[Lester]

I thought the same and wondered had they been merged many years ago, when I think but may have been mistaken, that this was under consideration with a service based possibly in Milton Keynes, whether it would have survived as presumably they'd have been more significant in terms of potential audience.

In terms of a potential audience, a hypothetical Oxbridge region would have a population of roughly 3.7 million - which would make it the seventh largest of seventeen regions. If this was an independent region, that'd probably be enough to save it, but the Cambridge subregion itself has a population of 2.8 million - just shy of Wales' population and clearly larger than the Norwich master region (2.2 million) and the East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire region (1.6 million).

Though, for various reasons, the connection between population size and getting a BBC region is rather loose...

Surely East Yorkshire must be next on the chopping block. Maybe carving it up between E Mids and Yorkshire?