A struggling local TV station is to cut around a third of its staff with 20 jobs at risk.
London Live has announced a series of cutbacks to its news and current affairs team, with cost=savings to be reivested in programme content.
The station, which is owned by Evening Standard and Independent owner Evgeny Lebedev, has had a troubled history since its launch last March as part of the government’s planned network of new local TV channels.
Last autumn it sought permission from media regulator Ofcom to reduce its programming output from 18 hours a week to eight hours a week, but the bid was thrown out.
Tim Kirkman, chief operating officer for London Live, said: “As the business develops, we are able to assess where our resources are best deployed to drive continued growth into the business.
“We are restructuring the news and current affairs team with the proposed loss of a number of roles.”
“These funds will be re-allocated against new commissions and higher quality acquisitions.
“It is clear on all our data that Londoners are enjoying this part of our offering which we will continue to improve to drive our overall viewing figures.”
The channel, which claims its programmes were watched by more than 2.3m adults in December, had around 60 staff on launch.
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If that’s “continued growth”, give me abject failure any day of the week.
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Yep, all the Suit-Speak vocabulary is here – “develops”; “best deployed”; “continued growth”; “higher quality acquisitions”; “enjoying”; “improve”. NB the words “sacked”, “dole”, and “benefits” are nowhere in evidence. Given this is London, and that 97-8% of media workers in London aren’t native to the city, I guess it’s relocation time to mater and pater back in Oxon, Hants, Glos and even further afield for many. A blooming shame!
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Local TV just doesn’t work. And never will as a purely commercial venture. Who in their right mind wants to watch local TV?
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I’ve watched this channel many times and tried to like its news output for the sake of its staff. It’s impossible. Most news offerings are lightweight and the presenters themselves look fresh out of college with naive, simplistic views about virtually everything. It’s basically Student TV for grown-ups. I’ve switched off for good now.
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“Drive continued growth into the business”
If I had a penny for ever time I’d heard a newspaper suit utter that dread phrase, I’d have £2.63.
And that’s just so far this year.
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Phil Deane – Absolutely and for many reasons. I remember the Life is Local drive from my newspaper in the 2000s, and even then it was patent it was never less local. There are many reasons for this, but one that can’t be overlooked are the daily ‘mega’ news stories that are hitting us around the world. Planes are crashing, hostages are being decapitated, thousands killed in African massacres – any number of massive stories. Local stuff just pales into insignificance in general, it just can’t compete with the big league news.
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I wonder if any members of the viewing public will notice.
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Scoop – and yet those whose job it is to tell us those massive stories are clinging on by a thread too. But pop up a link to a kitten punching its own reflection and see the hits roll in. Being well informed about the world we live in is no longer considered important. It’s like the Sixties all over again; everyone’s chasing the pre-pubescent pound.
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phil deane and digger are right,what makes a newspaper group think they can successfully run a broadcast medium with staff who cant sell the pitch to local advertisers and amateur and scruffy presenters who look like rabbits in the headlight-contestants on The Apprentice? where i am we cant even sell print ads!
The god awful Mustard tv is the same, they are just vanity projects from someone with no idea whos jumped on a new revenue stream bandwagon,carried through by yes men and costing a fortune to prop up which in this case Archant can ill afford
The sooner the plug is pulled on print medium tv stations the better,but as digger says,its unlikely any of their few viewers would even notice
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I worry that all the trivial local stuff I have ceaselessly loaded on to a website is of little significant interest to the public out there. Especially when all the public ask me is “Is it in the paper?” interesting times for a young reporter for sure.
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Regional BBC is poor enough, but it is several divisions above this drivel.
Nobody needs it. Just get Beeb to up its game in regions.
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Local TV is utterly dire. If you think London Live is bad, you should see Made In Tyne & Wear! It’s actually produced in a real studio in Sunderland University’s media faculty but I’m sure it would be done better and more professionally by actually employing the students instead of the half-baked has-been presenters that are doing it. And then there’s the bought-in content, which even the worst Freeview channels don’t show.
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There is a better alternative out there; youtube. And it’s youtube who make all the money.
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There’s some pretty weak rhubarb served up as news on some of the BBC’s regional news progs at 6.30 nightly. South Today is a good example, based in Southampton and Pompey, plus an office in Oxford and covering a vast very newsy area along the coast and up as far as north Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Bucks.
Some news bits are fairly meaty but then it drops into quite frequent film reports about bellringers, beekeepers, steam engine enthusiasts, keen knitters and other chintzy nice things. Rarely are there some real hard news/more in depth follow-ups to items in the newscast section which last just a few minutes at the start. “Never mind the quality let’s just fill up the time with bits of easy and quick to prepare froth,” seems often to be policy.
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The local regional tv stations both bbc and the independants provide a reasonable enough news service for hyper local news and features to be fair so where’s the audience for this type of car crash amateur tv?
Take their output down three or four divisions and you end up with the kind of drivel being put out by Mustard tv and their like on a loop of repeated content and badly made ‘booterfull’ ads presented by wannabes who really should not be in front of camera.
Newspaper publishers such as Archant really ought to leave it to the professionals and concentrate on getting their own failing core products in order rather than indulging someone’s fantasy vanity project.
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