What is the best channel to watch local news?
Posted by xEnflare@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 23 comments
Hell everyone! I am from the USA and i found some websites to watch British television. What are some channels to watch birtish news/british commercials? I see BBC doesn seem to have alot of commercials? Anything helps with your favorite channels! Thank you :)
Comfortable-Table-57@reddit
Have a look at ITV News. BBC these days just looks at useless global wars via sensationalized lenses
Jay_CD@reddit
The BBC is funded by a licence fee so they have no commercials, although I think there may be some when the BBC is broadcast overseas.
Channel Four News is good as are Sky's News programmes.
GB News on the other hand is for people who like shouting at clouds.
xEnflare@reddit (OP)
You're the 2nd person to talk about GB News. Ive never heard of it. Is it that bad?
spoo4brains@reddit
Our Fox News wannabe.
xEnflare@reddit (OP)
Ohhhh thats a good comparison. What are peoples takes on the "sky" networks?
cibilserbis@reddit
Sky News is fine, and tries to compete with the BBC. It's affiliated with Comcast in the US, so essentially the British sister network of NBC in the States. It's a little too flashy and style-over-substance for my taste, but not too bad.
Zounds90@reddit
It's a wannabe fox news
Primary_Choice3351@reddit
Bit of background to our TV landscape.
In the UK our main Public Service Broadcast channels are:
BBC One, BBC Two, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5. There are more channels of course and these are all delivered free-to-air DTT via "Freeview" (rooftop TV antenna), as well as FreeSat, Freely (Free to view IPTV) and pay options Sky & Virgin cable. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_DTT_channels_in_the_United_Kingdom for a list of free to air channels.
BBC One is the main BBC channel. Mostly shows the same content across the UK with occasional variations for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland at times. At 6PM there is the national news, then at 6.30PM, they split off to look at local news in the regions ie Spotlight from Plymouth, South Today from Southampton etc. If you're using iPlayer via VPN, you need to set the local region in the drop down settings to view the local news where you want.
BBC News channel runs 24/7 and shares a lot of output with the BBC World news service.
There are no tv adverts on BBC in the UK. If you see an advert on the BBC, you're watching a global feed for a non-UK audience.
ITV used to be a network of regional companies but today it's effectively 2 companies, ITV for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Channel Islands, and STV for Scotland. ITV have still retained a regional news service but it's a shadow of its former self. At 6PM all the ITV local regions show their local news programme, then at 6.30PM it's ITV National news (from ITN). If you're using itv.com via VPN, you need to select the regional news programme name. It's not obvious... ie Calendar = local news for Yorkshire, as it used to be called Calendar News back int' day, Meridian is for the South of England, Anglia is for the east of England. It's not obvious to a non-native!
Channel 4 have their main evening news programme on at 7PM. It is made by ITN (same as ITV) but the editorial is more left leaning.
Was there anything in particular you were hoping to see?
xEnflare@reddit (OP)
That was sooo helpful thank you so much. Nothing SUPER particular. I’ve travelled to Europe a couple times and I’m always super interested in seeing television from other countries. I feel like I’m the only person who wants to see commercials haha. But anything that is local where it feels like I’m actually from the uk! I just bought a VPN and signed up for iplayer but I will sign up for ITV as well!
Primary_Choice3351@reddit
Funny, it's something I've done too over the years, watching TV from other countries. I've got a 1.1m satellite dish in the garden, so I could pick up free-to-air TV from across Europe, the occasional broadcast feed from the states and some Ruskie stuff. I started not only for my own curiosity, but to brush up on my German. All a lot easier now online.
As for the adverts, the older ones are better in my opinion. The golden age of advertising was when we had ear worm jingles and humour to sell things. Perhaps that's also me looking back thru rose tinted glasses too? Now I struggle to understand what some of the ads are trying to sell me (clearly I'm not the target audience!)
So there's me, blocking YouTube ads, then proceeds to watch an hour of adverts from the 80s and 90s. The irony isn't lost on me.
Don't forget online radio stations too from the UK. Check out www.bbc.co.uk/sounds, www.radioplayer.co.uk, http://www.radiofeeds.co.uk/mp3.asp
xEnflare@reddit (OP)
Thank you! I’ll look into the radio as well. I appreciate all your help :)
DependentRounders934@reddit
Bbc news is the best, sky and channel 4 are both pretty good too. Whatever you do don’t watch GB news it will give you an aneurism, all they do is shout about the woke agenda or whatever
Mr__Skeet@reddit
Just tell an American GB News is trying to be the British version of Fox News/OANN and they’ll understand
xEnflare@reddit (OP)
Good to know! Thanks!
foxhill_matt@reddit
Every channel except the BBC will have adverts but they are grouped together in regular slots.
The law is that you can't show more than 12 minutes of ads in any one hour on a channel. This is usually split into slots at the end of shows and in breaks at the halfway points. We show 3 minutes of adverts all grouped together and then return to normal programs.
So for a 30min show that starts at 3pm, the first ad slot will be around 3:14-3:17. the show will end around 3:27 and the next show will start at 3:30.
On some channels you can see if there are adverts coming up because the cue mark will appear in the top right of the screen - a black and white square.
xEnflare@reddit (OP)
That is super helpful. Thank you! The US needs to introduce a law like that. Its gotten pretty brutal. Especially during sporting events now...
Marshmallowmind2@reddit
Al jazeera
International_Goat31@reddit
BBC doesn't have ads in the UK. If you want local news you'd probably have to do ITV? They cut away to a local segment after they do national news but even then it's for a whole region, not a specific area. The UK isn't like the US where you get extremely local TV stations for the most part. Any non-BBC channel will have adverts though.
xEnflare@reddit (OP)
Ohhh interesting. Thank you!
OnlymyOP@reddit
The BBC is funded by the taxpayer so doesn't rely on commercials for its funding so you need to look at other channels for adverts.
cheeseismyname@reddit
Itvx has the news and commercials, regional and national
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