I was a bit dismissive of Local TV services when I first heard the idea at the Royal Television Society Conference last year. It was difficult to see what the business model was, and there seems to be plenty of television for people to watch already (average viewing in the UK is at a record level for the first half of 2011 http://www.thinkbox.tv/server/show/nav.1263 )
However the Culture Secretary has persisted in his championing of local TV and more than 60 towns and cities throughout the UK are in the running to host the UK’s first service. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-14458007 http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/broadcasting/7235.aspx
In my blog last November and fresh from a panel chaired by Steve Hewlett to discuss the issue, I struggled to make sense of the analogy drawn by Jeremy Hunt between Birmingham UK and Birmingham USA. http://sueunerman.mediaweek.co.uk/?s=city+tv
Hunt’s claim that there is a “huge appetite for local news and information in communities the length and breadth of the country” seems at odds with the downturn in strength of existing local media. And whilst one can imagine interest in a local version perhaps of Britain’s Got Talent, how many people are going to tune in to watch their local mps and councillors electioneering.
However last week was a great reminder of the real meaning of community. As riots engulfed our cities we were glued to any kind of news and local media. We were reminded about how much we care about where we live, and indeed of the latent pride that many of us have in our local community.
There is a great opportunity for advertisers who want to promote their community values in Local TV too. Community often is expressed as an association with a community of interest like sport or film, but as my colleague Andy Walsh points out, it can also mean the few miles around where we live too.
I welcome local TV and look forward to its contribution to our media community.
Local TV will be another waste, the culture secretary sites the huge appetite that people have for quality local news however, this does not translate into a viable television station.
The latest riots are not enough of a platfor to think that we will want to watch local news all the time.
Birmingham Alambama and Birmingham Uk are vastly different places not to be compared
Let us not be misled by a we hope one off event to mean the government are not wasting millions of out pounds creating a market that will fail
TV is driven more than anything by content; content; content – if you build this they will come – they will not just come because it is local.
We want quality and accurate local news sometimes but creating more stations will not give us this.
We are more about communities of interest rather than localities and in this age of austerity locality is not going to increase especially if we start having to do a Tebbit’s Dad and get on our Bike.