Regional TV Advertising in the UK: Regions, Costs and Tests
Regional TV advertising in the UK means buying airtime in one or more ITV regions (and, where available, regional splits on other broadcasters) instead of the whole country, then topping it up with location-targeted streaming and Sky AdSmart. It works best when your sales are concentrated somewhere, when you want to test TV before committing to national, or when you need a clean control area to measure against. The catch is that regions are priced, sold and received differently, so the cheapest-looking region is rarely the cheapest place to buy results.
How regional TV is actually bought
Linear TV geography follows transmitter areas, not council boundaries. ITV1 is still the backbone of any regional plan because it carries the broadest regional structure and the biggest audiences. Commercial airtime is traded by region, and a buyer negotiates the price of impacts (one viewer watching one spot) in that region, expressed as a cost per thousand, or CPT. BARB measures audiences by region, so you can check each area’s delivery against what was promised.
Other broadcasters offer regional options too, but with far less granularity than ITV and usually in larger blocks. Channel 4 offers some macro-regional splits, Sky’s geographic targeting comes mainly through AdSmart rather than regional linear airtime, and Channel 5 and the wider multichannel market are mostly bought nationally. Check the current regional offer with each sales house before you build a plan around it, because what can be split, and at what minimum, changes. Our ITV and Channel 4 guides cover each broadcaster’s structure.
Regional spots sit in the same breaks as national ones, so you compete with national money for position, and first-in-break premiums still apply. Pre-emptible regional spots can be moved if someone pays more for the break. A cheap spot in the wrong break is still wasted money.
City to ITV region: the quick reference
You cannot buy a city on linear TV. You buy the ITV region that covers it, and you take the rest of that region with it. This table shows the region used for trading each of the cities we get asked about most.
| City | ITV region used for trading | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Birmingham | ITV Central / Midlands | Large region covering East and West Midlands; you pay for Nottingham and Leicester as well as Birmingham. |
| Bristol | ITV West Country | Covers the West and South West peninsula; signal overlap with South Wales around the Bristol Channel. |
| Cardiff | ITV Wales (ITV Cymru Wales) | Wales-wide; some South Wales homes watch West Country ITV instead. |
| Glasgow | STV (Central Scotland) | STV is a separate licence holder; confirm the current sales route rather than assuming it books like an ITV region. |
| Leeds | ITV Yorkshire | Strong regional identity; edges overlap with Granada and Tyne Tees areas. |
| London | ITV London | The biggest region by audience and usually the most expensive per thousand. |
| Newcastle | ITV Tyne Tees | Compact, loyal audience; often grouped with neighbouring northern regions in larger buys. |
Regional names and groupings change as broadcasters restructure, so confirm the exact trading area on the proposal. If a plan doesn’t show each region’s delivery separately, ask for it.
Birmingham and the Midlands
Birmingham is traded through ITV Central, the Midlands region. It is one of the larger ITV regions, which makes it a sensible choice for a first regional test: big enough to generate a readable response, small enough that the cost is a fraction of national.
The catch is scale in the other direction. You cannot isolate the West Midlands on linear TV; the region stretches across the East Midlands too. A Birmingham-only business will pay for impacts it can’t serve. That is where postcode-targeted streaming and Sky AdSmart earn their place alongside, or instead of, regional airtime.
Bristol and the West Country
Bristol trades in ITV West Country, which covers the old West and Westcountry areas together. It suits advertisers with a South West footprint, tourism and leisure brands, and anyone who wants a mid-sized region with a clear geographic edge for testing.
The practical issue is overspill across the Bristol Channel. Transmitter coverage overlaps with South Wales, so some Welsh homes see West Country ITV and some Bristol-area homes watch ITV Wales. That blurs a test using Wales as a control, and a Bristol-only business pays for a large rural region to reach one city.
Cardiff and Wales
Cardiff is covered by ITV Wales. It is a smaller region, which makes it attractive for low-cost tests and for brands that want a Welsh voice. Welsh-language or Wales-specific creative can sit here without being seen in England, and if Welsh speakers matter to you, S4C is a separate Welsh-language channel worth asking about.
The catch mirrors Bristol: overlap with West Country means not every South Wales home is watching ITV Wales. Small regions also tend to carry higher CPTs than big ones, because there is less inventory and the cost of trading doesn’t shrink in proportion. A small region is cheap in total, not necessarily cheap per viewer.
Glasgow and Scotland
Glasgow sits in STV’s Central Scotland area. STV holds the Channel 3 licences for central and northern Scotland and runs its own commercial operation, so Scottish airtime is not simply another ITV region on the same deal. Sales arrangements for STV airtime have changed over the years, so we confirm the current route, rates and any deal terms each time rather than assuming a national ITV deal carries over. The south of Scotland is served by ITV Border, which is a different buy again.
STV is strong for brands with a Scottish identity or a Central Belt customer base, and Scottish audiences respond to Scottish creative. If you want extra Scottish weight on a national plan, check whether those impacts count towards your national share deal.
Leeds and Yorkshire
Leeds trades in ITV Yorkshire, a large region with a strong regional identity and good mass-market audiences. It suits any brand that wants a sizeable northern test.
The catch is the edges. Yorkshire overlaps with Granada to the west and Tyne Tees to the north, so a Yorkshire-only campaign will reach some viewers outside your intended area and miss some inside it. For a brand whose sales area is West Yorkshire rather than Yorkshire as a whole, streaming with postcode targeting is often the more efficient way to add weight.
London
London is ITV London, the largest region by audience and the most competitive. It is the obvious choice for brands whose customers are overwhelmingly in the capital, for launches where London cut-through drives press and word of mouth, and for younger and ABC1 audiences who are more concentrated there.
The catch is price. London usually carries a premium per thousand over the national average, because demand is high and many advertisers want it. Buying London alone can cost a large share of a national campaign while delivering a fraction of the national audience. The London region also reaches well beyond the M25 into the Home Counties. If you are London-only, check whether national with a London weighting, or streaming targeted to London postcodes, gets you more for the money. Our ITV1 adults CPT by region page shows where London sits relative to other regions.
Newcastle and the North East
Newcastle is covered by ITV Tyne Tees. It is a compact region with a loyal audience and a distinct regional identity, and it tends to deliver well for mass-market, retail and response advertisers.
The practical catch is size. On its own it can be too small to generate enough response to read a test quickly, and in larger buys it is often packaged with neighbouring northern regions. If you want a North East test, make sure the weight is high enough to learn from; a thin schedule in a small region tells you very little.
How regional pricing works
Regional airtime is not national airtime divided by population; each region has its own supply, demand and price per thousand. Big, busy regions like London carry a premium. Small regions can carry higher CPTs because there is less inventory to spread the cost over. Seasonality affects every region, with Q4 the tightest (see our TV advertising seasonality guide), but regional demand can spike separately around local events and retail openings.
For context, TheHub market price data published on our ITV1 CPT index puts the ITV1 average market CPT for Adults at £14.32 for January to August 2026, against £11.97 in 2025 (+19.6%). That is an average market price; what an advertiser actually pays is usually less, and a regional buy will sit above or below it depending on the region. We don’t quote regional figures here because they move month to month; the regional CPT page publishes ITV1 adults CPT by region, and our regional TV price variation guide explains why the gaps exist and how to use them.
Three pricing mechanics matter for regional plans:
- Spot-length factors. A 30-second spot is the base (factor 1.00). A 10-second spot is roughly 0.5 and a 60-second spot roughly 2.0; factors vary by sales house. Short edits stretch a regional budget, but only if the creative works at that length.
- Minimums and deal terms. Regional buys can carry minimum spends and less favourable terms than national deals. Check what applies before comparing a regional quote to a national one.
- Share of national deals. If you already have a national deal with a sales house, regional spend may or may not count towards it. Get that clarified in writing.
Regional BVOD and streaming
Broadcaster streaming is where regional targeting gets precise. Rather than buying a whole transmitter region, you buy impressions served to homes in specific regions or postcode areas. ITVX offers location targeting on its streaming inventory, Channel 4’s streaming service does the same, and both sell on an impression basis with frequency caps so you control how many times each household sees the ad. Our BVOD advertising guide covers the mechanics.
Sky AdSmart takes this further on Sky’s own platform: ads are served to individual Sky households based on location and household attributes, across live and on-demand viewing. For a business with a tight catchment such as a dealership, clinic or single store, it is often a better fit than a regional linear buy. See our Sky AdSmart guide for how it is bought and reported.
The trade-off is cost and scale. Targeted streaming impressions usually cost more per thousand than regional linear impacts, and the audience in any one postcode area is limited. The sensible plan is usually regional linear for reach, with location-targeted streaming and AdSmart to add frequency where your customers actually are, or to reach lighter TV viewers the linear schedule misses. Streaming impressions and BARB impacts are different currencies, so ask for reach and frequency on a comparable basis.
Regional DRTV: testing before going national
Regional TV is the standard way to test direct response TV before committing to a national budget. Pick one or two regions, run a schedule heavy enough to generate a measurable response, and track calls, web visits, search uplift and sales against the airtime log. If the cost per response works regionally, you have a case for rolling out; if it doesn’t, you have learned that for a fraction of the national cost. Our DRTV media buying guide covers response tracking and optimisation in detail.
The better approach is to use holdout regions. Run TV in test regions, leave comparable regions dark, and compare the change in sales or response between them. That gives a much cleaner read of what TV caused than a before-and-after in one region, because it controls for seasonality, competitor activity. A few rules make it work:
- Match test and control regions on size, customer base and past sales trends.
- Avoid pairs with heavy signal overlap (West Country and Wales, for example) or the control will be contaminated.
- Keep streaming and AdSmart out of the control regions too, or target them consistently across both.
- Run long enough and heavy enough to get past normal week-to-week noise. A thin test that proves nothing is the most expensive result you can get.
Thinkbox’s Profit Ability 2 study found linear TV returned £5.94 in full profit per £1 spent, but that is an industry average across large advertisers; a regional test is how you find out what TV does for your brand. If you are a smaller advertiser weighing up a first campaign, our TV advertising for small business guide covers realistic budgets.
Which region should you start with?
Start where your customers are and where you can fulfil demand, then weigh size, price per thousand, overlap and whether you need a matched control. A mid-sized region with clear borders often beats London for a first test, even for London-based businesses.
If you have a regional proposal already, send it to us via our contact page and we’ll tell you what we’d change.
Questions
Can you advertise on TV in just one city?
Not on linear TV. You buy the ITV region that covers the city and reach the whole region. To focus on one city, use location-targeted streaming on ITVX or Channel 4, or Sky AdSmart, which can target by postcode area.
Is regional TV advertising cheaper than national?
In total, yes. Per thousand viewers, not always: London usually carries a premium and small regions can have higher CPTs. Compare the CPT for the audience you want, not just the total cost. Our regional CPT page shows how ITV1 adults CPT varies by region.
Which ITV region covers Glasgow?
Glasgow is in STV’s Central Scotland area. STV is a separate licence holder with its own commercial operation, so check the current sales route and terms rather than assuming it books like an ITV region.
How do I test TV advertising in one region before going national?
Choose a test region and a comparable control region, run enough weight in the test region to get a readable response, and compare sales or response between the two. Avoid regions with heavy signal overlap, and keep the test running long enough to get past normal weekly noise.
What is the difference between regional TV and Sky AdSmart?
Regional TV buys a whole transmitter region across all viewers of that channel. Sky AdSmart serves ads to individual Sky households chosen by location and household attributes. AdSmart is more precise but costs more per thousand and only reaches Sky homes.