Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has said that running a local TV station is now cheaper than producing a local newspaper.
Mr Hunt’s plans for a nationwide network of hyperlocal channels – some run by newspaper groups – have been criticised by some industry leaders as not commercially viable.
But speaking at the Royal Television Society annual convention in Cambridge, Mr Hunt claimed he had now addressed these concerns.
And he claimed that despite industry scepticism there was widespread enthusiasm for the plans among local stakeholders.
“Many think I have been not so much bold as foolhardy to keep pressing on with plans for local TV. Some from the London media establishment are still sceptical. It won’t be viable, no one will watch it and…most extraordinary of all we shouldn’t want people to watch it anyway,” he told the gathering.
“But when I announced in August that in the next two years Ofcom will be awarding up to 65 local TV licenses, the reaction outside London was amazing. Packed meetings – sometimes with standing room only – in Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Cardiff, Glasgow and Belfast.
“Why? Because the plans I announced dealt with the single biggest reservation people have had about local TV, namely its commercial viability.
“They have for the first time reduced the cost of running a new station to below the level of running a local newspaper.
“As a result it is possible that by 2015 more than half the population of the country will be able to access a good quality local TV service.
“We will have a brand new sector for the creative industries, creating jobs for journalists and opportunities for independent production companies.”
Mr Hunt went on to put the case for a new cross-platform regulator to replace the Press Complaints Commission, with a remit covering websites as well as newspapers.
“If British media organisations are to develop world-beating cross-platform offerings, we need to offer sensible cross-platform regulation as well,” he said.
“It cannot be sensible to regulate newsprint through the PCC, on-demand websites through Atvod and IPTV through Ofcom.
“My challenge to you is this: work with us to establish a credible, independent regulatory framework which has the confidence of consumers and we will support it as the one-stop regulatory framework to be applied across all the technology platforms you operate.”
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hahaha!
Man, this fella has NO idea.
Making decent television news packages and local programming always costs ten times as much as you ever think it will and takes ten times longer to produce.
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^^ yeah, what Hacked Off said ^^
I enjoy doing video reports for my paper, having trained in how to do them properly (i.e. not just pointing a £100 camcorder in vaguely the right direction and uploading raw, unedited and unwatchable footage), but there are some stories that you just can’t illustrate in pictures alone – not without extensive recourse to computer-drawn graphs, tables or animations, and what newspaper group is going to invest in the technology needed for them in this day and age?
Good, well-produced videos can add value to a local news outlet for sure, provided you only choose stories that suit the medium and take the time (and boy, does it take time) to edit and package them up properly. But migrating the whole local news industry from print to broadcast would require a massive cash injection to pay for new staff (and training) as well as both the hardware and software.
I’m not saying it couldn’t work in theory – I just can’t see any of the existing proprietors digging deep and stumping up to get such a project off the ground.
/apologies for length – though no-one’s complained yet, etc etc
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Too many ministers with too much time and too many civil “servant” leaches.
We need less government not more
Prat
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To quote Jimmy, the existing newspaper proprietors ARE the ones who are happy to let some wave ‘a £100 camcorder in vaguely the right direction…. and upload unedited and unwatchable footage’.
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Jeremy… Living up to his nickname yet again.
He really has no idea about local reporting does he…?
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