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STV awarded local TV licences for Glasgow and Edinburgh

GTV and ETV (January 2013)

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BR
Brekkie
I do wonder if they deliberately made them look slightly different so they look like two different stations, rather than the same model being used for both.
RI
Rijowhi
Jon posted:
I wouldn't be surprised if these services go on air as 'STV Edinburgh' and 'STV Glasgow'.

They would be better brands IMO. These two though have a better chance of succeeding by having that link to STV and access to their new shows and archives to fill out the schedules a bit, though I suspect bar news and the odd flagship show the two channels will practically share the same schedule.

Worth noting to on the schedules posted on the OFCOM website they're only planning an evening service - 5pm-10pm in Glasgow and 6pm-10pm in Edinburgh - and to be fair they go for different strategies with Glasgow having hourly 15 minute news bulletins then 45 minute shows filling the rest of the hour, while Edinburgh goes for 30 minutes of news then 30 minutes of programmes most hours.


I agree it's likely that STV will use the brand names 'STV Edinburgh' and 'STV Glasgow'. I've got to say that I think STV might have got it right with the Evening service as I feel some of these local Stations are trying to run before they can walk. I also think that Ofcom should be trying to protect (and enhance a little) the current BBC/ITV Regional services as well as provide Local TV, therefore perhaps should have advertised the Local TV stations for limited Evening hours. Surely it would cost less overall and there would still be more Local/Regional TV.
SC
scottishtv Founding member
I do wonder if they deliberately made them look slightly different so they look like two different stations, rather than the same model being used for both.

I see what you mean, perhaps to hedge their bets at getting at least one of the licences. Now they've got both maybe they will align them - or do both as outlined from launch and see what works over time (if any of it).

Actually I'm now in the realms of pure TVF speculation. So I'll stop.
GE
George12345
STV can't even run the main station they've got, never mind these 2 local licenses they have won. They will always still relay on ITV programming and there input into the ITV network has been poor, in my opinion.
DK
DanielK
Their input was always crap. BBC Scotland puts in comedy programmes etc and probably about 3 or 4 'Scottish History' type crap a year, STV tried to get loads out and can't produce anything else decent.
GE
George12345
Their input was always crap. BBC Scotland puts in comedy programmes etc and probably about 3 or 4 'Scottish History' type crap a year, STV tried to get loads out and can't produce anything else decent.


They even resort to playing clips from the hour which was shown many a year ago during the nightshift slot another waste of time
EX
excel99
Jon posted:
I wouldn't be surprised if these services go on air as 'STV Edinburgh' and 'STV Glasgow'.

Worth noting to on the schedules posted on the OFCOM website they're only planning an evening service - 5pm-10pm in Glasgow and 6pm-10pm in Edinburgh - and to be fair they go for different strategies with Glasgow having hourly 15 minute news bulletins then 45 minute shows filling the rest of the hour, while Edinburgh goes for 30 minutes of news then 30 minutes of programmes most hours.

I didn't appreciate that indicative Edinburgh and Glasgow schedules were available. I don't really know quite what to say after looking at those. I really don't think the demand for news is as high as is being suggested - esp when you will have STV News at 6 against GTV News at 6 (and ETV to a lesser extent).

In fact those PDFs might be a load of rubbish - why would you put Saturday sport on one and not the other? I guess there's probably more bowling greens and pub darts contests in Glasgow.

Assuming those pdf's are a reflection of the currently intended plans, the Edinburgh one seems more sensible. Only quick news headlines at 6pm when the STV News at 6 is on, then three 30 minute bulletins which will probably be nearly identical in content, and very similar to the STV News at 6. I guess that will be cheap!

The Glasgow one on the other hand has 15 minutes of news up against the STV News at 6, and then needs to resource a full news hour at 9pm.

Also it seems a waste that the channels will have such limited broadcasting hours when STV has a library of programmes of which surely some could be repeated cheaply. It's not local content, not everyone thinks they are high quality, but better than the test card surely?
:-(
A former member
There should repeat the Passport QUIZ, there 150-200eps that would fill up the daily time slot for 14-20 weeks!break and repeat the whole series to give people a chance to see it again!
PC
p_c_u_k
The best decision that could have been taken, as these local TV stations are a ridiculous idea that only exist because some regional MPs are unhappy their faces aren't on telly as much as they used to be.

There's barely enough advertising revenue to justify existing local services such as radio and newspapers with decades of heritage behind them, never mind throwing a brand new entrant into the field.

I can't speak for the other applications for the Glasgow and Edinburgh licence, but some of the plans announced by winners elsewhere are laughable. They'll last a week.

There's an obvious win for everyone in STV taking it. STV avoid the very small chance that someone could come in and cause them some problems, and the viewers get an experienced broadcaster whose economies of scale mean at least some of the programmes should be watchable. But if it has any sense it'll run a cheap as chips service involving local students doing programmes which are just good enough not to tarnish the brand.

And even then they'll still be better than some of the proposals down south.

The sport proposals make complete sense to me. Let's be honest, they're the only programmes that stand any chance of gaining a real audience. In Glasgow there's no point in having a football phone-in as Clyde and Radio Scotland focus hugely on the Old Firm, so use Saturday to review the games of the day and build up to any televised match the next day. Hearts and Hibs are not as big a deal (sorry, but the Old Firm account for a huge percentage of the Scottish football audience, much as I may not like it) but you can still provide a phone-in for those in the east who perhaps used to listen to Real Radio at that time of day each day. It's got to get more of an audience than tedious political discussion with local worthies.

News can be provided perhaps by the web team, and a lot of the local community programmes look like they'll be provided by the university. The key is keeping costs down, it's not going to make much.
Last edited by p_c_u_k on 12 January 2013 5:05pm - 2 times in total
RI
Rijowhi
Jon posted:
I wouldn't be surprised if these services go on air as 'STV Edinburgh' and 'STV Glasgow'.

Worth noting to on the schedules posted on the OFCOM website they're only planning an evening service - 5pm-10pm in Glasgow and 6pm-10pm in Edinburgh - and to be fair they go for different strategies with Glasgow having hourly 15 minute news bulletins then 45 minute shows filling the rest of the hour, while Edinburgh goes for 30 minutes of news then 30 minutes of programmes most hours.

I didn't appreciate that indicative Edinburgh and Glasgow schedules were available. I don't really know quite what to say after looking at those. I really don't think the demand for news is as high as is being suggested - esp when you will have STV News at 6 against GTV News at 6 (and ETV to a lesser extent).

In fact those PDFs might be a load of rubbish - why would you put Saturday sport on one and not the other? I guess there's probably more bowling greens and pub darts contests in Glasgow.

Assuming those pdf's are a reflection of the currently intended plans, the Edinburgh one seems more sensible. Only quick news headlines at 6pm when the STV News at 6 is on, then three 30 minute bulletins which will probably be nearly identical in content, and very similar to the STV News at 6. I guess that will be cheap!

The Glasgow one on the other hand has 15 minutes of news up against the STV News at 6, and then needs to resource a full news hour at 9pm.

Also it seems a waste that the channels will have such limited broadcasting hours when STV has a library of programmes of which surely some could be repeated cheaply. It's not local content, not everyone thinks they are high quality, but better than the test card surely?


To be honest the two Local TV stations might be better off showing the STV News At 6. In my opinion these Local TV stations should have been Evening Licences starting properly at 19:00, running until 22:30. This would allowed both the Local TV and BBC/ITV's Regional services the chance to succeed. I also agree with others in that I can't see how Local TV can run for up to 24 hours a day with the current proposed set up.
SC
scottishtv Founding member
The sport proposals make complete sense to me. Let's be honest, they're the only programmes that stand any chance of gaining a real audience. In Glasgow there's no point in having a football phone-in as Clyde and Radio Scotland focus hugely on the Old Firm, so use Saturday to review the games of the day and build up to any televised match the next day. Hearts and Hibs are not as big a deal (sorry, but the Old Firm account for a huge percentage of the Scottish football audience, much as I may not like it) but you can still provide a phone-in for those in the east who perhaps used to listen to Real Radio at that time of day each day.

You don't have to apologise for anything, but what makes you think sport automatically equals football? I doubted they could do any football at all without any footage, and without footage it'll just be so boring. As you say radio has the phone-ins covered, and a TV football phone-in would be awful. What else is there though? How is GTV going to fill an indicated four and a quarter hours of "live sport" on a Saturday? Studio-based discussion? Ambitious in the extreme.

As an aside, I've just watched the STV weekend news, where they managed to take a 15 min slot and put in half a dozen stories in 5 mins (one bulletin for all of Scotland, the top two stories were Aberdeenshire based). The next five mins of 'local news' consisted of Moviejuice Extra - where STV's Grant Lauchlan talked about the Les Misérables movie for 5 mins. Adverts, sponsorship bumpers and weather padded out the rest of the slot.

As I said yesterday, maybe a team of students might actually manage to find some news content for STV. Anything would be an improvement on this.
:-(
A former member
STV has been padding out the weekend news for , donkey years. back in the 90s the Saturday evening news wast 6mins with 6mins cartoon. Sundays is 4mins news and 10mins News review with hard of hearing.

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