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Border Television is the ITV franchisee for the border region between England and Scotland (including the south of Scotland, much of Cumbria and the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed), and also the Crown Dependency of the Isle of Man. It was announced by ITV in the summer of 2006 that Berwick-upon-Tweed would transfer to the ITV Tyne Tees area in the near future. The flagship news programme for the region is Lookaround, broadcast daily at 18:00. During the 1970s and well into the 1980s, the company's principal offering to the wider ITV network was the gameshow Mr and Mrs, hosted by Derek Batey. In 1985, they did a music show for Channel 4 entitled Bliss, hosted by Muriel Gray and shot in Border's car park. Based in Carlisle, England, Border has been broadcasting since 1 September, 1961, and has had the complex task of serving three very different regions, particularly given the political differences between England and Scotland, and the fact that the Isle of Man is not even part of the United Kingdom. However, this has been remedied somewhat by the introduction of separate news bulletins for England and Scotland. Border Television is now owned by ITV plc. There is currently some controversy on the Isle of Man regarding a lack of coverage, particularly in Tynwald. The chairman of Border Television is Melvyn Bragg. During the 1990s, Border owned a number of radio stations, under the subsidiary Border Radio Holdings, including the Century FM brand and CFM (Carlisle). Border and its radio stations were bought by Capital Radio in 2000, and the television station was later sold to Granada Media Group. In 2008, the United Kingdom plans to begin its 5-year programme to cease Analogue television broadcasts as part of the switchover to Digital television starting with Border. It was announced on 27 July 2006 that the Berwick-upon-Tweed area is to be transferred to Tyne Tees Television as part of the preparations for the digital switchover of the Border region in 2008 and to bring Berwick into line with the rest of the North East, which is scheduled to switch over to digital in 2011.*
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