The long-term role of the regional press is at risk from the BBC’s planned expansion into local and regional media, the Newspaper Society has warned.

The industry body says plans by the BBC to invest in an expansion of its ‘Where I Live’ websites and in highly localised TV could have a potentially damaging impact on local newspapers.

And in a 63-page submission to the government review of the BBC’s Royal Charter, it has warned the broadcaster to stay off their patch – recommending that additional licence-fee funding for further development of the Where I Live sites or ultra-local TV is denied.

It also says that a proposed large-scale rollout of ultra-local TV/broadband internet to 50-60 cities at this stage of the market’s development should be rejected.

David Newell, director of the Newspaper Society, said: “The BBC is increasingly targeting local and regional audiences. It is using public funding to leverage its scale and to create a network of screen-based local newspapers.

“For the BBC to replicate the print and online content of regional and local newspapers is an unjustified use of licence fee money. It unfairly distorts local media markets to the public detriment.”

The report says that far from remedying a case of market failure, such an expansion by the BBC will more likely precipitate one.

It explains that local newspapers are market – rather than product – driven, and says that the migration by local newspapers from the printed page alone to print alongside TV, PC or mobile phone is under threat from the BBC.

It warns that at a stage when local online or TV services are starting to become commercially viable, a large scale BBC rollout could undermine the business case for commercial innovation and distort investment decisions and, in the long term, the BBC could end up being the monopoly provider of local digital media, as innovation, choice and diversity fail to develop.

To read the Society’s full submission, visit www.newspapersoc.org.uk

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