Regional variations (television)

A regional variation generally refers to times when a television or radio station simultaneously broadcasts different programmes, continuity or adverts to different parts of its coverage area. This may be so as to provide programming specific to a particular region, such as local news or may be so as to allow advertisements to be target ted to a particular area.

Some regional variations are the consequence of a federal style television network or radio network where a local station is part of a larger network and broadcasts the network's programmes some of the time and its own programming the rest of the time. The latter is therefore sometimes considered a regional variation. Examples of this include the UK's ITV network throughout much of its history, and American network affiliate stations.

Regional variation is also a common term used in British television listings publications, such as magazines and newspapers, to show the different programmes broadcast in different areas of the country.

Regional Variations in the UK

The BBC has traditionally offered regional variations across many of its services. The Home Service and its successor Radio 4 provided regional variations until the late 1970s when Local Radio took over most of these responsibilities. BBC One and the BBC Television Service have provided variations within England throughout most of their history, and continues to do so today (mainly News and current affairs programming). In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, BBC One has to a large degree been operated as a separate television channel, rather than a variant on BBC One as broadcast in England. BBC Two has in the past broadcast variations within England, though now only has variations for England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. BBC Choice also briefly had regional variations for these areas.

ITV was originally established as a network of some 14 separate companies, each designated a region of coverage (see History of ITV). Each company provided a mixture of local programming for its own coverage area, as well as airing nationwide networked programmes (usually produced by one of the contractors). ITV has traditionally included more regional variations than the BBC, though since consolidation and majority ownership by ITV plc regional variations on the network are far fewer, and often no more than the minimum requirements as set by Ofcom.

Channel 4, Five and GMTV provide no regional variations for programming or continuity, but offer variation during advertising breaks. S4C provides an alternative to Channel 4 in Wales, and broadcasts some of Channel 4's programmes; though this is technically not a regional variation, rather a separate station in its own right, it is nonetheless frequently described under the heading of 'regional variations' in many newspapers and magazines.

Sky News and Sky One also provide a variant of their stations for the Republic of Ireland, although specific Sky News coverage for the Republic of Ireland is extremely limited, and Sky One's variant is purely an advertising opt-out.

Variations in image and continuity in the UK

Until 2002, ITV's continuity was largely separate in each region of the country, even when announcing broadcasts that were the same throughout the country. The logo of the regional contractor would typically be displayed instead of, or far more prominently than, any 'ITV' logo (such a thing didn't really exist until the 1980s anyhow), before programmes and during trailers. Separate announcers would also be used.

With the consolidation of many ITV companies throughout the 1990s, continuity was often shared between regions as a cost-cutting measure, with the Granada plc companies sharing a continuity announcer (but with different logos) from the late 1990s until all ITV Plc regions shared the same continuity from 2002 onwards. UTV, Channel Television and STV still continue with separate continuity most of the time.

The BBC also provided regional continuity during the 1960s and 1970s, often also for nationally networked programming, but this was phased out and never returned except for in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland where the practice continues to this day.

Regional Variations in listings

Magazines and national newspapers print different editions of their TV listings for different areas - some just for the four nations of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, while others produce separate editions for the regions within England also. For example, the Radio Times produces eight different editions in total (five of them in England), while its oldest rival TV Times now produces only four; newspaper supplements are usually printed in just one edition for the whole of the UK.

A Regional Variations column shows programmes in areas which differ from those in the main listings columns. Generally, only programming that differs from the main schedule is listed rather than listing the entire schedule of each regional area verbatim, much of which would be identical. It is these programmes that make up regional variations. Sometimes all UK regional variations are listed, generally when only one copy of a publication is made for every area, but often only adjoining regions are listed as variations, as is the case in the Radio Times.

In England and UK-wide editions, the main BBC One or ITV1 column shows programmes in the London region, with other regions (and nations) in the Regional Variations column. S4C is also often listed here. In Welsh and Scottish editions, adjoining English regions are usually listed. In Northern Ireland, some services from the Republic of Ireland are often listed as regional variations, although they are not.

Technicalities of Regional Variations

Traditionally, regional variations depend on a network or service broadcasting over multiple transmitters. Typically a 'network' feed will originate from a central location, such as BBC Television Centre, and be fed to all transmitters. Local offices or regional contractors would then be said to opt-out of this feed when they switch to feeding the transmitter(s) with locally originated content and opt-in when returning to a national feed. Opt-ins and opt-outs were often quite noticeable in earlier days for causing the picture distortion such as jumping and rolling as the feed was switched, such effects are still noticeable today, though less obvious.

Whilst the BBC originated its network feed from the same place (Television Centre) ITV in earlier days would originate its feed from the broadcaster which made the programme.

Satellite services such as Sky Digital often offer regional variations by transmitting duplicate feeds of the same station for each region traditionally covered by groups of transmitters as an arguably costly way to provide regional variations within an area covered by the same satellite. Both the BBC and ITV do this, as do Channel 4 and Five for advertisements. The digital set top box will determine which version of the channel to supply based on a list of post codes corresponding to the details on the user's smart card.

See also

*Opt out
*TV listings
*Listings magazine

External links

* [http://www.itvlocal.com A map of ITV Regions] at itvlocal.com
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/tvindex.shtml A map of BBC TV Regions in England]