ABSTRACT
Nationwide was started in 1966 as part of a strategy adopted by the BBC to meet three different needs. First, there was the necessity to build on the ‘spot’ established by Tonight, and to produce a programme which would carry through the solid audiences for the early regional news into BBC1’s major evening output beginning at 7 p.m. On the other hand, there was the need to meet the criticism that the BBC output was too much dominated by the metropolis and thus failed to express/deal adequately with the needs of ‘the regions’. The regionalism of Nationwide was seen as a necessary basis for any sense of national unity in the conditions of the late 60s and 70s or, as the BBC evidence to Annan put it:
local and regional services are an essential part of a truly national broadcasting system.
