Pooled video future for ITV and BBC regions

Salford’s Television in the Nations and Regions conference saw ITV's and the BBC's top regional bosses reveal proposals to share video footage.

Rather than trying to out-scoop each other for the best shots, the 2 broadcasters would just send out 1 BBC crew to on diary events and let ITV add its own "editorial gloss."

However, off-diary, investigative pieces would not be shared.

Michael Jermey, ITV’s director of news, current affairs and sport and David Holdsworth, BBC controller of English regions said the proposal would allow regional news to share costs.

Camera crews are already shared for certain major events and it’s usual for Royal footage to be pooled.

"Each day, there are stories that we know all broadcasters are going to cover," explained Holdsworth.

"We're saying: cut them once in straight picture terms, and then allow each of the editorial teams to put the editorial gloss, the original journalism on top."

The sharing of facilities has already been broached by ITV boss, Michael Grade in a newspaper article last week. He wrote that it could save regional news for a few more years to come, while BBC director general, Mark Thomson admitted that the discussions were pretty far advanced.

The regional bosses compared the proposal to the system used by ITN, which provides 2 competitive news programmes - for ITV1 and Channel 4.

"This is about finding a sustainable model for the future of regional news," he said. "If we can save on bricks and mortar, we can spend that money where it matters – on screen, in investigative reporting," explained Jermey.

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