[chaose]

It's become a weird British quirk where things must be matching,  I can think of no other country  where regional TV is cloned in every area - music,  gfx, titles yes but whole sets? Can't recall any

Not really. As a matter of fact, it’s become quite the norm to have matching sets in most if not all regions. Here are some examples I can think of: France 3 regional news, Rai 3 TG Regione in Italy, WDR Lokalzeit in Germany, SVT Lokala Nyheter in Sweden, ORF 2 regional news in Austria. All have the same look and set in multiple locations.

One notable exception being TVP3 in Poland, which is an outright explosion of wildly different regional styles under one channel brand.

Have a browse here: youtube.com