From Stewart Purvis, partner, Content and Standards, ofcom.
PETER Rhodes is plainly wrong (JEP, 3 October) when he claims that Ofcom has allowed ITV to ‘sack’ 40 per cent of its local journalists.

Instead, we are consulting on proposals to relax some of the obligations on ITV to provide regional news. This is an entirely practical measure, designed to ensure that ITV is able to continue to provide the sort of programmes that viewers have told us they value the highest – programmes made in the UK, network news and nations and regions news, especially in peak time. We welcome ITV’s commitment made last week to guaranteeing the provision of regional news to 2012.

This is not the action of a ‘poodle’ watchdog, as Mr Rhodes claims, but proposals grounded in the economic reality of providing public service broadcasting in the digital age.
Further, the decision to make a number of staff redundant is entirely a matter for ITV and not Ofcom.
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