Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has published a timetable for the setting up of local TV stations that could be run by regional press groups.
Mr Hunt announced five weeks ago that he was asking regulator Ofcom to look at relaxing cross-media ownership rules to pave the way for a new network of ultra-local TV and radio stations.
Yesterday he published a document setting out a route map to the possible issuing of licenses for the new stations by November 2011.
The proposed timetable, contained in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s Structural Reform Plan, is as follows:
Mr Hunt said in the foreword to the document: “We will….take away the barriers that prevent investment in local media. We will roll back media regulation where it’s preventing growth.”
The new local TV stations are designed to replace the independently-funded regional news consortia proposed by Labour before the election which Mr Hunt has since scrapped.
Comments
Bluestringer (16/07/2010 09:25:37)
Telly is expensive. If the big newspaper publishing companies want to get their hands on local TV, they will have to invest a few bob to prevent it looking a total mess.
You know, just like they did with their “multi-media journalists”, that full hour of camera and editing training on a Nokia phone. And how will the programmes get to air? On Sky? Freeview? Guess what boys? Freeview ain’t free. And how about advertising? Will the poor bloody VJs be expected to shoot commercials for local traders too?
Oh, what larks lie ahead.
Pat Clifton (16/07/2010 09:58:13)
The thought of Johnston Press operating TV stations is horrific. Most of their current video output it utter sh*te – here in Peterborough the ET’s videos look like they were shot by a monkey with Parkinson’s.
metman (16/07/2010 10:26:04)
Errm. Hasn’t anyone looked at what happened to Channel M in Manchester? Jeepers.
Ex-Ex (16/07/2010 10:31:31)
Bluestringer’s absolutely right, only (if anything) understating it – happy memories of reading the video daily news headlines for the paper’s website with all of, ooh, 60 seconds of training for being in front of the camera…
And just at the point when any forward-thinking news organisation with ideas of operating a local TV station might be considering beefing up its current video side, Northcliffe announces it’s abolishing its consumer digital arm, Associated Northcliffe Digital (see www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/news/100715local.shtml). Nice one, Northcliffe.
The first few weeks of the new stations could mark a new low in UK TV.
Shuttleboy (16/07/2010 10:32:26)
Now we’ll see whether the newspaper groups are prepared to put their money where their mouths have been. Having killed off local TV from the BBC so that they could invest in it themselves they will presumably be putting large sums into new stations (because believe me large sums are needed unless it is to become joke TV. And they have presumably found a major advertising revenue stream that has eluded ITV. What a load of nonsense!
The pedant (16/07/2010 10:50:24)
Well whatever they produce in terms of reports, I hope their spelling’s better than that of the person who wrote this article….
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