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TV
TVGBs
It probably has more to do with the fact that by noon, Alex or whoever is on earlies, is at least 5 hours into their shift and facing the prospect of another 2 hours of hosting solo.

Maybe dual presenting might help or a more even split between presenting shifts. Early presenter does 3.5 hours on air, whereas Late does 1.5 hours, though this is often combined with a bit of reporting from what I can see.


Double pres would have been possible if they didn't have the recent round of redundancies. Long hours are common in the industry, so it shouldn't be much of an issue for the presenter. LBC London News radio journalists do up to four hours non-stop on-air with the rolling news format (and then I suspect work in the newsroom afterwards). Where as Ms Beard presented 3.5 hours on-air today with a two hour gap in-between the bulletins probably prepping, booking and greeting guests for the lunchtime bulletin etc with the team she works with.

Ideally what they could do using the same resources is to have a handover at 1300. So the early presenter hands over to the 5.30-7pm presenter who then presents the 1-2 hour of London Live News.



Long hours is becoming the norm. It doesn't make it a good idea. One of the biggest issues in media over the last few years has been the accountants running content. On a spreadsheet, having a full time presenter working around 7 hours on air seems like a smart idea. The reality is that the presenters look and sound tired. You can even see this on the BBC. Often the regional breakfast presenters appear on the lunchtime bulletin. As a broadcaster you need to ask yourself - is it wise to scrimp and save to the point where we lose audience because our presenters look and sound like death warmed up? Does that really send out the right message? The best option is to have a breakfast presenter who comes off-air and helps behind the scenes after the breakfast show.


Absolutely agree but they don't have the staff to make it work any other way as people either leave or are made redundant and I understand a chunk of the team are now only part time. I hear on the industry grapevine that more people are either leaving or have left so ESI might not have to close it down after all as the station will shut itself down because there's no-one left to run it. It's beyond a joke now. So much for the brighter future people were talking about just 12/16 weeks ago.

Whenever I tune in now it just feels like the programming is either filler or something I have seen on the channel already (that's forgetting it's mostly repeats in the first place for the most part). It just feels stale and dated with the odd sporadic attempt at making an effort as it lurches into life for a short period of time. It just has the air of a tyre with a slow puncture.

It coincidentally came up in conversation with some industry friends recently and they've just given up on even wondering what the channel is doing. It's considered a dead duck. It's getting to the point where it will start hurting careers rather than helping them now I fear. I should go back to square one and or just end.
SD
SuperDave
I totally agree the channel is now just a embarrassment. The promises made in their application have not been delivered and will never be delivered. It's time for the licence to be revoked and re advertised.

As far as I'm concerned Ofcom are at fault. They are the licencing authority. They should ensure each licensee adheres to its licence commitments - if not they should take appropriate action.

Back in February they were looking at LL's definition of local first run programming - to date I've seen no statement from them as to the outcome of that investigation, though they did agree to reduce LL's commitments even further because no doubt Junior Lebedev claimed Daddy had cut his pocket money.
BR
Brekkie
I don't really believe any other company would do any better though. The blame for the failure doesn't really lie with OFCOM as these were forced upon them - the blame likes solely with the Government which despite daily criticising the BBC for wasting licence fee money on things like paying their staff or giving them a building to work in opted to take millions off them to create a network of channels which are about as viable as a local newspaper made out of post it notes and crayons.
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SD
SuperDave
OFCOM are the government - just a different part of the government. I admit there are flaws to the local tv initiative, but OFCOM issue the licences and set the conditions of licence. They should also make sure their appointed licencees stick to those conditions.

The Standard is not fit to run a licence. They have failed to deliver what they promised and OFCOM have let them get away with it.

As an ex employee of the BBC I have a certain affection for the corporation, but they have become bloated and waste a large amount of licence payers money on vanity projects and ridiculous salaries for their senior manage ten and consultants instead of decent programmes and creative personnel. Local TV has cost £25m - New Broadcasting House cost close to £1 billion, was 3 years late and isn't fit for purpose.
Last edited by SuperDave on 6 June 2015 12:58am
MO
Mouseboy33
Maybe there is something wrong with the conditions of the licence.
SD
SuperDave
The conditions of licence are based on the proposals made by the applicant. Ofcom choose the winner based on those proposals and the ability of the applicant to deliver them.
LL
London Lite Founding member
And that's just it, Ofcom isn't an IBA type regulator which set the conditions of the franchise for the ITV regions and local commercial radio.

If Ofcom did have an IBA type set of rules for each of the channels, we may have seen high quality output on all of these channels instead of the likes of Big Centre attempting to emulate a former ITV franchisee for the Midlands and London Live which 14 months later is still finding it's feet.

This weekend sees the women's boxing which is being co-presented by Charlie Webster again and a male presenter who's name I don't have by me as it was in the Standard, while Stefan Levy co-presents Hackney Field Day with a club DJ.
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LO
Londoner
If I had been part of the London8 consortium I would be pretty aggrieved.
TV
TVGBs
The conditions of licence are based on the proposals made by the applicant. Ofcom choose the winner based on those proposals and the ability of the applicant to deliver them.


Going back and looking at the original application proposals and actually watching the channel the two things are totally different. As flawed as it was, when it started it at least looked something like what was proposed. A lot of the time now it just feels like someone is sitting in front of a DVD player and randomly playing in a selection of things they found on a charity shop shelf. Inconsistently.
LL
London Lite Founding member
TVGBs posted:
The conditions of licence are based on the proposals made by the applicant. Ofcom choose the winner based on those proposals and the ability of the applicant to deliver them.


Going back and looking at the original application proposals and actually watching the channel the two things are totally different. As flawed as it was, when it started it at least looked something like what was proposed. A lot of the time now it just feels like someone is sitting in front of a DVD player and randomly playing in a selection of things they found on a charity shop shelf. Inconsistently.


The problem was as ESI have found that the original format didn't work as the target audience simply wasn't there. Their own research found that viewers are older and living in the 'burbs which they didn't want.

So do you target the output at a bunch of hipster prats who are too busy spending money in Shoreditch to watch tv or the Stannah Stairlift brigade?
GL
globaltraffic24
TVGBs posted:
The conditions of licence are based on the proposals made by the applicant. Ofcom choose the winner based on those proposals and the ability of the applicant to deliver them.


Going back and looking at the original application proposals and actually watching the channel the two things are totally different. As flawed as it was, when it started it at least looked something like what was proposed. A lot of the time now it just feels like someone is sitting in front of a DVD player and randomly playing in a selection of things they found on a charity shop shelf. Inconsistently.
.

The problem was as ESI have found that the original format didn't work as the target audience simply wasn't there. Their own research found that viewers are older and living in the 'burbs which they didn't want.

So do you target the output at a bunch of hipster prats who are too busy spending money in Shoreditch to watch tv or the Stannah Stairlift brigade?


From a revenue perspective, they should be aiming it squarely at the same audience as their newspaper. A 32 year old aspirational female. Almost all commercial radio output now factors this target listener in. It can make the output quite safe and bland but advertisers jump on it. As you say, aiming at hipsters was always a bit flawed. If it was that viable it would have been done before
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TV
TVGBs
TVGBs posted:
The conditions of licence are based on the proposals made by the applicant. Ofcom choose the winner based on those proposals and the ability of the applicant to deliver them.


Going back and looking at the original application proposals and actually watching the channel the two things are totally different. As flawed as it was, when it started it at least looked something like what was proposed. A lot of the time now it just feels like someone is sitting in front of a DVD player and randomly playing in a selection of things they found on a charity shop shelf. Inconsistently.
.

The problem was as ESI have found that the original format didn't work as the target audience simply wasn't there. Their own research found that viewers are older and living in the 'burbs which they didn't want.

So do you target the output at a bunch of hipster prats who are too busy spending money in Shoreditch to watch tv or the Stannah Stairlift brigade?


From a revenue perspective, they should be aiming it squarely at the same audience as their newspaper. A 32 year old aspirational female. Almost all commercial radio output now factors this target listener in. It can make the output quite safe and bland but advertisers jump on it. As you say, aiming at hipsters was always a bit flawed. If it was that viable it would have been done before



And yet the audience they are aiming for, and I use the term aiming as a loosely as a poorly sighted chimp flinging poo, clearly aren't interested either and then they go and do things like music festivals etc such as Field Day and We Are FSTVL that aren't really going to be must see TV for the older audience. Hipster or hip operation, it just isn't happening.
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