The threat to merge ITV Westcountry in Plymouth and ITV West in Bristol will hit the media economy in the South West, and undermine coverage of the communities.

Westcountry’s defence correspondent John Andrews said of the proposals: ‘We’d have the same time to cover twice as much news. If news is about providing people with information so they can make democratic choices, then this is an invitation to fail.

‘The stories that would get covered would be those coming from the region’s urban centres, not from rural communities. How can we serve these – or any – communities effectively when we’d be covering a region in which it takes longer to travel from one end to another than it does to drive from London to Carlisle?’

Write to Ofcom, your MP and Michael Grade to ask them to stop the cuts.

Posted by Cptn 

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