ITV regions debate

[Stuart]

Just on the "what if" situation worth noting the ITV Regional Franchises are currently up for renewal.

I'm surprised that they even bother going through the process for the regions individually, although it provides a job for someone at Ofcom once every 10 years.

It would surely be simpler just to have a single licence for England/Wales/NI/CI/IOM, and another one for Scotland, with the same PSB requirements for both.

ITV as a network was stumbling towards a 'single identity' from the late 1980s onwards, but was hampered by the rules on how many franchises a company could own.  Once that was relaxed, what we have today was inevitable.

I'm just surprised that STV has managed to remain independent for so long.