BBC and ITV news sharing partnership hits problems

The BBC and ITV are unable to decide whether to pilot proposals to create a regional news partnership.

The pilot was set to follow on from the signed memorandum of understanding that proposed the co-location of regional news centres and sharing technical facilities.

However, according to a report on MediaGuardian.co.uk, ITV is still undecided about the next move, because it has realised that the eventual savings will be just £7 million to £8 million annually by 2016 and will take a long time to materialise.

David Mannion, the head of ITV News, said: “There are some severe difficulties in finding a way to partner with the BBC. It operates in a pretty old-fashioned way.”

In addition, a senior BBC executive told MediaGuardian: “One of the lurking issues is the inseparability of regional and national news. It is a false frontier. Under this deal, BBC picture-gathering can in no way be used to support ITN’s national news services. So how do you separate the two?

“While ITV have been very clear about the dire state of their regional news operations, they have been coy about the hidden subsidy they provide to ITV national news and Channel 4.

“Say ITV really exits regional news. How does ITN propose to gather news from across the UK without crews? National news-gathering for it would be dealt a mortal blow. Answer: they would have to acquire pictures from agencies, and agencies charge.”