Local and national press publisher Trinity Mirror has missed out in its bid to run a TV news pilot in Scotland.

The company was among those hoping to win a licence to run the regional news service project in Scotland, Wales and the Tyne Tees/Borders area of England, as outlined in last summer’s Digital Britain report.

Trinity has been shortlisted for the English regional bid but was not put forward by the selection panel for the Scottish region after it teamed up with production company Macmillan Media.

It has also emerged that, although Trinity was in discussion with various organisation about compiling a bid for the Wales licence, it did not in the end submit anything formally to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Other local press publishers who are part of shortlisted bids include Northcliffe Media, Tindle Newspapers and NWN Media in Wales, Johnston Press and Newsquest in both the North-East and Scotland, DC Thomson in Scotland and the CN Group in the North-East.

A final decision on who will gain the licences for the Independently Funded News Consortia pilots is due in March with the eventual aim of filling news provision on Channel 3 when ITV’s licence expires in 2013.

The final shortlist of eight bidders, detailed below, are now being invited to engage in more detailed discussions about their bids.

Today’s announcement follows the first meeting of the independent selection panel, chaired by Richard Hooper, which assessed 13 bids against a pre-agreed selection criteria.

Mr Hooper said: “Let me be clear about what we are looking for: quality news reporting with a mix of local, regional and national (in the case of Wales and Scotland) audiences firmly in mind; genuine innovation, not just business as usual; strong multiplatform applications working together across the web, local newspapers, local radio and television where appropriate, utilising each different medium’s special characteristics; and finally, a revenue generation model that aspires to longer term sustainability.”

Wales

Tyne Tees/Borders