Download PDF of entire issue [3.45 Mb]
Fight for 429 jobs – and for ITV regional news
NUJ MEMBERS across ITV regions are voting on strike action after the company refused to agree to go to conciliation over its massive cuts to local and regional news staff.
The union is seeking improved voluntary redundancy terms and guarantees around working hours, pay and staffing in the new structure.
ITV announced its intentions to cut 429 jobs — 40 per cent of editorial staff — from its regional news operation in England and Wales, at the end of September. The number of regional news programmes in England would fall from 17 to nine, saving £40 million a year.
Ofcom is still consulting on whether to allow ITV to make the cuts and the union has been critical of the company for going ahead and making the redundancies in advance of a final decision.
NUJ Broadcasting Organiser Paul McLaughlin said: “We will not participate in the wholesale destruction of ITV local and regional news. The current offer from ITV is simply not good enough to deal with members’ concerns.
“Viewers will doubtless be asking how a regulator required by parliament to maintain and strengthen public service broadcasting is allowing this to happen.”
You can join the Bring Back Regional ITV Facebook group
Unions say news can be afforded
ITV AND OFCOM came under heavy fire at a union-organised London conference on October 21. The conference was called by the Federation of Entertainment Unions (FEU) to discuss the report on the future of public service broadcasting issued by the regulator Ofcom in September. The report indicated that Ofcom would give a green light to ITV to reduce its public service content, such as news and current affairs.
NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear said ITV’s regional news cuts had been presented by the broadcaster as a fait accompli. “The reality is that ITV have already made these decisions and are implementing them — flying in the face of the consultation and the political decision-making process.”
Ofcom was represented at the conference by its Partner for Content and Standards, Stewart Purvis, a former chief executive of ITN News, who was challenged by the NUJ’s national organiser for broadcasting, Paul McLaughlin, to explain how it had “stood idly by while the crime was committed”. He replied that in some areas the reduced regional news service would still be better than the BBC’s.
Also at the conference was BBC Director General Mark Thompson, who called Ofcom’s proposals “defeatist”. He said of ITV’s cutbacks: “You could argue it’s a fact of life and an inevitability or you could argue that it’s something regulators and politicians could have done something about.”
Border
Only 13 left standing
UNION LEADERS have held talks with ITV executives as negotiations begin over 51 redundancies at Carlisle-based ITV Border.
The Father of the NUJ Chapel, Adam Powell, said that although the future of Border seemed to be a “done deal”, talks were under way about the impact on staff.
“We have to try and look forward to get the best for the people who are going to lose their jobs. We want improved redundancy terms and conditions.”
ITV wants to cut the workforce in the Border region — Cumbria, southern Scotland and the Isle of Man — to just 13 journalists, and to close its studios as part of the merger.
Border is to be merged with Tyne Tees, based in Gateshead, with a joint nightly news programme broadcast from Gateshead that would have only a 15-minute opt-out of Border news.
Central
‘Half the jobs will go’
HALF THE jobs in the Central newsrooms in the east and west midlands will go, and of those 61 jobs, up to 40 will go from the east midlands studio in Nottingham.
It will be the second big jobs cull in Nottingham in three years. In 2005 ITV closed the Lenton Lane studios and 200 staff were made redundant.
Now there will be just one bulletin broadcast from Birmingham with a six-minute pre-recorded segment for the east midlands.
As part of their local campaign against the cuts members of the NUJ Nottingham Branch went to the Robin Hood beer Festival in October, courageously sporting T-shirts with the slogan:
ITV News
Regional Brews
Regional News
Keep it local!
Oxford
‘A great shock’
AS PART of the ITV’s cutbacks the news programme Thames Valley Tonight, which covers Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, will merge with Meridian South, which covers areas as far afield as Portsmouth and Weymouth.
Up to 40 jobs in Abingdon and Whiteley in Hampshire are thought to be under threat.
Adam Clark, NUJ rep for ITV Thames Valley, said: “We all knew there was going to be a significant amount of redundancies, but it’s still come as a great shock and people are very concerned. We believe there’s a strong case for regional news and will continue to fight for news in the Thames Valley region.”
South-West
‘Journalists’ obsession’
LIVE REGIONAL news bulletins will include pre-recorded opt-outs, ITV has admitted. Speaking at an Ofcom consultation in Bristol in October, ITV’s Director of Regions Michael Jermey conceded that only half of the south west’s 30-minute evening programme would go out live. The other half, he said, would be recorded during the afternoon.In an attempt to deflect criticism of the move, he added: “Journalists obsess about live television more than viewers.”
NUJ members who attended the session found an ally in Pat Loughrey, the BBC’s Director of Nations and Regions, who admitted ITV’s plans made him fear for the future of regional news.
Ofcom’s Stewart Purvis came close to giving ITV a green light to carry out its cuts. “We have to accept ITV can no longer provide the same services,” he said. “The job cuts would have occurred anyway because we [Ofcom] don’t have the power to influence budgets.”
ITV’s EXECUTIVE chairman Michael Grade has warned that without support for public service broadcasting, the network could not guarantee the future of even its national news. Asked at a Royal Television Society conference whether ITV would still be running national news in ten years’ time, he replied: “That is a difficult question.”