[Former Member 406]

There will be a very small percentage of "non-geek" viewers who may get some form of regular or occasional exposure to two or more different regions.

E.g. if they live in a signal overlap zone and get different regions on their living room and bedroom TVs, if at least one of these runs off an indoor aerial. Or if they often visit a friend/relative etc who receives a different region, even if it's just in a different part of the same "overlap" town. Or if they're on holiday in a different part of the UK, and happen to watch the regional news (just as they would usually do at home) whilst in their hotel room/chalet/static holiday caravan etc.

In any of these kinds of circumstances, the "not my usual region" programme having the same general look and feel as the "home" region that they're used to seeing has the benefit of therefore not being an utterly alien experience for them.

That said, I do miss the days of my childhood family holidays at the UK seaside in the 1980s-90s and how "exotic" it seemed when catching a regional news programme with an utterly dissimilar look to my native region.