There’s something oddly reassuring about local news when you’re away. It gives you a sense of place. You switch on, hear the familiar tone, see stories from nearby towns, and it confirms that yes, you are exactly where you think you are. It’s a small thing, but it matters. Especially on holiday, when everything else is a break from normal life and you’re just looking for something that feels a bit grounded.
Which is why this really threw me.
I’m down in Weymouth for a few days. Proper time off. No alarms, no work, no deadlines. Just fresh air, long walks, and the sort of pace that reminds you how fast life normally is. So in the evening, I do what most people do without thinking. I flick on the telly, half-watching, expecting a bit of local news in the background while I unwind.
Up comes ITV1 HD, and for a moment everything feels normal. Then the regional bulletin starts, and something doesn’t quite add up. The stories don’t ring true. The locations feel off. And then it clicks. I’m not watching the West Country at all. I’m watching ITV News Central. The Midlands. A completely different region, a completely different audience, and frankly, completely useless when you’re sitting on the south coast.
Now, I’ve got nothing against the Midlands. It’s a great part of the country with plenty going on. But it’s not exactly helpful when you’re in Dorset and want to know what’s happening down the road, not two hundred miles away. It breaks the connection. Local news is meant to feel relevant, immediate, and close to home. When it suddenly isn’t, it feels strange, almost like the signal has drifted somewhere it shouldn’t have.
So, out of curiosity more than anything, I try something simple. I switch from HD to standard definition, half expecting the same issue to follow me across.
But no. Instantly, everything fixes itself.
The correct West Country bulletin appears, exactly as it should. The right stories, the right places, the right sense of location. Same channel, same time, just a different format. It’s like stepping back into reality after a brief and slightly confusing detour.
And then you look over at BBC One HD, and it’s even more straightforward. No tricks, no quirks. You get BBC Spotlight, cleanly delivered, properly regional, exactly where you are. It just works. You don’t have to think about it, and that’s the whole point.
Which brings us back to ITV, and the slightly baffling state of its HD service.
The reality is that ITV still hasn’t fully regionalised HD in the way it has with SD. In many parts of the country, HD regions are broader, less precise, and sometimes just plain wrong. Instead of giving viewers their actual local news, it hands them a version that’s meant to be “near enough.” Except in cases like this, it’s not near at all. It’s miles off, both geographically and editorially.
BBC made the effort to fix this years ago. What you see in HD matches what you see in SD. The regions line up, the output is consistent, and the viewer experience makes sense. ITV, on the other hand, still feels like it’s stuck halfway through the job, as if the final piece of the puzzle never quite made it to air.
Most people probably won’t notice. And even if they do, they might not care all that much. But if you’ve spent any time around broadcasting, or if you just value local news for what it is, it stands out straight away. Regional news only works if it’s actually regional. Otherwise, it loses its purpose.
So here I am, sitting in Dorset, with the sea just down the road, watching stories from Birmingham and the wider Midlands on HD, while the correct programme sits quietly on SD like nothing’s wrong.
It’s a small thing, in the grand scheme of a holiday. But it’s one of those quirks that makes you smile, shake your head, and think… we really should have sorted this by now.