Local Television

When the Department for Culture announced plans for local television they were full of lofty ideals. Happy grannies and teens sitting around together with a shared interest in engaging and innovative television with a local focus.

This was at the same time that local papers (many owned by Trinity Mirror, the group that Philip Graf, former head of the Content Committee, used to run) were closing down, merging or cost cutting.

The result seems to be heading for the same kind of fiasco as British Satellite Broadcasting (BSatB). Older readers will remember there used to be two satellite broadcasters, BSatB which was officially licenced to broadcast to the UK, and a small upstart called Sky.

BSatB went in for expensive drama, arts, current affairs, etc, and consistently overestimated the publics interest in worthy stuff that intellectuals said was good for them, particularly if they had to pay for it.

Sky on the other hand operated out of a disused haddock warehouse in a remote part of Scotland, produced a popular soap, showed sport and lots of other stuff people actually wanted to watch, and coincidently happened to be on the same satellite as some German porn channels. Not that anyone would ever admit to watching Man City.

In time the big state supported worthy channel was forced to merge with the popular upstart, giving British Sky Broadcasting, or Sky as it is usually known today.

Well it looks as if the local TV concept is turning out to be over idealistic.

ESTV Limited, the licence holder for London Live, the richest picking on offer, has applied for its licence obligations to be relaxed. The channel only launched on 31 March, yet by 25 July Ofcom published a fully formulated consultation document on relaxing obligations - ESTN must have submitted its proposal some time before that, so how long was there between the channel launching and ESTN realising something had to change? 2 months? 10 weeks ? London Live Consultation
Guardian BARB Ratings

As if that werent bad enough, Birmingham's City TV has gone into administration, without having broadcast any programmes. Not one.
Birmingham City TV In Administration

If local TV is to succeed the free trade loving Tory government must allow it to operate as a real world business, rather than a worthy social enterprise cooked up by a well meaning social worker and the local vicars wife.

Allow it to show erotic content at night, if that is what draws viewers in pays for content about local schools, jobs, etc. Noone watches late night TV for the local stuff so it would not be a loss. Jello wrestling. Flirty quizzes. Topless quizzes. Reruns of erotic films. Perhaps even the odd pole dance.

Either that or give up on the entire concept.

True, until you find out that with a local station and local content you get the local stripper on the TV whom you would actively pay not to strip!

The whole concept of a 'local' channel was dead in the water from the word go. BBC and ITV have been offering local programming for years, it consists of a short local news broadcast, and the occasional 'magazine' type show. In all, probably no more than a few hours of local content per week each. If that's the best that the major broadcasters can manage, what made anyone think there was enough demand, and enough content, for an entire channel!

Looking at the example of the local radio stations, these were very popular some years back. We had a local station opened up the road from me, with local content, local news and traffic etc. In time, the station became unsustainable, and eventually got taken over by a larger broadcasting network, and the local studio closed, and the station is now broadcast from a larger regional facility that also broadcasts several other 'local' stations into other areas, all working to the same generic formula. Consequently, the local content has all but vanished.
Likewise with the 'local' newspaper. We have a major free paper here, and two for-purchase papers. All are now produced by the same company, a big national publisher, that produces a number of similar papers in other areas. There are local journalists, and the papers cover local issues etc, but they are a pale shadow of what they were when actually produced locally, being made to a template established by the parent firm. The paid for papers cover the same news etc as in the free version, but come out one day earlier, hardly justifying the quid cover price!

munch1917. I agree with everything you've said apart from local radio,where I'm from there are two local radio stations one been broadcasting over 40yrs but has been taken over by the BBC but the other around 30yrs but still independent, both still have local studios and still broadcast locally based programes along with local news and traffic bulletins daily.