FINAL WHISTLE FOR ARBLASTER'S RUN AT HTV

HTV West’s Head of Sport, Roland Arblaster, is retiring at the end of this month after a career spanning more than 48 years in journalism.
Moving to Bristol, Arblaster set up the South West News Service in 1986, which became HTV’s main freelance distributors. He was also asked to edit the sports inserts for the news.
In 1982 Arblaster, who lives in Keynsham, arrived at HTV as staff and sold the South West News Service. He was the News Editor for four years, and then transferred to Current Affairs before taking on responsibility for the Sports Department in 1992. Also in 1992, he launched HTV’s first football programme, ‘West Match’, which began as an hour-long highlights show with occasional live matches on Sunday afternoons.
Under Arblaster’s lead, HTV Sport has produced documentaries on the west’s three football teams as well as special programmes on the Bath Youth Olympics, Bristol and Baths rugby teams, and the Professional Footballers Association’s first golf tournament.