Viable Local Television.. Myth or vision?

The Grauniad had in its article Sir Michael Lyons to step down as BBC Trust by James Robinson and Tara Conlan 14/09/10 :



The Tory Party manifesto certainly spoke about the creation of a network of commercially viable television stations, as did Hunt and others on the hustings.



I'm wondering how this could be done, in the sense of either how the Government would wish to see it done, or how in any wider sense any contributor thinks that it could be made viable?

My own personnel view is that the way of broadcast economics interfacing with new technology makes this, at the same time: (a) more economic, and (b) way too complicated. A contradiction, yes.

Relaxing the rules on cross media ownership would help, but what else is necessary to make some form of local TV viable in the UK? And, is it all way too late?

Would it? Given the current state of regional radio I'm unsure whether conglomerates are the right type of company to do this sort of this.

No, that's not it!
Perhaps

The only realistic option for these services would be to devise the sustaining service FIRST then roll it out with slots in the schedule for the local opts. Once established the slots should then be offered out. Trying to sell a local Channel would be difficult, but another network with regional opts would be much easier to do.

I'd imagine around 4hours daily M>F with an hour on Saturdays and Sundays. So 22 hours a week, which could be provided by local newspapers , at a pinch, with background from the established PSBs.

The sustaining service being probably being the 'new psb' that Ofcom were so keen on when they were set up to replace the ITC.

The major issue has to be transmission capacity, Say the system had 50 micro regions, loosely one region per old Analogue Main UHF Transmitter then providing 50 channels on Astra would be ridiculous, providing capacity on DTT would be reasonable using a channel in the proposed interpolated muxes. Cable should be reasonably easy to arrange carriage. However Canvas would seem to be the best way of distributing this service, which of course narrows its reach to new equipment purchasers.

Trying to establish such a service during the current downturn though seems to me to be impossible.

relaxing cross media ownership is more to do with local newspapers than radio stations

It's imposible anytime, Chris

What a ridiculous and totally unnecessary concept. I cannot think of one good reason why money should be spent setting up local television stations for cities.

If commercial bodies want to spend their money on setting up low budget, poor quality 'local' channels for cities then they can go ahead by all means, but if "channel M" is anything to go by, it's a pointless exercise.

Television, when done on the cheap, is extremely unappealing; yet there will never be enough money to make 'local television' look decent on a per-city basis - "channel M" is testament to that, it looks like student TV. There are also so many better places to find out local information than watching a linear television broadcast. If I need local news, I can go online or buy the local paper for 20p for in depth coverage; or if I need to know local events, I can pick up flyers, or call a club or check the website. Local traffic news; I'd stick the radio on when in the car.

ITV is trying to scrap as many of its regional stations as possible because they're unprofitable, even on a "regional" basis, let alone city-wide. Setting up a linear, local TV channel in this day and age... well they may as well set up a 'postal VHS distribution club' or something.

The only thing I think would have been remotely worth considering is giving the "regional news" slot on ITV1 to local consortiums. These consortiums would have to pay for the transmission infrastructure, I don't see why ITV should foot the bill, and they could then show their tedious 'local information' without setting up a totally **** channel in its own right.

But I can also see why ITV wouldn't want "Hemel Hempstead Tonight" anywhere in its schedules; nor do I think the people of Hemel Hempstead particularly want that on TV either.

Much as I like the idea of local TV services, I honestly don't think there's the public appetite for them. The handful of TV RSLs around the country such as Channel M, Solent TV and York TV have met with a distinct lack of success.

Well-established, national TV channels are struggling to turn a profit at the moment, so I really can't see how local services are going to be viable when proportionally the set-up and running costs are so much higher compared to the number of viewers.

This is what labour proposed before the election. they were looking into a few pilot schemes around the country when the election was announced, and the idea was put on hold.
Conservatives said they didn't like the idea, so it'll probably not happen now, and ITV regional news will probably bite the dust.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/showbiz/television-news/2010/06/08/government-ditches-plans-to-replace-stv-news-and-spends-money-on-high-speed-broadband-86908-22319351/

And why not. It's a half arsed effort anyway, because ITV can't afford to invest money into it when it attracts such paltry figures. We already pay for public service regional news from the BBC, and I'd rather the license fee was spent improving that coverage, then giving some of it to ITV to produce a lower budget, half arsed duplicate of the same tedious local content.

Of course ITV don't get anything out of their PSB commitments, such as guaranteed bandwidth, preferential treatment on EPGs and the like...

Need to go out for a while but will draw members attention to a rather large document issued by Ofcom today ...

Technical delivery options for local television services in the UK

here ….

STAKEHOLDERS.OFCOM.ORG.UK/BINARIES
21-09-2010 @ 13:0