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Hertfordshire all from studios in Buckinghamshire.AnthonyW post_id=52460 time= user_id=1355 Wrote:commseng post_id=52398 time=1636303253 user_id=1125 Wrote:Local radio in Ipswich shows what sort of thing could happen.
Started in 1975 as Radio Orwell, added Saxon Radio in Bury St Edmunds in 1982 with some shared programming.
Bought out by Radio Broadland in 1990 to form East Anglian Radio.
Then rebranded as SGR (Suffolk Group Radio) in 1992 and all programming from Ipswich.
Bought out and in 2009 rebranded as Heart - now the local programme is from Norwich.
Not any more it isn't - Norwich-based programmes on Heart are long-gone.
Indeed, the regional Heart show comes from Milton Keynes.
The point in relation to local TV is that the largest and profitable commercial radio group in the UK, the one with the heritage in the area, has chosen to take the full advantage of centralising as much as it is allowed to do.
The far less profitable (I assume) local TV stations are going down the same route, and while I cannot blame them for doing so, it rather undermines their raison d'etre.
OFCOM are unlikely to force a change of operator, in the same way the licence award from Town 102 to Ipswich 102 didn't make much difference 2 years later.