BBC West Midlands schedule - and "Midlands Today" in 1964, one of the UK's first daily regional news programmes. Regional television had been established in 1957 with the launch of local evening news bulletins. Although it fared better than the struggling BBC North or BBC West (which was threatened for a while with being absorbed by the Midlands Region), it was clear that if BBC Midlands was too large to be truly local in the radio market, it was equally too small to be as self-sufficient across the full range of television programming as it had been in radio. The result was the
BBC One the television licence fee together with the BBC's other domestic television stations, and therefore shows uninterrupted programming without commercial advertising. It is currently the most watched television channel in the United Kingdom, ahead of its traditional rival for ratings leadership, ITV. The BBC began its own regular television programming from the basement of Broadcasting House, London, on 22 August 1932. The BBC Television Service officially began regular broadcasts on 2 November 1936 from a converted wing of the Alexandra Palace in London. On 1 September 1939, two days before Britain declared war on Germany, the station was taken off air