This is by design to some degree over the last few decades for much of the UK television landscape too. Successive UK governments have directed the BBC (state run broadcaster responsible for huge amount of UK TV) to incorporate more regional content/actors/accents. Historically the BBC had often been accused of a London/“Received Pronunciation” bias.

This has been accomplished in a number of ways - opening more regional TV production studios, commissioning more content from regions outside London, hiring presenters/actors with regional accents etc, the net effect of all of which has been to broaden BBC talent pool beyond the usual cadre of “Received Pronunciation”-style presenters.

As one example, I personally find the presenter Freddie Flintoff to be almost impossible to understand on any BBC show he appears on, but he has exactly the sort of accent you would never have heard on BBC 40 years ago.