Seems like now is a great time to have a robust local news channel for London. With the spike in crime and other local issues that need a light shed on it. You'd think that this would have worked for a major global city with a massive population. Clearly London Live (and others previously) just didnt have the knowledge, expertise, money or will to create a legitimate and viable news service for London. Remember LondonLive's original remit was to be "celebratory and knowing" which I still dont know what that meant exactly. Clearly a dumb strategy and its results were born out by the results on screen and its eventual retraction into obscurity.
I still can't see a local news channel working without the support of a parent group, which really only leaves Sky and ITN as the credible companies that could do it.
BFM Paris is viable thanks to sharing resources with the main market leading BFMTV news channel and having NextRadioTV who also own revenue earning sports and entertainment channels.
London Live was hived off as a separate company within a Russian oligarch's empire with very little sharing with the Standard.
I still can't see a local news channel working without the support of a parent group, which really only leaves Sky and ITN as the credible companies that could do it.
BFM Paris is viable thanks to sharing resources with the main market leading BFMTV news channel and having NextRadioTV who also own revenue earning sports and entertainment channels.
London Live was hived off as a separate company within a Russian oligarch's empire with very little sharing with the Standard.
I agree with you on this point. It needs to be a part of a bigger company. Now that Sky is part of Comcast. It would be veeeeeery interesting if they rolled out a Local News Channel for London that piggy backed off Sky's resources. NBC news does operate local news channels. Most notably NECN in Boston. They also own the Boston affiliate. This happened when they dumped WHDH (sister station to WSVN). They used the existing NECN backbone to create news department from the the ground up for its local Boston affiliate.
One of the biggest nails in the coffin of LondonLive News was the ring fencing by Evening Standard. Thats was probably the biggest stupiest most foolish strategy they could have made. They ensured the news component was doomed to failure by doing that.
Last edited by Mouseboy33 on 15 January 2019 7:11pm
I agree with you on this point. It needs to be a part of a bigger company. Now that Sky is part of Comcast. It would be veeeeeery interesting if they rolled out a Local News Channel for London that piggy backed off Sky's resources.
That might just work !! In London Sky could also stick it high (Ch 106) up their EPG, that would also help.
(Yes, I know Sky 1 is there at present). It could also be in HD on there too.
Well if they were to create a London News channel, and if Comcast had anything to do with it on the Sky EPG, they would likely stick it right next to SkyNews 502....or.....as NY1 was previously on Channel 1 (now its channel 8 ).... just sayin'
Last edited by Mouseboy33 on 16 January 2019 4:08pm
I still can't see a local news channel working without the support of a parent group, which really only leaves Sky and ITN as the credible companies that could do it.
Frustratingly, one of the rival bidders to London Live - London8 - was backed by ITN, the Press Association and Riverside Studios. This may well have been more successful than London Live due to the extra broadcasting experience.
Ofcom awarded the licence to London Live because it 'demonstrated the greatest understanding of London's diverse communities' and promised hyper-local online content, which never really amounted to much.
Actually the new schedule times are worse than I originally posted. It's actually 3.5 hours per week with three 30 min bulletins on Mon, Weds and Fri with two 60 min bulletins on Tuesday and Thursday.
How does a bulletin compare to the BBC/ITV equivalent now? Poorly I imagine, but a masterclass compared to what That's London or Made in London would offer.
:-(
A former member
It’s always been pretty competent. I think some people need to accept that there just isn’t an appetite here for local news at this level. We have a lot in common with our friends in the US here, but we also have a lot of differences too, and this is one of them. We just aren’t arsed about it.