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ITV Failing to Broadcast Major Transport Disruption.
zandar
Posts: 929 Forum Member
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This morning, the Great Western Railway is suffering major disruption due to signalling being damaged in the Slough area. (Only about 25% of services are running). Both BBC Wales & BBC West (Bristol) have reported this disruption in their inserts into 'Breakfast'.
Both ITV Wales & ITV West have failed to make any mention of this major disruption.
I don't know who is at fault here; the failure of the rail authorities to inform the broadcasters or the broadcasters failing to check the transport situation? What is clear is that viewers would be well advised to watch BBC 'Breakfast' rather than ITV's 'Good Morning Britain' if they wish to be informed about major travel disruption. I further note that the regional inserts into 'Good Morning Britain' are only about half the length of those on the BBC - presumably because ITV prefer to devote more time to their naff competitions where they try and make money from the gullible phoning in? Having said that, ITV West (Bristol) news found time to mention that Birdlip Hill near Gloucester had flooding on the A417. Presumably that was more important than the fact that the Great Western had huge numbers of cancellations & late running?
If it creates a timing problems for broadcasters to make last minute changes to their regional inserts, perhaps it would be a good idea to put transport issues as a moving banner across the base of the screen?
Both ITV Wales & ITV West have failed to make any mention of this major disruption.
I don't know who is at fault here; the failure of the rail authorities to inform the broadcasters or the broadcasters failing to check the transport situation? What is clear is that viewers would be well advised to watch BBC 'Breakfast' rather than ITV's 'Good Morning Britain' if they wish to be informed about major travel disruption. I further note that the regional inserts into 'Good Morning Britain' are only about half the length of those on the BBC - presumably because ITV prefer to devote more time to their naff competitions where they try and make money from the gullible phoning in? Having said that, ITV West (Bristol) news found time to mention that Birdlip Hill near Gloucester had flooding on the A417. Presumably that was more important than the fact that the Great Western had huge numbers of cancellations & late running?
If it creates a timing problems for broadcasters to make last minute changes to their regional inserts, perhaps it would be a good idea to put transport issues as a moving banner across the base of the screen?
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At the other extreme, BBC Breakfast at 06:10 this morning had a reporter stood on a bridge over the M62 at Huddersfield, telling us that is was the "first major rainfall in almost a month, and we should all take extra care this morning"
No shit Sherlock !!
I switched off, total waste of time, both TV morning shows in my opinion
Also reported on the BBC London opt-out in Breakfast
Well, I suppose if Breakfast are pitching themselves at an idiot audience, then they are spot on with their content
Judging by some of my experiences in bad weather, many of those "idiot audience" members drive company/lease cars of the BMW variety
I think they mean the signalling failures on the rail network, and very heavy rain in some area (which typically causes disruption to road and rail, especially if it causes power outages as happened today).
http://www.nationalrail.co.uk
Surely radio is the best place anyway to get local traffic info. GMB is clearly not a major news source and doesn't pretend to be.
Which was my point yesterday. Seems that rain (despite the fact wind and torrential rain are a traditional element of UK October weather) has suddenly become newsworthy enough to send an SNG truck and reporter to a motorway bridge to report on it <rolls eyes>
The Paddington line problems yesterday, were due, according to BBC South Today last night, to the ongoing Crossrail upgrading work, and as pointed out such failures have
been regular (once every 4 to 6 weeks) over the summer.
Exactly. As more people listen to the Radio than watch TV in the morning and with recent cutbacks by both the BBC/ITV it's surprising they haven't both got rid of the Regional News updates within the Breakfast programmes.
According to BBC London TV last night and local radio stations in the area the problem was a signalling failure at Slough.
It was, but BBC South implied (by interviewing a project manager from National Rail) that
it was as a result of modification work for Crossrail and the electrification of the West and Wales lines ?
Looks like it was a major cable fault
Anyway, the bad guys this morning are BBC Wales who have failed to mention problems on the GWML. They have also failed to give any warning of the strike by Arriva Trains Wales from mid-day today to mid-day on Saturday by crews based in north Wales. (An early Holyhead to Cardiff train has already been cancelled). Seems to me that viewers in north Wales would be better off watching BBC North-west where the Manchester newsroom did indeed report that strike action would affect ATW services from noon today. No wonder many residents of north Wales feel almost abandoned by Cardiff based broadcasters!
ITV Wales did report in their bulletins this morning that ATW crews in north Wales were likely to strike but failed to mention any of the problems of First Great Western services between south Wales & London.
Major traffic disruption will always be reported on the tv but it seems both outlets now prefer to put other travel news only on their websites. If you are travelling on a major journey surely you would check an online outlet or even the company you are travelling with directly.
I wouldnt personally rely on anyone else to report it due to the shortness of the bulletins and other more important news they want to transmit!