Shut the stations, accept the commercial reality that local media of any sort will cease to be profitable in the very near future and give the BBC the funds it needs to ensure local areas are covered correctly - online, on radio and on TV.
It's time the Conservatives actually applied free market principles, accepted all attempts to prop up commercial operators are doomed and that this is exactly the sort of thing the Beeb is there for.
Shut the stations, accept the commercial reality that local media of any sort will cease to be profitable in the very near future and give the BBC the funds it needs to ensure local areas are covered correctly - online, on radio and on TV.
It's time the Conservatives actually applied free market principles, accepted all attempts to prop up commercial operators are doomed and that this is exactly the sort of thing the Beeb is there for.
There's a similar issue with the local press, where the BBC has started (after being put under political pressure to do it) funding the local news giants through the Local Democracy Reporter Scheme to employ reporters to cover council meetings - the sort of thing the local papers used to do before being heavily cut back by the same local news giants. It's effectively propping up greedy shareholders and failing business models.
When the stations first started they obviously had big ambitions - here's an old sample schedule for what Made in Leeds was supposed to be like. But now that the BBC funding is drying up, they're very clearly running on very short staff. Their schedule is essentially an hour of 'Yorkshire Live' looped throughout the day, composed of news packages with little relevance to the region along with a useless traffic report. For a few hours a day they show a simulcast of one of the CBS channels. The article confirmed my suspicions about the minimal staffing - there were quite a few interesting shows on at first but now it's just embarrassing.
So Jeremy Hunt achieving two things the Tories love with local TV - taking money from the BBC and keeping young working people in poverty.
Nobody is surprised by anything said here - only baffling thing is how they've got away with it for so long unchecked. The fact only 30 people watch many channels probably helps.
One would assume that once That's TV folds that's will be the end of local TV in that area. The bigger players clearly haven't shown an interest in it, though I'd be intrigued at what someone like ITN would do with it. A revival of the news channel in a prominent position (especially on Freeview) with short pre-recorded local (maybe slightly less local) bulletins inserted during primetime would in theory do a better job, though probably still not make any money. (Side note but ITV proposed regionalising their news channel back in 2002 when they bid to take over the DTT spectrum).
I saw a Twitter thread earlier on from someone who worked on one of those stations and, while he echoed all the problems everyone else had raised, it actually gave him a great opportunity to use it as a springboard. It's not a great reference for That's TV though, because he basically had free run to cover all the big stories in the area because there were absolutely no other staff there. Ultimately, the best anyone can say for it is it's a free showreel, and after today's publicity you'd question how much that's now worth.
I don't even know where to start with the ludicrous local democracy reporter idea. You've got a publicly funded news service already, give it the funds to do that work.
As it stands, local newspaper companies make vast amounts of money because they continue to cut, cut and cut. And that's fine, that's the market. But I don't see why I should be subsidising it.
When the stations first started they obviously had big ambitions - here's an old sample schedule for what Made in Leeds was supposed to be like. But now that the BBC funding is drying up, they're very clearly running on very short staff. Their schedule is essentially an hour of 'Yorkshire Live' looped throughout the day, composed of news packages with little relevance to the region along with a useless traffic report. For a few hours a day they show a simulcast of one of the CBS channels. The article confirmed my suspicions about the minimal staffing - there were quite a few interesting shows on at first but now it's just embarrassing.
Made's schedule wasn't actually a million miles away from that sample for the first couple of years. They were spending around £1000 per hour* on original programming and I truly believe they had the best intentions. They spent money on staff and content and the office in Cardiff was thriving when I used to go there. Even when they started cutting costs they tried to do it in a creative way. I would never ever bundle them in the same corner as That's TV.
* Still low by industry standards but far more than others
If that's true, throw the book at them! thegeek is right, if reporters are having to pay expenses such as fuel out of their wages, then they're on less than minimum wage, as I'm pretty sure they legally have to cover those expenses.
Notts TV are at least one of the ones that did a reasonable job and still don't fill their schedules with ancient films. Still seems little reason to watch it though.
Well well well, that confirms what we've all discussed for a good couple of years. That's TV management are money grabbing cowboys. No wonder the presentation and the quality of the stations are so bad - literally exploiting newbies to the industry under false promises for little or no pay - and stretched resources.
An interesting - if a little far-fetched - motion was raised at the SNP conference yesterday. A fringe debate on the future of Scottish broadcasting took place and it was suggested that party members and the wider public could crowdfund to buy out the former STV2 licenses from That's TV and essentially soft-launch an SBC (The PSB suggested for an independent Scotland). Some Ministers have given it a pretty warm response, including the Scottish Culture Secretary. There's definitely money behind the scenes to get their hands on the licenses. It doesn't sound like it would take much for That's TV to sell it on. The biggest issue, though, as we all know, is that the ongoing funding of a genuinely high quality TV station with a realistic audience size would be a nightmare.