ONE SHOW IS THE GONE SHOW

21-11-2006

The BBC's One Show, pioneered at the Mailbox in Birmingham is being transferred for a full-length run to London - as exclusively forecast weeks ago by The Stirrer.

Heralded as the “new Nationwide” and presented by local hero Adrian Chiles, the programme received only a lukewarm reception from the critics during a month-long trial run earlier this year, but gained respectable audience figures in competition with Emmerdale.

Crucially for the West Midlands, it gave us a daily foothold on network television - something the region lost when the Really Useful Show was axed in the late 1990's.

The fact that it was broadcast at prime time was a bonus,with studio shots over the canals giving viewers all over the country a glimpse of the "new Birmingham".

Locally the BBC has produced some outstanding TV over recent years - the award-winning Coast, for example, along with dramas such as Dalziel and Pascoe - but nothing which has been identifiably from or of Birmingham.

This was a chance to rectify the situation and mollify local sensitivities. After all, Manchester is having millions of pounds invested in a new regional BBC centre and has had numerous series based in the city. Five Live is due to move there too.

Good luck to them, we say. But if the BBC believes that it's politically important to devolve production to the regions, how come it appears to have down-scaled TV operations in the West Midlands at a time when other parts of the country are getting more commissions?