Culture Secretary unveils plans for new national TV channel

The student TV station I used to work for was given £15,000 by the government to make a film about the EU. Even with a budget it was **** because students don't know how to make good TV. They are at uni to practice. None of the other broadcasters' schedules are based on "have a go!" telly.

Sounds like my local community radio station minus the 2.5 million.

Meanwhile in Sheffield Man complains three times to council to come and clear up stones left by melting snow

Or indeed.....

you really are a very angry perosn aren't you?

Is it the guilt from all the shoplifting finally catching up with you?

This was the focus of this week's newswatch, including an interview with Jeremy Hunt.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00xp3wp

I also seen that. He says it will only be a few hours local coverage a day so what will fill the gaps?. Do we know if this new channel will feature National News?.

Its just another ITV until the main owner decides to scrap Local because of costs etc.

If they want to do Local then see how many hours local can cover rather than setting them a target.

Considering local news programmes as they are run out of actual news within the first ten minutes of the bulletin, how on earth does he expect a service which would be presumably even more localised to fill "a few hours a day". This *unt really has no idea.

And I thought the Tories were supposed to be about letting the market dictate itself. Ironically if OFCOM had gone for the Freeview bid by ITV/C4 back when ITV Digital collapsed ITV were proposing the ITV News Channel would be regionalised and offer additional local news bulletins.

Is there really a need for that? I think that's twice you've done that so far, and whilst the man may have made a mistake here, may have political views you and I do not agree with, there is no need to use such personal insults. Just because his name rhymes with it, doesn't mean it should be a valid term for him.

Everyone who refers to Hunt as "c u n t" and thinks they're cool/edgy/hillarious/whatever needs to be shot. No that's not an over-reaction - it's these kind of idiots who are responisble for the one joke Focker movies.

It's you filling in the blanks, not me.

Seriously though the man has got no idea - he's basically merging the best example of local (S4C) where there is actually a need and purpose for it with the BBC as it's not commercially viable, yet wants to persist with plans like this.

There are much better ways to protect local TV in this country by stronger regulation of what we've got and working to support existing services rather than effectively close them by creating new services which clearly are not viable. Such a plan 15 years ago before the birth of digital TV may have been worthy of consideration, but now with the way TV has developed in that time it's just a non-starter now - especially at a time when there are much bigger issues to be concerned with.