The Much Delayed and Definately Last BBC News Regional Bias Report

I actually stopped this project at the end of January. I believe my point, that London is not unduly favoured by the BBC 6 O' Clock News, has been made and that my research protocol is really not sophisticated enough to glean much information beyond that.

In terms of raw minutes of coverage London and the North-West remained neck and neck through out the monitoring period.

Total Mins	September	October	November	December	January	Total
London	18.31	18.99	28.22	17.04	29.39	111.95
North West	42.66	18.76	15.70	12.89	20.52	110.53
Wales	14.55	24.46	26.59	1.37	14.01	80.98
Yorkshire +	19.76	11.08	23.41	4.34	15.04	73.63
South-West	5.60	22.88	16.19	16.44	11.93	73.04
South-East	24.07	9.91	7.85	9.08	10.86	61.77
Scotland	13.59	21.35	6.08	3.71	14.37	59.10
West Midlands	0.92	10.57	13.48	9.30	14.12	48.39
Northern Ireland	7.37	2.88	6.32	10.67	3.04	30.28
East	3.43	13.81	6.30	1.29	1.37	26.20
East Midlands	1.97	1.72	6.36	7.05	1.69	18.79
North East	6.55	-	1.13	0.23	5.16	13.07

If we adjust for population, so that 1.00 means that a region gets exactly the same percentage coverage as it has percentage of the UK population, we find that London comes 6th in the table. There is also a dramatic bias towards the so-called Celtic Fringe and that it is the Eastern parts of the UK that are the most neglected.

	September	October	November	December	January	Total
Wales	1.89	3.22	3.48	0.30	2.04	2.36
Northern Ireland	1.62	0.64	1.40	3.98	0.75	1.49
North West	2.41	1.07	0.89	1.24	1.30	1.40
Yorkshire +	1.49	0.85	1.77	0.56	1.27	1.24
South-West	0.42	1.75	1.23	2.10	1.01	1.23
London	0.89	0.94	1.38	1.41	1.60	1.22
Scotland	1.03	1.64	0.46	0.48	1.22	1.00
West Midlands	0.07	0.76	0.96	1.12	1.12	0.77
South-East	1.11	0.46	0.36	0.71	0.56	0.64
North East	1.00	-	0.17	0.06	0.89	0.45
East	0.23	0.95	0.43	0.15	0.10	0.40
East Midlands	0.17	0.15	0.56	1.05	0.17	0.37