[Robert Williams]

I'm honoured that you've commented. London and the SE seem to inhabit in televisual terms a "universe" of its own where regionalism simply doesn't exist. OK its impossible to focus on everything that goes on in the capital (as it elsewhere) but surely Londoners of the 60's and 70's deserved better?

I think, as you said in an earlier post, it was seemingly considered that if it happened in London then it was important enough to be featured in the national news, and more parochial stories from London, and indeed cross the wider South East, might not get much of a look in - particularly at the end of the 60s when Town and Around wasn't even on every weekday (it's curious that its demotion to twice-weekly occurred in July 1968, around the same time as the ITV franchise changes - coincidence or not?)

The problem is with such a lack of footage from those days, it's hard to know how well the South East was really served by the BBC when it came to regional news coverage.  It's a little outside the timeframe of the thread title, but possibly the earliest footage that can be found online is a clip of the London segment of Nationwide from 1970.  Although the opening menu does indicate proper 'hard' news stories are to come, the top item on the programme is... a feature and interview with Led Zeppelin.

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