13 - Ofcom: a Toothless Tiger?

So the verdict is in.

And despite an entire year of rigorous analysis, debate and procrastinating, Ofcom have decided that ITV go ahead with its plan to slash regional news exactly as it is. The finer detail is still to be determined, but not one of ITV's core ideas has been altered, improved or even rejected out of hand.

ITV can do exactly what it planned. And many are very happy with that.

And so regional news patches with be merged from 17 into 9 - and "local" news patches will triple in size. They will now cover geographical areas that range from Land's End to northern Gloucestershire, from Dover to Banbury in Oxfordshire, from Banbury to northern Nottinghamshire and so on.

You get the picture. Vast.

And the Watchdog, which is supposed to protect viewer's interests, is allowing regional news to be decimated.

In the next few days, the details of how that will affect my working life will become clear.
But for now the general employees are just all dismayed and devastated. That between the Unions and Ofcom, not one extra regional service or one extra job has been saved.

But what can we do?

In the end, as with everything, it all comes down to money.

And the buck stopped today, with Ofcom.